23 minutes ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

Yes, you are correct.  Interestingly, Lemay was very good at writing plots he said he didn't enjoy writing. He was also very good at writing for characters he didn't particularly enjoy.  For example, he said he didn't enjoy writing for Jacquie Courtney's Alice, but he wrote amazing stuff for Alice -- Emmy worthy material, actually.  Also Lemay implied in his book that he didn't know how to write for middle-class characters, but he wrote great material for nearly every member of the extended Matthews family, while they were on the show.  

That's one of the reasons I believe Lemay should have been forced, coerced, or strongly encouraged by Paul Rauch to keep Virginia Dwyer, Jacquie Courtney, Ariana Muenker,  Michael Ryan, and George Reinholt on the canvas.  

To some degree, Lemay was not a good estimator of his own talent.

I don't believe it was Pete who caused George R to be fired; it was Paul. Jacquie, of course, is completely on his head. He, and he alone questioned her acting ability. My solution would have been to pair her with a good acting coach & find a way for her to deliver the style he was looking for! I was never satisfied with any other Alice. Virginia Dwyer also but I found his reasons to be compelling in her case. 

Edited November 19, 20232 yr by Donna L. Bridges

I don't know if any of you know Kim Wells who is not here & is on Facebook. She had a large AW group, around 2500 people & AW was her first love. But, she also had other soap groups. Well, something happened, I don't know what & she lost her FB acct. She was the only Admin of all of her groups. Of course she created a new FB acct but she couldn't take control of her groups. So, today she is creating new groups & reporting the old groups to hope to get them shut down. Somehow, unknown persons have taken over her groups, so she thinks it was a well-planned hacker attack. She has many episodes that are not up anywhere, only now strangers have them. 

1 hour ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

I don't believe it was Pete who caused George R to be fired; it was Paul. Jacquie, of course, is completely on his head. He, and he alone questioned her acting ability. My solution would have been to pair her with a good acting coach & find a way for her to deliver the style he was looking for! I was never satisfied with any other Alice. Virginia Dwyer also but I found his reasons to be compelling in her case. 

You are right about that, Donna.  Rauch was the person who cut George loose.  But my point is that Lemay was writing great stuff for many of the actors and characters he disliked (or found boring).  Lemay was given too much power over hiring and firing.  He was the head-writer, not the executive producer. 

Courtney didn't need an acting coach.  The audience loved her.  She was voted most popular female soap opera actress two years in a row -- including the year she was fired.  Virginia Dwyer was the matriarch of the entire show, and she was also beloved by the audience.  Mary Matthews was the Nancy Hughes of NBC.  Dwyer's acting was fine.  Again, the head-writer should not be in control of judging the acting ability of the cast.  As always -- my opinions only. 

17 minutes ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

You are right about that, Donna.  Rauch was the person who cut George loose.  But my point is that Lemay was writing great stuff for many of the actors and characters he disliked (or found boring).  Lemay was given too much power over hiring and firing.  He was the head-writer, not the executive producer. 

Courtney didn't need an acting coach.  The audience loved her.  She was voted most popular female soap opera actress two years in a row -- including the year she was fired.  Virginia Dwyer was the matriarch of the entire show, and she was also beloved by the audience.  Mary Matthews was the Nancy Hughes of NBC.  Dwyer's acting was fine.  Again, the head-writer should not be in control of judging the acting ability of the cast.  As always -- my opinions only. 

I know all about Jacquie's popularity. And, as I said, personally, I was never satisfied with any other Alice. Obviously, she was acting. She was hitting her marks, saying her lines, emoting, practicing her tradecraft, but there was something about her that he did not like. I choose to call it an issue of style of acting. My idea about the acting coach is simply a pragmatic idea to reach a kind of compromise. But, he was entitled to an opinion. HWs can be involved in casting. And, make no mistake, if Paul had said they weren't going to fire her, it wouldn't have happened. If the writer is that unsatisfied with the person delivering the lines he wrote there's a problem. I just wish they'd reached a less severe solution. No one but me likes the acting coach idea & I am content to have it as a Minority Rapport. 

I understand Mary Matthews role in the scheme of things. I don't believe anyone said Dwyer couldn't act. My understanding of it was that she refused to learn her lines, preferring to ad lib. If that was true, it was a valid reason. As an aside I love the anecdote where supposedly Dwyer decided everything in her closet was Mary's not hers & she threw it all out & went shopping the next day. 

And, of course, I also am just stating opinions. And, I agree with you that Pete was good at writing so many things including things he said he didn't care for & in the case of JC as Alice, for someone he saw as lacking. There was certainly nothing said by me to dispute those facts at all. Some writers can't write good stuff for someone they doubt.

I found a neat picture of George yesterday. 

Revisiting the Iris/Mac/Sylvie backstory, I am reminded of a couple of plots from B&B. Li and Jack raised their adopted son, Finn, who unbeknownst to Li was Jack's biological son all along. Even more disturbing, Ridge had a romantic dalliance with Bridget, who he raised as a daughter and later accepted as a sister. Let us thank Kay Chancellor's dear God in heaven that Lemay never took Iris' Electra complex to the forbidden once it was revealed that MacDaddy was not biologically related.

This video has been sitting in my Watch Later folder for months, forgive me if it has already been shared:

 

Somerset was before my time. There was a poster here or on WoST who had the opportunity to read its bible. He said that Pammy was explicitly written to be a Rachel clone, presumably, to capitalize on Rachel's popularity. I do not know to what extent that came to be.

I found what Robin Strasser said about the arrival of Gerald Davis to be interesting. She favored the actor more than she did Constance Ford, and she thought it was kind of compelling for the audience to finally see this man who gave Rachel her darker physical features and penchant for unscrupulous behavior.

While I did not see any of Gerald Davis, I did see some of Eric Kane as a child (and more recently on YouTube). I feel like there were significant missed opportunities with these father/daughter relationships on each show in their later years. I did not care for AMC killing Eric offscreen and the revelations thereafter.

4 minutes ago, SFK said:

I did not care for AMC killing Eric offscreen and the revelations thereafter.

What HW did that? 

1 minute ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

What HW did that? 

I don't recall, somebody help me here?

34 minutes ago, SFK said:

Revisiting the Iris/Mac/Sylvie backstory, I am reminded of a couple of plots from B&B. Li and Jack raised their adopted son, Finn, who unbeknownst to Li was Jack's biological son all along. Even more disturbing, Ridge had a romantic dalliance with Bridget, who he raised as a daughter and later accepted as a sister. Let us thank Kay Chancellor's dear God in heaven that Lemay never took Iris' Electra complex to the forbidden once it was revealed that MacDaddy was not biologically related.

Actually, I personally believe there is on screen evidence that Lemay was likely toying with the idea of Iris and Mac "consummating" their strangely inappropriate relationship. Not that it would have ever been an ongoing thing -- but I believe one night of (later regretted) passion was possibly on the horizon.  Of course, P&G would never have allowed that to happen, but there were scenes between the two that are uncomfortable to watch (to put it lightly) both before and after the adoption revelation.  I believe Lemay was testing the waters to see if it would fly.  It's unlikely he informed anyone at NBC or P&G that he was doing this. Frankly, he probably didn't even tell Paul Rauch.  It is my opinion that Lemay rather wanted to go there.     

23 minutes ago, SFK said:

While I did not see any of Gerald Davis, I did see some of Eric Kane as a child (and more recently on YouTube). I feel like there were significant missed opportunities with these father/daughter relationships on each show in their later years. I did not care for AMC killing Eric offscreen and the revelations thereafter.

You probably know this but, although Rachel and Erica were very similar characters -- especially in the early years of both; and Ada and Mona did have a few similarities, Gerald Davis and Eric Kane were really not similar in any way, other than the fact they had both abandoned their daughters when they were young children.  Otherwise, Gerald and Eric really had nothing in common.  I do understand, however, why people might try to compare them or even assume they may have been similar to one another. I believe of the six characters mentioned in this post, the only one NOT created by Agnes Nixon was Gerald Davis, who I believe was created by Robert Cenedela.    

10 minutes ago, SFK said:

I don't recall, somebody help me here?

Okay, then, when was it? Or, what else happened near that time? I'm just curious if it was McTavish. I mean, frankly, it sounds like her. Never mind. I'll just go look up when the actor stopped playing Eric. You're off the hook!

Because of the Beverlee petition I am regularly involved in gobs of discussion & commentary about both Iris & Alexandra, but more about Iris. Anyway, this one guy says he remembers Iris being on her hands & knees, begging Mac & he can't find it to re-watch it. Do any of you recall a scene like that? I admit I do not. (That's why I haven't really been talking about Iris here because I'm kind of up to my eyeballs. And, I'm too busy & I'm on auto-pilot all the time & I really hate that.) 

One of the dumbest things execs did was not capitalize on Carmen Duncan's talent. She was emmy worthy with the chief takeover/Mac's death. They let the character and character languish and then wrote her off in such an idiotic way. They would do the same thing to Anna Holbrook a few years later. Holbrook won the Emmy and still didn't matter. 

Thank you @Mona Kane Croft I don't know much of anything about Gerald really. I am merely drawing on the connection that Gerald and Eric were the absent fathers of their respective shows' star characters.

10 minutes ago, chrisml said:

One of the dumbest things execs did was not capitalize on Carmen Duncan's talent. She was emmy worthy with the chief takeover/Mac's death. They let the character and character languish and then wrote her off in such an idiotic way. They would do the same thing to Anna Holbrook a few years later. Holbrook won the Emmy and still didn't matter. 

I would really like to see more of her run. Had it not been for SoapNet, she would have remained a mystery to me save for YouTube uploads of the original broadcast. Thanks to Eddie D.'s thorough records, I was able to have the VCR ready for her return:

 

 

15 minutes ago, chrisml said:

One of the dumbest things execs did was not capitalize on Carmen Duncan's talent. She was emmy worthy with the chief takeover/Mac's death. They let the character and character languish and then wrote her off in such an idiotic way. They would do the same thing to Anna Holbrook a few years later. Holbrook won the Emmy and still didn't matter. 

Wasn't she great when it came out that she was the Chief?!!! And, yes, Carmen, Victoria, Matt, so good with Mac's death. 

Yes, Anna & Charles Keating - each won an Emmy & then was let go. WHAT?!!!

Did Gerald and Steve both go to jail for perjury, but only Steve got out?  That seems unfair.

 @chrisml ITA on the criminal unappreciation for Carmen Duncan and Anna Holbrook. 

I was just watching a short scene at the anniversary of Iris and Robert and I lamented what could have been with the character.  I wonder if the 1990s ethos toward less glitz, and fewer class based stories really limited Iris's potential during that period?  I mean, we see Felicia Gallant go from beaded dresses and boas to multiple layers of Armani gray frocks.  When I think of Iris in that pink confection she wore to the anniversary party, it seems like a huge task to ground Iris, and pairing her with a working class boyfriend was certainly not the answer. 

As for @Mona Kane Croft's suggestion about a taboo moment between Iris and Mac, my pearls are metaphorically clasped in horror at the very thought... (but she did often mention that Mac was a handsome man)

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by j swift

@Donna L. Bridges Eric Kane died offscreen several years after Albert Stratton last played him in 1990 or so.

I think the Iris scene you describe is one that @Mona Kane Croft may be referring to. I cannot remember if I actually saw an old recording or just read about it but Mac pleads with Iris to pull herself together and says something about her being barely clothed.

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by SFK