Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[Paul Raven]

I will have to dig out old Digests re Hogan and Sunny but I think they were involved romantically.I do recall a review at the time, which criticized the handling of the story.I think that when David Forsyth left the show,Hogan and Sunny parted on good term but when he returned a few months later he was now interested in Liza and the previous relationship was pretty much ignored.Blame the merry go round of writers.

As for Sherry Mathis leaving,I think her contract was up and she chose to leave.

[dc11786]

Hogan McCleary was introduced in November 1983. They were some sort of car accident between him and Sunny. At first, Sunny hated him and, surprise, it turned out he was her new co-worker. Anyway, I think there was some playful flirting back and forth. I saw the Christmas 1984 episode on WoST and Sunny and Hogan were certainly on friendly terms. Sunny had a secret admirer around this time and thought it was Hogan. Later, it was revealed to be Jack Benton, the co-worker who was would rape her. The rape was a major stumbling block/hurdle for their relationship. Then Hogan and Sunny seemed close while working on stories only for Hogan to leave in September 1984. Hogan returned in April 1985 for Cagney and Suzy's wedding. Hogan didn't want to renew his relationship with Sunny, instead, he ended up in a plane crash with Liza and they became lovers in May 1985.

The Hogan/Liza/Sunny/Lloyd stuff played on the AOL Channel and I liked what I saw, but I saw bits and pieces. Online fans despise it, and after watching some episodes on YouTube, I can see why. Liza comes off as a spoiled bitch, Hogan an arrogrant prick, Sunny as clingy and desperate, and Lloyd a foolish nitwit. The concept of the story is neat. At times, I think the story worked well. Liza knew her love for Hogan was forbidden and she didn't want to hurt her friend, Sunny. There was a scene where Liza was hiding in Hogan's kitchen while Sunny stopped by for a surprise visit. Liza was desperate to leave, but couldn't and she was fearful Sunny would get the wrong idea. If the story could have been written more in character, maybe it would have been better received by the audience. Interestingly enough, Forsythe ended up in a similar situation on "Another World" when John and Felicia had an affair.

Braxton and Avila Mayer penned the Hogan/Sunny/Liza stuff. I liked most of their stuff with Quinn/Wendy/Sarah. I don't like how Tomlin took innocent Sarah and turned her into a cold manipulator.

Mathis died several years after "Search for Tomorrow" ended. Maybe she was already ill. The papers claim she was joining Jerry Lanning, her husband, out on the west coast.

Interesting side note, Louan Gideon was engaged to John O'Hurley in 1985. He proposed the same day she had received the role of Liza.

[sungrey]

Paul, I remember what happened with that story. Digest ran a piece on dropped stories and changes in story direction. This was when Nick Nicholson became executive producer of Search and during the initial press conference Nick mentioned they had a great story for Hogan and Liza. I want to say that Marcia McCabe was quoted as saying she'd felt like she'd been hit in the face with a pie, and David Forsyth went to him afterwards and asked what the reason was for breaking up Hogan and Sunny. Nick couldn't give him one.

It was decision-making like that mess that killed Search, and for that matter other shows.

[DRW50]

This is all so fascinating. I don't know why they would have dropped the story. Did they want to try to get people interested in the new Liza?

And then Hogan ended up with Patty didn't he? I wonder if fans accepted the last Patty or if by then they just didn't care.

Who was Sarah?

Lloyd was the one played by Robert Reed?

[dc11786]

Sherry Mathis started the Hogan/Liza stuff. They were involved in the plane crash and the casual sex which meant more to Hogan than it did to Liza. Joe Lambie was playing Lloyd at the time. Robert Reed played the role briefly in 1986 when the Estelle/Lloyd/Liza storyline was going on.

Sarah Whiting was Patti's daughter and Jo's granddaughter. Braxton and Mayer introduced her in the summer of 1985 as the show's new young ingenue opposite Wendy's more calculating vixen. By this point, Jo's niece Suzi had settled into marriage with Cagney and was no longer really the younger female romantic lead who would fight with a woman over a man. Quinn was quite an operator who seemed to be a round peg in the very square McCleary family. Quinn seem to genuinely care for both Wendy and Sarah in very different ways. Sarah was a nurse or nurse's assistant who had a passion for music like her grandmother.

Sarah was very simple. She lacked confidence and was scared of certain scenarios. Around Quinn, she began to open up and feel a bit stronger. Tomlin came on and Sarah was quite a diva. She upped her ante and fought Wendy tooth and nail for Quinn even though they had introduced Evie Stone for Quinn as well. Sarah was offed by the serial killer who killed Stephanie. Patti came on a couple months later to mourn her daughter. She was only on for the show's final year.

[DRW50]

Was Evie the character Joanna Going and Colleen Dion (?) played?

Lisa Peluso left SFT before the end, right? Did Wendy go with her or did they recast? And they recast Suzi after Cynthia Gibb, right?

How long was it between Travis's death and the story with Hogan? Do you think Sherry suited it as much as she did the story with Travis?

I was also going to ask, if you saw any of that, what you thought of Patsy Pease's character, the one who had a custody battle with Liza and Travis, and if you thought they could have done more with her.

I wonder if the show would have killed Stephanie if Maree had stayed.

[saynotoursoap]

I do not recall a plane crash. From my recollection, Liza accidentally gave away Hogan's revered ancient typewriter for a charity bazaar. He made her drive with him to retrieve it. They drove into a violent thunderstorm. A child had fallen into a lake. Somehow in attempting to save the child, Hogan and Liza both fell into the lake, too. They sought shelter from the storm in a cave. This sequence played out for a week of episodes, with them having lusty sex for sex's sake.

I agree with much of what you said. I believe the reason for the strong characterizations, which was off-putting to many longtime fans, was because the point of the storyline was to show how some relationships can develop into something much stronger based on a purely physical attraction, rather than the traditional soap romance of sex developing later from love. In many ways, it was a daring move. However, in order for it to work, Liza had to be shown as somewhat prissy and repressed, and that rubbed Liza fans the wrong way. Sherry Mathis' Liza had always been very warm, loving, and tolerant. Personally, I did not find the story unbelievable. Liza had just lost Travis, the love of her life, the year before, and she was attempting (sometimes unsuccessfully) to adapt to many different roles, including: widow, businesswoman, and single parent, while still grieving for love lost. Her reaction to a forbidden passion that she could not deny was perfectly believable to me.

Quite frankly, the story worked for me because after Travis died, Liza basically languished with very little story. The Kentucky Bluebird plot never went anywhere because Will Patton refused to sign a longterm contract, and Mathis really did not have the proper chemistry with any other actor on the soap except for David Forsythe, JMHO.

Sherry left Search because her marriage to Jerry Lanning was in serious trouble. They briefly attempted to patch things up, but shortly thereafter, Sherry moved to Austria for a year to study opera. As veteran soap fans know, Sherry had studied voice before joining the soap world, and her singing had been incorporated into Liza's plot for her first few years on Search. Later writers apparently forgot that Liza could sing, or they just didn't care, as running corporations like Tourneur Instruments was all the rage in those Dynasty/Dallas days. Not long after Sherry left the show to join Jerry in LA, he was back in New York playing Cain on Guiding Light. Sherry spent the rest of her life dividing her time between a farm she owned in Texas and studying in Europe. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the early 90's, many years after divorcing Lanning. She died in January 1994 in her hometown of Memphis, TN.

[DRW50]

Did any other soap ever offer Sherry a role?

I was going to ask about Kathy. I think I might have asked this before, but what did you think of her character and do you think recasting her after Courtney Sherman left was necessary? Did Courtney return after Nicolette Goulet left? I can't remember.

I had also wanted to ask if you thought it was a mistake to fire Millee Taggart. Did Janet ever appear on NBC's run?

[saynotoursoap]

Yes, Colleen and Joanna played Evie Stone.

Lisa Peluso left exactly a year before Search went off the air. Wendy actually disappeared from Henderson following the murder of Sarah Whiting. The writers left the plot open as to whether or not Wendy skipped town or had been a victim of the serial killer. Wendy was not recast after Peluso left.

Cynthia Gibb left in 1983 and was replaced for a year by a truly unwatchable actress named Elizabeth Swackhammer (probably misspelled). After Elizabeth, Teri Eoff took over as Suzi and played the part until Suzi died in a car accident in September 1986. Eoff returned in the very last week of Search to say a final goodbye to her husband and son.

As for Patsy Pease, I could not tolerate her character at all. She and her redneck brother Beau were the beginning of the downfall of Search on CBS. Beau ran a honky-tonk called The Boilermaker, which had a secret casino in the back room. Somehow that story was intertwined with a boring police corruption plot that seemed to last an eternity. Beau was murdered, Sunny was falsely accused of the crime, Cissy got knocked up with Lee's baby to win him away from Sunny. The scenario had an Urban Cowboy feel to it, which was obviously one more attempt by daytime to emulate Dallas. None of it worked, IMO.

Re: Maree Cheatham. When Maree left, Stephanie should have gone off the canvas, too. Louise Shaffer is a dynamite actress, but she was totally wrong for Stephanie. Louise really did not play Stephanie; she simply continued her Rae Woodard role from Ryan's Hope. Although Stephanie was rich and a successful businesswoman, she was not the powerhouse Alexis Carrington type that Shaffer played.

[DRW50]

How would you compare Shaffer's Stephanie and Estelle, who was supposed to be the new Alexis? Did they interact?

I'm surprised that they would kill off Suzi when the show was ending. Maybe this was supposed to make some statement about life or whatever.

Do you think the casting was a problem with Beau and Cissy or no one would have made it better?

Edited November 20, 2010 by CarlD2

[saynotoursoap]

To be honest, I do not recall whether Stephanie and Estelle had any scenes together, because my viewing of Search was most limited during this period. Around the mid-80's, I had become disenchanted with all of the NBC soaps and switched my allegiance to CBS. If I remember correctly, Estelle arrived very shortly before Stephanie was murdered, maybe within a month or only weeks. I loved Estelle and began to watch Search actively during the last four or five months. In many ways, Estelle was more like Stephanie than was Shaffer's Stephanie. Stephanie was a seductress. Yes, she wanted money, privilege, and power, but she was also a naughty girl who enjoyed antics and dallying with gentlemen. Louise Shaffer played Stephanie as an overworked, obsessed businesswoman. I do not recall Shaffer's Stephanie even hinting at seduction or being sexy. She appeared to be solely driven by that television station and was always in huff because of deadlines and meetings. In short, she was not fun the way Cheatham played the role. While Estelle enjoyed wealth and power, the writers focused more her attempts to win Lloyd away from Liza, and Estelle demonstrated the same mischievous quality that Cheatham's Stephanie had.

Suzi was actually killed off before the series was canceled. The writers did not know at the time that the series was ending. I am not sure if the move was story-dictated or if Eoff left at the end of her contract. I suppose this is the reason she returned in the next-to-the-last episode to give Cagney and Jonah closure.

Do not misunderstand, Carl. I did not have a problem with Patsy Pease or Danny Goldring as actors. I simply did not feel that the characters and stories were suited to the tone that the Corringtons had created. My favourite era of Search was the 1974-77 period. Ann Marcus, Maggie DePriest, and the Elmans wrote an extremely balanced serial. Search may have been one of the most demographically balanced soaps on the air at that time. The stories were also diverse. Jo and Stu still were in the thick of things. It was an enjoyable era. When Henry Slesar took over in 1977, the tone of Search changed. Slesar was a marvelous writer, but not suited for SFT, IMO. When the Corringtons became headwriters, they too changed the show's tone. Because they were based in New Orleans, Search developed somewhat of a gothic tone, while maintaining the integrity of its history. I really liked what the Corringtons did with the show because it seemed different than the other CBS soaps. In 1980, with the arrival of the Mitchells and the aforementioned illegal gambling and government corruption plots, the tone of Search changed again, and not for the better in this viewer's opinion. I suppose I was already bored with the cowboy craze, and the hokey plot of having the district attorney taking kickbacks from Mitchell, while Cissy played the stereotypical soap villainess stealing the dim-witted hunk away from the heroine with an unplanned pregnancy...I found it all to be a colossal drag. The end of the story was even sillier. The DA, McKay, attempted to kill Liza and Kathy, because Kathy had uncovered the fact that McKay murdered Beau instead of Sunny. McKay trapped Liza and Kathy in Kathy's law office, and she managed to overpower him by clobbering him over the head with a jar of Hershey's Kisses. I am NOT making this up. It was one of the most inane things I have ever seen on daytime. So, to answer your question, I do not think any actors could have saved the story or characters. I simply did not like the set-up, and it only became worse from that point onward.

Edited November 20, 2010 by saynotoursoap

[saynotoursoap]

Not that I know of, but she would not have accepted one anyway. I believe Sherry wanted to focus on her voice work and theater.

I liked Kathy and Scott in the 1970's. Kathy's character was quite different than most female soap roles. She was somewhat like Jillian on Ryan's Hope. She was strong and career-oriented and unapologetic for it. After Sherman and Simon left, there was no point in bringing the characters back, IMO. Sherman did return to Search for a short period around 1983 when Liza was accused of murdering Rusty, Sr., but there was no magic there. Search had changed. Courtney Sherman and Kathy's character did not fit in.

Yes! Jo and Stu's families should have remained strong. It was a mistake to dump Taggart and Billie Lou Watt. Besides, the character of Sunny was one of the most popular younger ladies on the show, and Sunny was Janet's step-daughter as well as Liza's best friend. Taggart did appear in the NBC episodes, but not for long. I think Janet and Ted were written out within a month or two after Search moved to NBC.

[DRW50]

Thanks as always for your detailed answers! I feel like I've seen this all myself after I read your posts. I wonder if anyone at SFT during the time of the Hershey kiss incident were at AMC when Janet hit someone with a large fake candy cane.

I guess some of that must be online, but I wish I could see Estelle. I have to admit that the ad campaign for her seemed so silly to me - and also dated, as by 1986 Dynasty was already on the way down - I had assumed she might not be great. I'm glad to hear she was. Did the actress do anything else on soaps?

I'm surprised they still thought they might be on the air in September 1986. Then again I think I read in a Digest from 1985 that the ratings had been rising, so who knows. I guess NBC did surprise some by keeping it on past 1982. Was there any official reason, besides ratings, that NBC finally stopped? Or was it P&G?

[DRW50]

From the January 1972 TV Dawn to Dusk (Ideal Publishing Corp). SFT turns 20.

[DRW50]

I was going to ask this here and in the temp replacement thread, but I was looking through a December 1973 TV Dawn to Dusk and they show a photo of Mary K Wells and daughter, and they list Mary as playing Joanne Vincente Tate. Was Mary Stuart ill at this time, or was that a goof or something?