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SON Community Back Online

Legendary Emmy-winning soap scribe PAMELA K. LONG comes to Brandon's Buzz!

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  • Member

Okay, not a bright question here, but for what soaps did Pam Long win an Emmy for? I didn't even know she had one until this thread.

Twice for GL.

In 1986 and in 1990 for Outstanding Dream Series Writing Team.

Edited by Y&RWorldTurner

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  • Member

Matt Weiss did appear for a few months and was played by Jeff Gendelman,who had previously appeared as Nick on Loving.

Who was Nick?

Thanks, I never knew the character existed. Did they lay groundwork for him with Harley but then he just vanished?

I'm surprised CBS would be upset about a relationship between a Jew and a Gentile. Was it that controversial by 1990?

  • Member

Twice for GL.

In 1986 and in 1990 for Outstanding Dream Series Writing Team.

Thanks! :)

Who was Nick?

Thanks, I never knew the character existed. Did they lay groundwork for him with Harley but then he just vanished?

I'm surprised CBS would be upset about a relationship between a Jew and a Gentile. Was it that controversial by 1990?

Not really a Loving fanatic, but if I'm correct, wasn't he a mobster who Isabelle took the rap for killing once?

  • Member

Thank you both.

It's still weird how few Jewish characters are in daytime. GL was a real trailblazer in some areas, I'm sorry they couldn't have been here.

  • Member

Yeah, Bert was out of control for years and years. She only began to settle down after Mike and Ed were grown and she probably knew she had to shape up. Charita Bauer is such a force of nature in those clips available from the 50s and 60s. Nancy, in contrast, was very controlled. She was also very bitter, in the early years, as she had huge problems relating to Penny, since her favorite daughter, Susan, had been killed by a lightning strike a few years before ATWT began. I think Irna Phillips went out of her way to write very controlled, stern characters, and that imprint has stayed with ATWT to some degree.

I think that is a good description, Charita was the total earth woman/mother/grandmother who just brought this joy of life to her character. Its funny, because, as much as Zimmer annoys the hell out of me, I think she has that same feel..(no matter what you can say about her Reva, you always felt that you could actually sit down with her and talk, if you get her to shut her big trap and quit talking about herself) so it is funny that she did such a great Charita in the 70th anniversary episode.

I wish those years were available because supposedly Aunt Edith (Ruth Warrick) was very free and ahead of her time, challenging conventions about what women were allowed to be. If Irna had had her way, Edith and Ellen Lowell's married father would have lived happily ever after. Naturally, when the network said no, Irna got mad and killed him off.

Wasnt Edith patterned after Irna herself? Another funny thing about the 70th anniversary, I thought BE made a great Irna, uptight, harsh and just barely controlled rage...it totally fit her persona at that time.

I didn't mind Harley as heroine but looking back I can see the spark draining from her in that time period. I think Mark Derwin's a hot guy but as a romantic figure I think he suffocates his love interests.

As a tough, trashy survivor I thought BE was great, but as this gal everyone was supposed to "love," (during the Long and Curlee eras) and that every man couldn't resist sexually or romantically (the Kreizman era.) Never got BE's allure, once again, Zimmer annoys but she has an earthy, warm feeling to her that BE never possessed, so I can see why people like her. This is petty, but I always felt her personality was as sharp as her face was...which only increased, on both ends when she lost all that weight..but BE has to have something, for her to snag all that hot ass like Derwin, Watros, Bogue and God knows who else.)

So Matt Weisman was never actually on the show?

Yea, he was on for about a month or two, I remember around the holidays when he was showing Harley how to light the Menora.

Do you know if it was Jeff Ryder or Pam Long who brought in the other Shaynes?

Long brought in Roxie, Hawk, I think Ryder brought in Rusty, I think Sarah (though that was Long's character outline.P

Do we know which stories were Jeff's and which Pam had no involvement in?

Have no idea there.

Sonni/Solita was Pam, right? I know a lot of that was rewritten heavily during the strike.

That was Long, funny thing is, it didnt get interesting until during/after the strike, though they most likely have been following Long's outlines.

Were you watching GL during their '88 strike? What did you think of the material?

Several BIG things happened during the strike that worked out okay, but would have been better with Long there. One was the merger of Spaulding/Lewis..which was Alex and Phillip, concerned about Reva's hold on Alan and his obsession with her (which I never bought, RR's Alan, sure but not CB's) had Alan invest in a fake diamond mine to bankrupt him and get hold of his shares and merge Spaulding with Lewis...took place at the Country Club with a big party and Alan was disgraced in front of the whole town, AND it was CB's last scenes flimed (he came back as Daniel Pilon who hooked up with Blake in Mexico I think) So we also have the start of the Blake/Roger/Holly stuff (only Blake was shown and we didnt know it was Blake, another sticking point with the prickly Long, they cast Blake without her input) Chelsea realizing that Phillip was truly a Spaulding in character if not in genes, and Sonni "killed," Will with a poker and hid his body, Reva having Photographic evidence of Sonni/Will, and Sonni losing her baby. Tons of [!@#$%^&*] happened and I am sure they were all Pam's outline. (compare that to Wheeler's GL where nothing freaking happened for weeks on end.)

The thing is, you could tell exactly when Long and her writers were back..no storyline changes, but the "feel," was different and the shows more cohesive.

  • Member

Pilon's Alan seemed so off to me.

So Long fired Elizabeth Denehy and replaced her with Sherry Stringfield? I prefer Sherry, although I haven't seen much of Denehy.

Were you saying Beth Ehlers was involved with Cynthia Watros?

I know all the rumors about her and Bogue, and then of course there were rumors about her and Murray Bartlett, but there are also rumors he's gay, so who knows.

Was it Long who decided to kill off Pops Cooper? I don't remember much about him. One longtime fan once told he was a boring old man and was better off dead.

  • Member

Pilon's Alan seemed so off to me.

So Long fired Elizabeth Denehy and replaced her with Sherry Stringfield? I prefer Sherry, although I haven't seen much of Denehy.

Were you saying Beth Ehlers was involved with Cynthia Watros?

I know all the rumors about her and Bogue, and then of course there were rumors about her and Murray Bartlett, but there are also rumors he's gay, so who knows.

Was it Long who decided to kill off Pops Cooper? I don't remember much about him. One longtime fan once told he was a boring old man and was better off dead.

Watros and Ehlers, rumor has it that there was a "thing," going on the set. Who knows. If true, I am jealous that skinny little sharp featured chick got some of the best ass walking into the studio!!!

The rumors of her and Bartlett started because Wheeler broke up Marina and Cyrus as she saw a "real life," couple that had incredible chemistry and had to pair them on the show. Knowing Ehlers rep everyone assumed she was banging the latest hottie on the show, and were astounded that the real life couple was actually RB and the Marina actress: Bogue was married at the time, recently having reconciled with his wife after the BE affair, which ended miserably, as BE tried to get him fired. I think all GL viewers will be astounded with that as M & M will go down in history as one of soaps' most chemistry lacking couples. And yes, word is that Bartlet is gay.

Long hated Denehy and the actress knew it. I for one, never liked Stringfield that much, she was way too over the top and bitchy, but she brought a great comic edge to Blake...(loved the scene when Vera, Alex's maid, was serving tea and she leaned over to serve and purposely stuck her ass in Blake's face, Stringfields reaction was hilarious.)

Long did kill off Pops in the first of the to be copied many times, 5th Street Fires. Pop was boring as he had nothing to say or do, he was practically invalid and I don't think ment to be a long term character...he was there to show that Frank and Harley had no one else to raise them (I know that this would be news to Kreizman, Hurst and Wheeler, but the Coopers are ment to be as dysfunctional in their own way as the Spauldings.)

Pilon's Alan was a place holder in case CB got better. Hence, why he was sent off to jail.

  • Member

I got the impression that Dennehy was leaving on her own accord. Then again, maybe the end of her contract cycle was coming up and she was going to be fired? I say this because I read GL's late casting director Betty Rea say in SOD that when she spotted Sherry Stringfield at SUNY Purchase' acting showcase she knew that they'd be needing a new Blake coming up soon. That's how Sherry got discovered.

No offense to RR, but in hindsight DP doesn't seem like such an awful Alan in comparison to RR. RR seems like a 50/50 mix of DP and CB, DP's cold moustache-twirling villainy and CB's dark complexity. I read that when CB fell ill, Beverlee McKinsey suggested her old bud from Texas, Danny Davis (who played her ex, Eliot) for the role of her brother Alan.

  • Member

I got the impression that Dennehy was leaving on her own accord. Then again, maybe the end of her contract cycle was coming up and she was going to be fired? I say this because I read GL's late casting director Betty Rea say in SOD that when she spotted Sherry Stringfield at SUNY Purchase' acting showcase she knew that they'd be needing a new Blake coming up soon. That's how Sherry got discovered.

No offense to RR, but in hindsight DP doesn't seem like such an awful Alan in comparison to RR. RR seems like a 50/50 mix of DP and CB, DP's cold moustache-twirling villainy and CB's dark complexity. I read that when CB fell ill, Beverlee McKinsey suggested her old bud from Texas, Danny Davis (who played her ex, Eliot) for the role of her brother Alan.

No Dennehy definatley got fired, she was only there for one cycle...she started in summer and ended in fall.

I really don't like RR as Alan, can't figure out what the hand wringing on other boards is about killing him (especially since the whole show is dead) as they should have done it long ago...Alan became a tedious character and an easy out to the writers, instead of creating something organic it was Alan again with a stupid plot.

I thought a great Alan would have been that guy who played the father (and eventual murderer) on Twin Peaks and who played the devil on some show that is playing now. Perfect combo of evil and sexiness who would have made a great Alan.

  • Member

Mitch,you are referring to Ray Wise,who was on Love of Life in the 70's.

Alan really suffered under the various writers as he moved further and further away from the original character.

Wasn't RR put on recurring at one point?Which regime was that?I'm thinking Conboy/Weston.

  • Member

Was it Long who decided to kill off Pops Cooper? I don't remember much about him. One longtime fan once told he was a boring old man and was better off dead.

I don't think it was Long who killed off Pops, if I'm correct, he died under Phelps during the 5th Street Fire 1993. I don't know who penned that storyline though.

  • Member

I think Pops was long dead by 1993. I think he was gone before Nadine or Buzz showed up. I wish they'd kept him around to interact with Buzz at least, as I would have liked to have seen Buzz not so easily settled into the role of Cooper patriarch.

So did MB and RB ask to be put together and Wheeler agreed? I thought that was one of the all time worst pairings ever on GL.

  • Member

I think Pops was long dead by 1993. I think he was gone before Nadine or Buzz showed up. I wish they'd kept him around to interact with Buzz at least, as I would have liked to have seen Buzz not so easily settled into the role of Cooper patriarch.

Ah I see now. I was under the impression that there was only one 5th Street fire, the one that had Buzz on the roof, but now I see there was an earlier one penned by Pam Long?

  • Member

Yes, although I've never seen the first one. I think Pops ran an antique store and that's what burned down? Or was it the diner?

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