45 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

My goodness, I certainly do not agree with your take on this but I wonder if you are aware of all that was written, said, documented, etc. about Reinholt's behavior that pushed Rauch to the point of having to take action when Reinholt would not take anyone's direction about his being disruptive to cast & crew alike. Believe me, I am not at all accustomed to being a defender of Paul Rauch but he did do some things right. To name a few, firing Reinholt, this example of a special Steve/Alice episode, trying to keep CBS from making GL do the clone storyline & fighting tooth & nail for his shows. When he died, even though he was retired he was putting parties together to try to find a new venue for GL. 

Rauch was probably one of the most successful and effective executive producers in the history of daytime.  But that does not diminish his mistakes.  He was great at production values, stretching the budget, attracting and hiring talented actors, efforts to get what writers wanted in terms of sets, permissions, etc.  But he made huge mistakes at every show that hired him, including leaving AW with no structure, and by the time he left -- about half the cast was made-up of characters nobody cared about.     

1 hour ago, Neil Johnson said:

Rauch was probably one of the most successful and effective executive producers in the history of daytime.  But that does not diminish his mistakes.  He was great at production values, stretching the budget, attracting and hiring talented actors, efforts to get what writers wanted in terms of sets, permissions, etc.  But he made huge mistakes at every show that hired him, including leaving AW with no structure, and by the time he left -- about half the cast was made-up of characters nobody cared about.     

I have nothing to say to this because I am a critic of Rauch & previously named a handful of good things about him. Simply have no more. If I think, and I do, that he was right to fire George Reinholt, and others think he was wrong to, that is simply people in good faith disagreeing, which is right & natural. 

Well said @Neil Johnson .

As @vetsoapfan has said before, I think it's obvious when watching old clips that Courtney is perfectly strong as Alice. We even have clips of the breakdown story which Lemay ended early because he felt she wasn't a good enough actress. And we have similar clips of Susan Harney breaking down after John's death. Harney who was, per Lemay, a better actress, just not possessing star power. To me, Courtney is just as good as Harney, or better, at the dramatic work.

I think there was resentment of people who didn't want to be in Lemay's inner circle (the way some like Constance Ford, Susan Sullivan were), and when you add in Lemay and Rauch's anger toward George Reinholt, Courtney had so much stacked against her in surviving that regime. 

The irony of Lemay's disdain for soap melodrama is so much of his run was full of melodrama. You need grounded actors to make melodrama work and make viewers care. That was Jacqueline Courtney. 

And of course as years passed, Vicky Wyndham faced the same alleged sabotage and efforts to make her quit, but she was in a very different position than Courtney and chose to stay. (if the show had run a few more years I do wonder if she would have).

Edited September 15, 20232 yr by DRW50

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

And of course as years passed, Vicky Wyndham faced the same alleged sabotage and efforts to make her quit, but she was in a very different position than Courtney and chose to stay. (if the show had run a few more years I do wonder if she would have).

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. I revere Pete & count him among my favorite writers. However, I completely disagree with his firing of JC & that is because she was acting. Everyone else could see that she was acting, practicing her craft. To me that says that the style of acting she was doing was not what he wanted. And, that matters. It does pertain. That is why my suggestion would have been an acting coach. 

As far as Victoria leaving, she tried to when they fired Charles. But, no, I don't think anything else would have sent her out the door. She had too much invested in the show. 

8 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

The more I read that book, the more I think that there may have been some actual scheming on Lemay’s part in order to get Jacqui Courtney and George Reinholt to leave the show. 

When Lemay began at AW in 1971, he focused on the show's core, legacy characters and everything in Bay City flourished. The material he gave Courtney and Reinholt was wonderful for the first three years. I wonder if he eventually became emboldened by his own success, and wanted to flex his muscles and revise the show into something more to his liking. It eventually crippled the show, like Pam Long's and Gail Kobe's inexplicable gutting of The Guiding Light destroyed that series.

 

17 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

As @vetsoapfan has said before, I think it's obvious when watching old clips that Courtney is perfectly strong as Alice. We even have clips of the breakdown story which Lemay ended early because he felt she wasn't a good enough actress. And we have similar clips of Susan Harney breaking down after John's death. Harney who was, per Lemay, a better actress, just not possessing star power. To me, Courtney is just as good as Harney, or better, at the dramatic work.

I'd suggest Courtney was a far superior actress to Harney.  Harney was okay with what Lemay wrote for her on a day to day basis.  But she was incapable of playing the emotional stuff in a believable way.  Her artificial wailing and sobbing after John Randolph's death is embarrassingly bad, in my opinion.  Having said that, I did generally like Harney in the role and I completely accepted her as Alice -- again, on a day to day basis.  But the woman simply could not play strong emotion, and that had been Courtney's strongest skill.    I would have preferred an actress like Jada Rowland or Denise Alexander as a replacement for Courtney.  Even if they weren't blonde.  

1 hour ago, Neil Johnson said:

I'd suggest Courtney was a far superior actress to Harney.  

I completely agree. 

1 hour ago, Neil Johnson said:

Harney was okay with what Lemay wrote for her on a day to day basis.  But she was incapable of playing the emotional stuff in a believable way.  Her artificial wailing and sobbing after John Randolph's death is embarrassingly bad, in my opinion.  Having said that, I did generally like Harney in the role and I completely accepted her as Alice -- again, on a day to day basis.  But the woman simply could not play strong emotion, and that had been Courtney's strongest skill.    I would have preferred an actress like Jada Rowland or Denise Alexander as a replacement for Courtney.  Even if they weren't blonde.  

As far as I go, Jacqueline Courtney was Alice & no one else ever measured up. I'm not saying that there wasn't a theoretical other person who could have played her. I just don't think they found that person. 

As a general rule I believe that any part can be recast, but not all parts should be. 

 

10 hours ago, Sapounopera said:

What I understand from all this is that Rauch and Lemay sabotaged their own show by overestimating Wyndham's (or Mac and Rachel's?) star power and getting rid of major parts of AW's fabric. I can't know why they did this, but they messed things up. 

Reinventing the (very successful) wheel generally does not work with soaps. Bill Bell was able to do it with Y&R in 1984, but most writers and producers who toss out everything that had been there before they arrive end up crippling the show. 

 

9 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

I'm sure Jacquie would have been thrilled to have an acting coach suggested for her.

Lemay from a theater background, preferred stage actors overall. His first encounter on the set with Jacquie was her referring to her lines hidden all over the set. That first impression stayed with him.

When he arrived Paul Rauch was already planning to drop Margie Impert as Rachel. She had been a Lyle Hill hire and he was not impressed. 

I believe it was Virginia Dwyer who vexed Lemay by leaving script pages around the set. He said Courtney annoyed him  by reading her lines off the cuffs of her nurse's uniform. Neither of these supposed "crimes" were ever noticeable on-screen.

To be fair, Margie Impert was woefully miscast and a pretty weak Rachel. Her being replaced was for the best, IMHO.

8 hours ago, Xanthe said:

I would say rather they underestimated Jacqueline Courtney's star power. They did keep Alice on the canvas with recasts and it was later regimes in the 1980s that dispensed with the character and started killing off the younger Matthewses (Sally and Julia).

Likewise, Mac and Rachel and Iris (don't forget about Beverlee McKinsey's star power!) do seem to have been effective in their heyday and it was the Texas spinoff that diluted AW. 

 

They really did underestimate her drawing power. Jacquie was a huge star; extremely popular with the audience. None of the actresses chosen to replace her (admittedly, some were better--or "less bad"--than others) had the star appeal she exuded as Alice. Lemay even admitted that JC's presence might very well have contributed to OLTL's steady rise in the ratings once she began appearing on it.

7 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

Lemay was a wonderful writer, but he often allowed his ego to get in his way.  He did not like actors who were known as soap opera stars (Dwyer and Courtney, for example), regardless of their acting talent, popularity, or status on the show.  He claimed to have populated Another World with actors he "grabbed" from the theater, but actually nearly every major role cast during Lemay's tenure was cast with a former soap actor who also had theater experience (which was typical for all New York soaps).  He did grab a few theater actors directly off the stage, but nearly all of those had minor and temporary roles on AW.

Lemay also did not understand the purpose or importance of the traditional soap opera matriarch (Nancy Hughes, Mary Matthews, Alice Horton, for example).  Plus he did not like writing for happy characters who had little conflict. (If you notice, nearly all important characters on AW during Lemay's run were fundamentally unhappy people.)  So he set about to turn Mary Matthews into an unlikeable meddling shrew, who would stir up trouble for her adult children.  That is more the Phoebe Tyler, Liz Matthews, Mona Croft type of character.  Virginia Dwyer knew that this would not work for Mary, so she worked to minimize his efforts.  She did play some of it however -- specifically when Mary turned against Steve and actively discouraged Alice from returning to him. In reality, Lemay wanted Mary to behave like Liz Matthews. He clearly explains this in his book.  When Dwyer didn't play it his way, Lemay hired Irene Daily to return as Liz and minimized Mary's presence on the show by having Mary often out of town, or by simply not writing for her much at all.   He also more and more gave Mary's lines to other characters -- specifically Liz and Ada during important scenes.  Lemay's ego and his growing hatred for Dwyer (and Courtney) should have been controlled by someone in management -- either Paul Rauch, or higher-ups at P&G.  Lemay could have written everything he wanted to write, without dismantling the structure of the show.  But again -- ego.

So within a four-year period, Another World lost five leading actors (four were fired, and one left for Hollywood).  Those five are Virginia Dwyer, Susan Sullivan, Jacquie Courtney, George Reinholt (all in 1975), and Michael Ryan (in 1979). Four of the five were important members of the Matthews family.   

Bravo, @Neil Johnson! You put that perfectly. Lemay's petulance and ego got in the way of his talent and what was important for the show, and AW sank because it it.

5 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Well said @Neil Johnson .

As @vetsoapfan has said before, I think it's obvious when watching old clips that Courtney is perfectly strong as Alice. We even have clips of the breakdown story which Lemay ended early because he felt she wasn't a good enough actress. And we have similar clips of Susan Harney breaking down after John's death. Harney who was, per Lemay, a better actress, just not possessing star power. To me, Courtney is just as good as Harney, or better, at the dramatic work.

I think there was resentment of people who didn't want to be in Lemay's inner circle (the way some like Constance Ford, Susan Sullivan were), and when you add in Lemay and Rauch's anger toward George Reinholt, Courtney had so much stacked against her in surviving that regime. 

The irony of Lemay's disdain for soap melodrama is so much of his run was full of melodrama. You need grounded actors to make melodrama work and make viewers care. That was Jacqueline Courtney. 

And of course as years passed, Vicky Wyndham faced the same alleged sabotage and efforts to make her quit, but she was in a very different position than Courtney and chose to stay. (if the show had run a few more years I do wonder if she would have).

Bravo to you too, @DRW50! The contention that Harney was a "much better actress" than Courtney is absurd. SH's scenes after John Randolph died were just embarrassing.

Edited September 15, 20232 yr by vetsoapfan

1 hour ago, vetsoapfan said:

Reinventing the (very successful) wheel generally does not work with soaps. Bill Bell was able to do it with Y&R in 1984, but most writers and producers who toss 0ut everything that had been there before they arrive end up crippling the show. 

I believe revamping Y&R was only successful because Bill Bell was still in charge, and he had been the creator of the show.  He knew his audience, he knew his show, and of course he was a brilliant writer.  

I can't think of another soap opera that was reinvented successfully.  Soap opera fans generally tune-in for the characters they know and love.  The audience will tolerate a good deal of bad writing without abandoning the show.  But if their beloved characters disappear, the audience loyalty typically disappears also.  

I was being sarcastic when I suggested that Jacquie Courtney would be happy about having an acting coach. Having created a popular and successful character for several years she would probably be insulted to have the idea of a coach presented to her.

There are some performers who just embody their characters regardless of what the perception of their acting ability may or may not be and Jacquie Courtney was one of them. She should never have been dropped.

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

I was being sarcastic when I suggested that Jacquie Courtney would be happy about having an acting coach. Having created a popular and successful character for several years she would probably be insulted to have the idea of a coach presented to her.

There are some performers who just embody their characters regardless of what the perception of their acting ability may or may not be and Jacquie Courtney was one of them. She should never have been dropped.

Sarcasm is one of the hardest things to detect in text only. Some suggest using "/s" at the end of a post to denote sarcasm. I have graphic images I use. 

I know that both Larkin Molloy and Lisa Brown were employed by soaps as acting coaches. I'm not aware of actors being resentful of working with acting coaches. If they are, they shouldn't be. 

I am not being sarcastic. 

 

1 hour ago, Neil Johnson said:

I believe revamping Y&R was only successful because Bill Bell was still in charge, and he had been the creator of the show.  He knew his audience, he knew his show, and of course he was a brilliant writer.  

I can't think of another soap opera that was reinvented successfully.  Soap opera fans generally tune-in for the characters they know and love.  The audience will tolerate a good deal of bad writing without abandoning the show.  But if their beloved characters disappear, the audience loyalty typically disappears also.  

Guiding Light is the only one I can think of, shifting focus to the Bauers in the late '40s. 

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

Guiding Light is the only one I can think of, shifting focus to the Bauers in the late '40s. 

Well, people speak of soaps reinventing themselves all the time as one factor in their long history, as a part of their resilience. But that doesn't mean they're talking about changing the roster of characters necessarily. 

Although I would suggest that is what Agnes Nixon did at AW. 

11 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Well, people speak of soaps reinventing themselves all the time as one factor in their long history, as a part of their resilience. But that doesn't mean they're talking about changing the roster of characters necessarily. 

Although I would suggest that is what Agnes Nixon did at AW. 

Agnes still focused on a lot of the same characters. GL also changed setting several times.

Reinventing can mean anything to anyone, of course, so that was just my suggestion.

20 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Guiding Light is the only one I can think of, shifting focus to the Bauers in the late '40s. 

Yes. I wonder if Irna Phillips was writing GL during the make-over?  If so, that would be another case of the creator making the changes.   

13 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Although I would suggest that is what Agnes Nixon did at AW. 

Nixon didn't really change the cast of characters drastically. But she certainly improved the writing.  In terms of cast, she really just got rid of 3 or 4 members of the Gregory family, and introduced Ada, Sam, Rachel, and Steve.  Nixon made AW perhaps the best soap on TV while she was there.