Another World

[Mona Kane Croft]

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.     

[Contessa Donatella]

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. 

[DRW50]

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, 2023 by DRW50

[Contessa Donatella]

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. 

[vetsoapfan]

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.

 

[Mona Kane Croft]

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.  

[Contessa Donatella]

I completely agree. 

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. 

 

[vetsoapfan]

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. 

 

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.

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.

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.

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, 2023 by vetsoapfan

[Mona Kane Croft]

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.  

[Paul Raven]

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.

[Contessa Donatella]

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. 

 

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[DRW50]

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

[Contessa Donatella]

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. 

[DRW50]

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.

[Mona Kane Croft]

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.   

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.