Another World

[Contessa Donatella]

Absolutely. Rauch & Lemay had a marked affinity for actors from the theatre. Lemay's issue with JC was clearly her style of acting. He said she couldn't act. But, obviously she was hitting her marks, saying her lines & expressing emotion in a dramatic way. By any objective standard that is acting. But, I believe he didn't like "mannered" acting as a style. I never heard or read any complaint about lines or cues. Not with JC.

Totally dreamy idea!! 

[BetterForgotten]

I read somewhere that MADD had actually wanted to bring Rauch back to AW in 1996 and was trying to get Lamay to re-join him, but ultimately decided Rauch would go to GL instead (which itself was almost on the brink of cancellation during this time as well). 

Instead, AW was left to struggle with JFP-lite (as I called her then), Charlotte Savitz, and a continuous stream of HW’s until Chris Goutman and Leah Laiman when it ended. 

Returns never really work in most cases, but I do wonder what could have happened if Rauch and Lemay came back and oversaw some of those final years. 

Edited February 29 by BetterForgotten

[j swift]

I agree, but I don't think that is a bad thing.  We have to consider the context.  The book is a memoir, not an attempt to write the history of the show.  The humor is derived from his frustrations working for the first time within the daytime genre.  And there is no way of knowing if he maintained these opinions years later. 

Edited February 29 by j swift

[Xanthe]

I recently started worrying about not having access to the VHS format so I have been making an effort to transfer VHS to DVD since that was the easiest first step for me. Most of my tapes were in good condition although there was the occasional failure.

I don't have anything before probably 1987. I know youtube has a lot of 1980 but there isn't much of 1982 to at least 1984 as far as I can see and there is a lot of 1983 that I keep hoping will show up.

[Sapounopera]

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Edited February 29 by Sapounopera

[Contessa Donatella]

I have an online friend who met Pete late in his life. He spent the better part of an afternoon & evening with him, just talking, the two of them, largely of course, about the show. He said he remained bitter about only one thing. We should all be able to guess what. The gay storyline that P&G cheated him out of. 

 

Recently in my forum a Canadian poster waxed very terribly euphoric about Beverlee McKinsey & about her City Lights interview & went on quite a bit about how adored she & AW & TEXAS were in Canada, as if it's something we didn't know. But, still, a new delightful poster & then today he posted this. I love Catherine O'Hara is this is to me hilarious. Did y'all know about this SCTV parody? 

 

[vetsoapfan]

That's an important point.  Even if fellow commentators wish to influence what other posters discuss on message boards (out of boredom, frustration, disinterest, whatever) it's unlikely to happen. Subjects which one person would prefer to see set aside, another person is curious about and wants to see explored more. Personally, I am totally surfeited with the social media attention paid to a certain tangerine-tinted individual who is constantly discussed EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME, but obviously other people are still interested in hearing about, reading about, and talking about the individual in question. If it bothers me, it's my own obligation to avoid engaging in discussions about those whom I no longer wish to discuss. On the internet, scrolling down is pretty easy.

Today on Facebook, a group moderator posted a photograph of an actor whom she found attractive. While a surprising number of members were oohing and ahhing, one man announced that he did not want to see posts like this again, because lust was a sin, and all the posters drooling over the photo needed to REPENT and read the good book. 

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 To that I would ask, why did he even click on the link???

I agree. I've always found it interesting that so many soap fans investigate their shows' histories, and become engrossed by past material they never even watched first-hand. AW's brilliant past held a cornucopia of fascinating characters and storylines which could have been mined for present-day drama, if only TPTB cared to do so.

Considering all the dialogue soap actors have to memorize daily, I'm astonished when certain actors can handle it flawlessly, and I'm sympathetic towards people like Hugh Marlowe, who obviously struggled a lot. I watched the show daily during Lemay's run (while I criticize him for certain things, I have always acknowledged the excellent work he did from 1971-1975), and people like Jacqueline Courtney and Virginia Dwyer were much more adept at dealing with their lines than other actors like Marlowe.

Right. Sometimes even the actors, writers and producers involved get confused about past facts. Agnes Nixon's autobiography included some obvious blunders about her time on OLTL. Harding Lemay has said that AW's ratings before he arrived were not satisfactory, and that he made them jump, but the facts don't bear out that contention. Before Lemay took over, Robert Cenedella had been the head scribe for a few years. While I would never claim that Cenedella was a writer of Agnes Nixon's or Harding Lemay's skill, he was at least adequate. Contrary to Lemay's assertion about his own tenure, he did not make the ratings increase to any significant degree (although granted, the writing was much better).

In the 1968-69 season, AW had an average rating of 10.5. In 1969-70, the rating was 9.6. In 1970-71, 9.5. Lemay was hired in 1971. In 1971-72, AW's rating was 9.1. In the 1972-73 and 1973-74 seasons: 9.7. By 1979, the show had dipped to a 7.5.

(All ratings taken from The Soap Opera Encyclopedia by Christopher Schemering. The yearly ratings can also be checked here on SON, in the Ratings Archives.)

The cast massacre of 1975 and the declining quality of Lemay's work in the mid-1970s, IMHO, contributed to the slow sinking in the ratings. It was a shame to witness AW's decline, after it had been a daytime jewel for so long.

Edited February 29 by vetsoapfan

[vetsoapfan]

I realized quite some time ago that my ancient Betamax and VHS tapes (going back to the 1970s) were starting to disintegrate (literally, shedding "dust"). Some had become unplayable. I was crushed. Fortunately, other tapes (usually the higher-quality ones like TDK, Maxell and Sony) were still in good shape. I wasted no time in converting everything over to DVD-R. I am grateful that all the videos I wanted to preserve the most were salvageable.

I had audiotapes going back to the 1960s, some of which I had transferred as well. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to a cassette-tape player. But my trusty VHS survives!

True, memoirs are always colored by, influenced by, the subjective feelings and interpretations of the author. Lemay certainly had every right to express his own opinions, whether the public found his analyses believable or accurate. And in the end, he was an excellent writer who provided the daytime audience with stellar material for years. That's all we could ask for; all we have the right to expect.

 

[Contessa Donatella]

When I look at the Nielsens, ratings & rankings, it seems to me that Pete's claims hold up. This is from wikipedia. 

Edit: When I look at the Nielsens, ratings & rankings, it seems to me that Pete's record holds up. 

1968-69
1 ATWT 13.8
2 SFT 10.7
3 AW 10.5 30"
1970-71
1 ATWT 12.4
2 EON 10.1
3 GL 9.7
4 AW 9.5/32 share 30"
4 DAYS 9.5/32 share
1972-73 
1 ATWT 10.6
2 DAYS 9.9
3 AW 9.7/33 share 30"
1973-74
1 ATWT 9.7/33 share
2 AW 9.7/32 share 30"
3 DAYS 9.7/32 share
1974-75
1 ATWT 10.8
2 AW 9.7 30" 
3 DAYS 9.7
1975-76
1 ATWT 9.4
2 AW 8.9 60" 
1976-77
1 ATWT 9.9
2 AW 9.0 60" 
3 GL 8.9
1977-78
1 ATWT 8.6/31 share
2 AW 8.6/28 share 60" 
1978-1979 
AW 8th 7.5/25 Mar. 5th '79 1st 90 min. show. 

So, Pete Lemay 1971-1979 Rankings 4th to 3rd to 2nd -holding there - to 8th for the move to 90" 
 

Edited March 1 by Contessa Donatella

[vetsoapfan]

The pre-Lemay ratings which even you just posted were as high, or higher, than the ratings seen under Lemay. So how does that equate to HL's claims of being responsible for noticeable increases "hold up"?

The numbers achieved by Agnes Nixon grew higher than Lemay's, and even the ones seen under Cenedella were higher or comparable. Were Lemay's ratings impressive? Yes, but that's not the issue. The question was, did he make the ratings markedly improve, and were Cenedella's worse, as HL claimed.

The evidence indicates no.

For example, Cenedella may have garnered a rating of 9.6 (1969 and 1970) and 9.5 (1970 and 1971), whereas Lemay had 9.1 (1971 and 1972) and 9.7 (1972 and 1973), but in reality, 9.5 and 9.6 under one writer is not noticeably weaker than 9.1 and 9.7 under another.

If in doubt, anybody can review the ratings here on SON, in many soap opera history books, or even on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_daytime_soap_opera_ratings

 

 

Edited February 29 by vetsoapfan

[Efulton]

I have mixed feelings about Rauch returning.  There is no doubt he could be a brilliant producer but during his last 4 years the show was in some ways a mess.  Of course the writing was a big part of the problem but casting was also an issue (i.e. Alice #3, 4 & 5).  I do think we would have seen the return of some favourite actors in the final years if Rauch have been there and Victoria Wyndham would most definitely have been front and centre again.  Actually as I type this he would have been a hell of a lot better than Charlotte Savitz so the show would have possibly had lasted a few more years longer.

Edited February 29 by Efulton

[Contessa Donatella]

There is no question that Agnes saved the show. Pete did not save the show. Instead he created an era that is considered to be "golden" whatever the heck that is supposed to mean. But, what he did in getting AW to be #2 after ATWT's #1 was please the absolute dickens out of P&G who then were only happier when GL was #3. Rankings are as important as ratings. I'm not nearly as concerned about what Pete may or may not have claimed as I am of what he did. Possibly history, and fans & scholars could appreciate what he did & speak about it better than he could. 

[vetsoapfan]

I think Rauch did well on AW in the beginning, when he and Lemay kept the core of the show (the way Phillips and Nixon had created and developed it) intact. Once he and Lemay started tampering with and dismantling the drama's roots, however, the bottom fell out. As you say, the last several years of PR's reign there were a mess.

His stints on Texas and For Richer, For Poorer failed. IMHO, he was a disaster on OLTL (which he decimated) and TGL. His stints on Santa Barbara and Y&R were not terribly noteworthy, although not as harmful as his time on OLTL in particular. I do agree he would have been better than Charlotte Savitz to re-helm AW, however.

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The endless miscasting of Alice Frame still baffles me. How some of those actresses were chosen will forever remain a mystery.

I remember reading an irate letter from a fan in a soap mag that went, "I never appreciated Jacquie Courtney (I never voted for her in any fan-magazine polls) until I saw her replacement!" I think that most performers can be replaced effectively, but with some, TPTB shouldn't even try. After TGL's Charita Bauer passed away, a friend asked me if I could accept a Bert Bauer recast. UGH. Over my dead body. I never accepted any of the "fake" Alices, LOL.

[Contessa Donatella]

On this we agree. 

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[vetsoapfan]

I think two of the Alice recasts were adequate (although they still didn't capture the essence of the role, IMHO), but the remaining two were simply dreadful. I'm glad, at least, that Courtney reclaimed the part in the end and became the "last Alice standing."