Thinking back to liking/or not Swajeski, and earlier, Pete Lemay, I thought it might be interesting to list our favorite writers. Me, I like writers, so my list is one of 15 names! 

Lemay, Labine, Curlee, Swajeski, Hurst, Mulcahey, the Dobsons, Marland, Val Jean, CCulliton, Falken Smith, Bell, Nixon & Phillips

Half have died; half are living. One is retired. Curlee, Swajeski, Hurst & Jerome Dobson are not writing in soaps. 

12 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Thinking back to liking/or not Swajeski, and earlier, Pete Lemay, I thought it might be interesting to list our favorite writers. Me, I like writers, so my list is one of 15 names! 

Lemay, Labine, Curlee, Swajeski, Hurst, Mulcahey, the Dobsons, Marland, Val Jean, CCulliton, Falken Smith, Bell, Nixon & Phillips

Half have died; half are living. One is retired. Curlee, Swajeski, Hurst & Jerome Dobson are not writing in soaps. 

Are you listing only head-writers at Another World?  Or your favorite soap-opera head-writers in general?    

7 minutes ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

Are you listing only head-writers at Another World?  Or your favorite soap-opera head-writers in general?    

In general. At AW I also liked Virginia L. Brown (Can't recall if she has an e on the end.) & Cendello Or is that an a on the end? And also Tom King & I know most people do not seem to care for him & that's okay. Spelling is after me tonight! 

Just watched the RH finale. Looks pretty perfect to me. 

 

Edited April 1, 20241 yr by Contessa Donatella
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On 3/29/2024 at 4:17 PM, Xanthe said:

It sounds splendid but it does make me wonder what percentage of scenes would be set at John and Olive's to make all of that worthwhile. 

It’s where Olive and Evan would plot to kill John - it was a magnificent set - wish there were images

20 minutes ago, Olive Randolph said:

It’s where Olive and Evan would plot to kill John - it was a magnificent set - wish there were images

Also, after Even was killed and Olive and John spit-up, Olive had short romances with Brian Bancroft and Dan Shearer. So those two were romancing Olive in that house.  

This is an odd little quote that intrigued me. 

The tortured hero, the scheming villainess, etc. One of the biggest changes in soaps was to the view of what is feminine & what the average woman does & is like. More women with jobs, or even careers (HER STORIES 128-129). Specifically in the '60s & mid-60s Bell & Irna considered attitudes toward working women. They imagined Mary Matthews reading THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE, etc.

13 hours ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

Also, after Even was killed and Olive and John spit-up, Olive had short romances with Brian Bancroft and Dan Shearer. So those two were romancing Olive in that house.  

Did Brian have a home set after he split from Iris? I feel like I chiefly remember him at his office when he wasn't visiting other homes or squiring ladies to public events.

13 hours ago, Olive Randolph said:

It’s where Olive and Evan would plot to kill John

Did Olive have real feelings for Evan or was she just using him and vice versa?

2 hours ago, Xanthe said:

Did Brian have a home set after he split from Iris? I feel like I chiefly remember him at his office when he wasn't visiting other homes or squiring ladies to public events.

I'm not sure Brian was completely split-up with Iris when he was seeing Olive, because Iris was still in town. Olive was written off around April 1979, and Iris didn't go to Texas until around June 1980. I don't remember Brian having an on-screen home, other than the penthouse he shared with Iris.   And after Iris went to Texas, I don't believe the audience ever really saw Brian's home.      

2 hours ago, Xanthe said:

Did Olive have real feelings for Evan or was she just using him and vice versa?

Who knows, really??  Since Olive married John Randolph for social status, it seemed she and Evan had more of a passionate connection. So she probably did have feelings for him.  To me, Olive seemed like a more grown-up version of early Rachel -- social climbing, manipulative, and overtly sexual. Olive is who Rachel might have become, if she had not met Mac.   Olive was one of Lemay's best additions to AW, in my opinion.  

10 hours ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

To me, Olive seemed like a more grown-up version of early Rachel -- social climbing, manipulative, and overtly sexual. Olive is who Rachel might have become, if she had not met Mac.

Except, I think Rachel was more vulnerable, because her father had abandoned her and Ada.  She did some terrible things when she was young, but you understood that she did them because, to her, achieving social status gave her the kind of security she had lacked while growing up.

2 hours ago, Khan said:

Except, I think Rachel was more vulnerable, because her father had abandoned her and Ada.  She did some terrible things when she was young, but you understood that she did them because, to her, achieving social status gave her the kind of security she had lacked while growing up.

 

According to Harding Lemay in his book Eight Years in Another World (take with as many grains of salt as necessary), Olive was brought to town in order to delay Alice and Ray's marriage because of the timing of the recast from Ted Shackelford to Gary Carpenter.

An obstacle had to be devised to keep them from the altar. That obstacle materialized in Olive Gordon, Ray’s estranged wife, who appeared unexpectedly to demand a large settlement before she would free him. Thwarted in that, she quickly moved into an alliance with Willis to prevent Ray from marrying the woman Willis wanted for himself. In Olive, the fans once again had a focus for undiluted hatred. No actress on the show had received such condemnatory mail since Robin Strasser’s days as Rachel, and Olive Gordon was developed as the instrument through which John Randolph was destroyed.

The more I read the more it feels like Olive was treated as a plot device rather than a fully-realized character. Maybe Jennifer Leak's performance added nuance that I am not grasping.

I was interested to note since we had discussed Liz' disappoinments in love that apparently she lost Charley to Ada. I have a hard time imagining Ada troubling herself to take an active part in a love triangle. 

There were lighter moments, more to my liking, as brash Burt courted vacillating Clarice, whose father Charley had moved in with her and her young son and soon the object of competition between Ada and Liz.

17 hours ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

I'm not sure Brian was completely split-up with Iris when he was seeing Olive, because Iris was still in town. Olive was written off around April 1979, and Iris didn't go to Texas until around June 1980. I don't remember Brian having an on-screen home, other than the penthouse he shared with Iris.   And after Iris went to Texas, I don't believe the audience ever really saw Brian's home.      

Who knows, really??  Since Olive married John Randolph for social status, it seemed she and Evan had more of a passionate connection. So she probably did have feelings for him.  To me, Olive seemed like a more grown-up version of early Rachel -- social climbing, manipulative, and overtly sexual. Olive is who Rachel might have become, if she had not met Mac.   Olive was one of Lemay's best additions to AW, in my opinion.  

Speaking of characters like Rachel & Olive, I wonder how much on screen interaction there was between the two characters? I seem to remember at this time, that many characters never interacted with each other from another storyline.  I don't remember interaction with Olive & Iris even.  There must have been paths that were crossed but its not like how soaps became in the later years with the whole cast almost mingling. 

22 minutes ago, denzo30 said:

Speaking of characters like Rachel & Olive, I wonder how much on screen interaction there was between the two characters? I seem to remember at this time, that many characters never interacted with each other from another storyline.  I don't remember interaction with Olive & Iris even.  There must have been paths that were crossed but its not like how soaps became in the later years with the whole cast almost mingling. 

I believe it was traditional on many P&G soaps to use the tapestry narrative. Different characters in different stories contribute threads. Up close it's not possible to see a pattern. But, at some point someone did an umbrella storyline. I wonder when that began. 

47 minutes ago, denzo30 said:

Speaking of characters like Rachel & Olive, I wonder how much on screen interaction there was between the two characters? I seem to remember at this time, that many characters never interacted with each other from another storyline.  I don't remember interaction with Olive & Iris even.  There must have been paths that were crossed but its not like how soaps became in the later years with the whole cast almost mingling. 

I don't remember Olive having much interaction with Rachel. Olive was more focused on causing trouble for the Matthews clan -- especially Alice, John, Michael and Marianne, etc.  Olive did have some interaction with Iris, because John was Iris's attorney.  Several times when John visited Iris at her house (before Iris moved to the penthouse), Olive insisted on going along.  She wanted to "get in good" with Iris, but Iris wasn't having it.  LOL.   

Just saw this today. Matthew is still organizing AW videos on YT. 

 

His YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/@xxxpartydog/playlists 

 

Edited April 3, 20241 yr by Contessa Donatella
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