Another World

[Contessa Donatella]

I believe that to be totally inaccurate. First time I've heard it. No idea where it may have come from. They spun Beverlee/Iris off because they wanted the powerful actress/character combination. 

[DRW50]

This would have been an interesting idea. Laura Malone could have carried a new show. Clarice and Larry also would have made sense as characters to spin off.

(it still angers me that Laura Malone was fired due to not losing weight, allegedly - clearly by that point they thought of Blaine as just a support to Sandy [who was never that compelling])

@Contessa Donatella The clip of Ada worrying about aging was very poignant, especially given Constance's health struggles at that point. The hospital set, what we see of it, also looks perfectly fine - another example of just how damaging the bankrupting "Cheers meets ER meets NYPD Blue" remodeling of JFP was.

[Contessa Donatella]

Yes, still furious over that!!! 

That clip cut right to my heart. 

Oh, you've added a new component! I've only heard the juxtaposition of ER to NYPD Blue. Now I get to ponder "Cheers" where everybody knows your name! NORM!  But, the danger is I'll get stuck thinking about grrrrrr Jill Farren Phelps!!! Silly woman. Couldn't understand what was where in Bay City so she spent a fortune on a block set which meant stories now had to be written to take place in the hospital, a restaurant, the newspaper or the cop shop!

[j swift]

While we'll probably never know the truth, I wonder how much of that story was planted to humiliate Laura Malone.  Christopher Rich, Nancy Frangione, and Ms. Malone had a falling out according to the reporting by Jon Michael Reed.  And the Ryan's Hope Oral History gave a lot of insight into how actors manipulated the press to their advantage.  So, much like the gossip about Sarah Felder on RH being fired for her looks (which was unsupported by the network execs in the book), I've begun to question the Laura Malone story.  Just food for thought…

Edited July 5, 2024 by j swift

[DRW50]

I remember reading about their falling out (which, sad to say, didn't really help my view of Chris and Nancy if true). I could see the part about her weight being put in for spite, but given how common this was (as Ilene Kristen was also let go from RH around the same time due to her weight), I'm not sure.

I do wonder how fans at the time felt about the material for Alice. Unlike Pat, who is more slowly woven into a world of finance, and more gradually put into relationships, Alice, who had mostly just loved Steve for nearly a decade, was all over the place - marrying again, getting engaged to Willis in spite of presumably knowing of some heinous deeds from him (did she know what he did to Sharlene?), taking a large role in running Steve's company, and finally, deciding to marry her cousin's estranged husband after a period of months. This all feels very plot-driven - I think the material that most feels like it could have been character based was her being drawn to Willis, but that isn't really the same without Courtney or John Fitzpatrick (who so resembled George Reinholt - I cannot see Leon Russom as Steve's suffering younger brother) in the roles. For all of Lemay's disdain for Courtney, it doesn't seem like he put a great deal of care into writing for Alice even after she left.

Edited July 5, 2024 by DRW50

[j swift]

@DRW50 If you'd told me in 1985 that Christopher Rich would go on to be the most successful of the three, while Laura Malone has no IMDB credits for the past forty years, I wouldn't have believed it.

She had star quality, and I enjoyed the idea of how Blaine and Rachel were a role reversal of the Iris/Rachel relationship. An eventual rapprochement between the two against someone like Paulina could've been fire.

Edited July 5, 2024 by j swift

[DRW50]

Rich was smart to trade off his TV good looks into a longtime career of aw-shucks roles. If Laura hadn't married well and moved into other ventures, she may have had more of a career...I wish she'd done more as she was so dynamic on AW. Still, she made the right choice for herself.

[slick jones]

@mikeaw1978

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[DRW50]

Happy birthday @mikeaw1978

[Contessa Donatella]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU MIKE!!! 

[DRW50]

Was there any mention of Sam when Ada died?

[Mona Kane Croft]

Something folks who were not watching might not realize is that Susan Harney's Alice got a hell of a lot of screen time. Yes, upon Courtney's firing, Vicky Wyndham did become AW's female romantic lead.  But Alice just moved down one notch really, to the show's second female romantic lead.  So that's not bad at all for a recast.  Lemay kept Alice very busy and the show was quite focused on Alice, even though Rachel had now become AW's primary focus.  

Having watched AW almost daily from 1972 until the early-80s, I've wondered why the audience (including myself) accepted Harney as Alice as easily as we did -- despite her acting challenges.  And I've come to believe it was because we felt we had no choice.  We loved the character, and certainly did not want to see Alice written off. And having watched Lenore, Mary, and Steve leave the show just a few months earlier, we knew Alice could just as easily disappear from the canvas altogether, if we didn't accept Courtney's replacement.  Of course we knew very little of the situation in the studio, or the reasons behind the other characters' exits.  And we certainly had none of the details we would discover a few years later in Lemay's book.  But most of the fans were aware that Dwyer and Reinholt had been fired.  And then that Courtney had been fired. I think we were unconsciously blackmailed into accepting Harney, because we knew what the alternative would be.  Looking back 50-years later, Harney really was a rather bad replacement for Courtney.  Luckily she had Courtney's blonde hair, but that was where any similarity stopped. Harney's casting gave Alice a complete personality transplant.  And of course, Harney's acting range was quite limited -- especially when showing strong emotion was needed.   Having said all that, I have a soft spot in my heart for Susan Harney.  She took on a very tough job (an almost impossible situation), and I'm sure she took a difficult amount of criticism.  But she did manage to keep the audience engaged with Alice, and she kept the character vital and alive for four more years.   

Now to your question about the writing for Alice after Harney was cast:  Yes, the writing was definitely different than it had been previously.  But Alice's entire focus for nearly a decade  had been her romance with Steve. So now that Steve was dead, Alice needed something else to do.  So at the time, I was more or less okay with the writing.  The storyline with Sally was very compelling. And later, when Beatrice became involved with the same plot, Alice was once again in Rachel's orbit. So that caused some believable tension.  I did find it unfortunate that Alice married Ray Gordon, mostly because he was such an obvious loser. And marrying Ray made Alice seem foolish.  I think it would have been wiser to have her date Ray and get engaged to him -- then play out the story of him bankrupting Steve's company, but have Alice break the engagement just before the wedding.  Then they could have brought on a new dynamic character for Alice to date, and create a new long-term romance.  A character with charisma and chemistry similar to Steve or Mac -- but not another businessman. Perhaps a successful doctor or even and artist.  

Alice's romance with Willis could have worked, but it didn't seem Lemay's heart was really in it, because it was a very quick plot.  It also pitted two good-girls against one another -- Alice and Angie. And I didn't want either of them to cross over to the dark-side, although it seemed Lemay was toying with that possibility.   Alice's engagement to Dan Shearer seemed believable and acceptable at the time. But looking back, it was rather strange and incestuous since Susan was Alice's first cousin and one of her best friends.  Plus Dan was not a particularly charismatic character and the actor (Brian Murray) was not leading man material in 1979.  

But frankly, I was so happy to tune in to AW and see Alice three times a week, I guess I just accepted the writing as I had accepted Susan Harney.

[Contessa Donatella]

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July 6, 1987, 37 years ago today, Anne Heche debuted on ANOTHER WORLD & nothing would ever be the same again!!!

[Mona Kane Croft]

No, not at all. The writers wasted most of Ada's death episodes by trying to make the whole thing funny.  Dear God, back then soaps were obsessed with comedy -- they tried to make everything funny. Even the death of an important character and an iconic actress. "Let's make it funny!!!"   

It would have been great, if Jordon Charney had returned for a couple of days. Of course the only two characters Sam would have known were Rachel and Liz.  But it still would have been great to see Ada's brother Sam.   Maybe Sam could have flirted with Clarice.   

[DRW50]

Thanks for your detailed response @Mona Kane Croft . Even if Harney was an adjustment (beyond the charisma issue, her voice is also so different - I wouldn't want her to just do an imitation, but it means a lot of the quiet authority is gone), I can see why fans might have tried to accept her. I appreciate getting the POV on Alice's stories as someone who actually saw them rather than just me reading synopses. 

The whole triangle with Angie/Willis/Alice does sound like it would be a slog to watch. I'm not sure how it played out but it's hard to imagine sitting through Angie degrading herself over Willis and pining over him for five years, with both actors recast no less. I wonder if they may have planned to pair her off permanently with Vince but the actor didn't work out.

Thanks. Sam and Clarice could have been a fun interaction - maybe he could say she reminds him of his wife. 

I'm reminded of when Hal died on ATWT (years later admittedly) and they kept trying to force in humor by pointing out how many kids he had by different women.