Reading through these posts, it does make sense that perhaps Marland didn't view the Phillip story as important since it does appear as though he puts it into B or C level position with the writing off of Elizabeth, and basically downplaying the whole Justin/Jackie/Alan situation by focusing on Alan's marriage to Hope and his affair with Rita while Justin/Jackie remarry and deal with the whole Ross/Carrie situation.

Long/Kobe do the sensible thing by reviving the story and shifting the story to Phillip's perspective.  It's a shame that they fired Justin and just focused on him with Beth over dealing with the fall out of learning of his true identity.

Since there's been some talk about "Hold on to Love" again recently, I remembered I had this from a soap channel that was briefly up last year and had a lot of rare content. It's alternate versions of the theme.

I should warn this has loud beeping at the start.

 

6 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Since there's been some talk about "Hold on to Love" again recently, I remembered I had this from a soap channel that was briefly up last year and had a lot of rare content. It's alternate versions of the theme.

I should warn this has loud beeping at the start.

 

Gosh - I don't love that as much.   This makes me realize I didn't pay as much attention to the ending credits with the contract cast list in the beginning of my watch (or maybe the outlet I was watching didn't show the end credits). But it's interesting that so many contract folks listed aren't in the opening (like HB, Stavros, Hamp, Bill, Michelle, Sid, etc etc). I remember at some point in late 95 and through 1996 when they split the opening into two versions, they actually matched the opening cast to the ending scrolling contact cast (if that makes sense haha).

How did it get the name "Hold on to Love"?  Is that what they named the instrumental song?

I’m up to April 30, 1998.

The Island Man now has a name - Sean McCullough. Reva gets sick after a jellyfish sting and has a fever dream about Sean being Josh, and he continues to take care of her. It seems like he’s slowly caring/falling for her now. After a ton of nagging, he finally opens up to her about his past: he found his wife in bed with his business partner and they were robbing him of his money. Later, he tells her he’ll never let her leave the island (uh oh). He’s wanted for murder, but says he didn’t actually do it. They continue to get close, but Reva’s still determined to leave and builds a dinky raft that would never survive traveling across the ocean LOL, but he calls her the most beautiful woman on earth and then destroys her raft. She lashes out at him and is still determined to get off the island. He comes around after they talk more, they become friendly again and he reveals a boat he’s been hiding. He takes her on the boat to the mainland so she can get back home. As they’re arriving, she slips and hits her head, so he takes her to the hospital. She ends up being fine and they have a tearful goodbye, with Sean telling her how much he’ll miss her. He kisses her forehead and leaves her room, and sadly, the police then handcuff him and walk him out of the hospital. He made the decision to risk his freedom to help her, and that seems like the last we’ll see of Sean. Interesting character and very handsome, but I guess he was never meant to stay long-term.

The clone Reva is now aged to an adult and Zimmer is playing the role. Josh can’t believe it, as she’s very flirty with him. Cassie claims it’s not her sister and they don’t seem to get along. Her southern accent is thick, she wants to go out and party/drink, and they’re afraid she’s not ready to be a soccer mom yet, like she was when she died. The next day, Josh promises Marah that Reva will be back home by Mother’s Day (so in a month). But the clone calls the house, Marah answers and the clone starts talking to her as her mother. She says she’ll be back home in a week, which makes Marah happy but panics Josh/Cassie. She tries kissing Josh, but he holds back. That upsets her, so she leaves the house out of a window and goes to the bar, where Rob Layne happens to be. Rob thinks she’s a prostitute and they start flirting/dancing, but Cassie arrives and breaks it up. But she identifies herself as the new and improved Reva Shayne. Rob tells her that Cassie/Josh are together (because Dinah told him before), and the clone gets upset. Josh arrives and she threatens to tell the whole bar about who she is. Josh gets her to stop by professing his love. The next day, Josh now has a ‘feeling’ that the real Reva is alive and he can feel it in his bones (oh please). He tries to convince Michael and the clone overhears. The clone is now worried because if the real Reva is alive, then what happens to her? The coast guard then calls and says they found the fuselage, but there’s no way someone could have survived. He’s heartbroken again and the clone is determined more than ever to be Reva’s replacement and love Josh. They end up kissing.

Days later, they finally have the planned family dinner night to bring the clone “home” with the kids. The clone runs into Marah beforehand and they talk about what she’s been doing, but the clone doesn’t know their secret handshake, and Marah has to remind her. Come to find out, Billy has turned the family dinner into a surprise welcome home party with random Ross, Vanessa, Matt and Holly there. Josh and Cassie have to feed her information on the people, like Vanessa. Then the clone asks who’s the guy she’s with (Matt), “her son?” LOL. Dinah/Dahlia/Marcus show up, and then Buzz later with the catering and the clone answers the door and asks who he is LOL. Michael arrives and gets her out of trouble. They make it through the party and Reva wants to have sex with Josh. He denies her advances after kissing because he’s just not ready and she pouts and doesn’t want to be Reva anymore. I can’t. She lets Marah skip school the next day and they eat at the diner, and Buzz is onto her. He goes to Josh/Cassie and demands answers because he knows that’s a ‘pod person’.  They chalk it up to a nervous breakdown because of the Annie situation, but the clone shows up and keeps fighting with Cassie, and Buzz doesn’t seem to buy it. Josh takes the clone to Cross Creek and they eventually have sex, after he sees her in Reva’s old wedding dress. But, he seems to have regrets about the sex, which he tells her, so she leaves Cross Creek behind his back and goes straight to Buzz and tells Buzz she’s a clone and the real Reva is dead! Buzz thinks she’s gone crazy and calls Josh to come get her. Josh and the clone eventually have a fight and the clone wants to leave, but Josh is torn between keeping her for the kids or letting her go forever, knowing she’s not the real thing.

Hart promises to trust Cassie with the Reva/Josh situation and to stay out of it, and they finally have sex (about time!). Later, Dinah starts putting into his head that Cassie/Josh are having an affair.

Ross tells Ben he plans to get him disbarred for withholding the tape, and Ben tells him to go for it, but it’ll cost him Blake for having to testify on the witness stand. Later, we see Ben has a tape of him and Blake half-naked and kissing from the other night (wow!). He gets drunk watching the tape, obsessing over Blake now. He goes to Holly’s to tell her they want each other, but Holly refuses to believe it. Ross walks in and Ben tells them he has a tape of them in bed together, and he’ll use it when he needs to. They both don’t believe it, meanwhile, Blake is on her long solo vacation and day dreaming about Ben and confesses she wants both Ross and Ben. Oh Blake haha.

Beth takes Lizzie to school and Carl shows up, punches her, and demands money from her. This guy is gross. She actually stands up to him and says no, but he continues to threaten her. With her black eye, she goes to Harley for help and they make up a secret plan to get him later the night of Lizzie’s birthday party. Beth is to get money out of the Spaulding safe and meet Carl, while Harley is hiding with a gun. But, Harley forgets her gun (dumb) and Beth keeps getting held up at the party, first by Phillip and second by Lillian who notices her black eye and gets worried. Carl is upset that Beth isn’t on time and Harley is having to hide from him. It doesn’t make sense that they’re hiding this from Phillip, but whatever, this storyline isn’t my favorite because we never saw Carl/Beth’s backstory and Carl seems like a basic villain. Anyway, Harley makes it back to the mansion, while Beth goes to meet Carl, so Harley tells everyone about what’s happening and they all go chase after Beth. Beth gets back home safely, Frank shows up and says he can’t find Carl, so they keep going on with the birthday. The doorbell rings, and a very muddy and creepy looking Carl stumbles in, says ‘Damn you Alan, damn you and your whole family’ and then falls down and dies. This was actually a good, creepy moment, finally. Lizzie sees from the staircase and freaks out, what a fun birthday for her haha. Come to find out, Carl was in possession of a letter. Beth wrote Phillip that letter right after he came back to SF declaring her love for him and her desire to reconcile. Alan infiltrated the letter, by working with Carl, and Phillip never got the letter. So essentially Alan had a hand in keeping Phillip and Beth apart, and Phillip to stay in SF. Phillip is angry at his father yet again, and says he will never forgive him and will make him pay the rest of his life. He then tells everyone he saw Alan at the pond shooting Carl (which we never saw/seems suspicious - and later turned out to be a lie), and Alan maintains his innocence. Gosh, now this is a murder mystery that no one asked for, because all the suspects (Phillip, Alan, Lillian, Beth) are family and this guy was bad, and they could have worked together to just get him arrested. I’ll skip typing out details, given this is about a man that was only on for like 4 episodes total and I just don’t really care. Short version - Phillip got rid of Beth’s dirty shoes which is evidence, which Harley is aware of and not happy about; Lillian called up a man to watch Carl, but come to find out he’s a hitman and she’s worried he killed him on her behalf, which Alan is aware of. The one good thing about it is seeing way more of Lillian, which has been rare in the last 3 years. Anyway Harley plays cop detective internally and pisses everyone off, but Beth goes to Ben and the police and says she’s the murderer.

7 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Since there's been some talk about "Hold on to Love" again recently, I remembered I had this from a soap channel that was briefly up last year and had a lot of rare content. It's alternate versions of the theme.

I should warn this has loud beeping at the start.

 

I am so glad that someone conserved this treasure. I actually wouldn't've minded this version of "Hold onto Love" being the theme for a while versus what we got in the end. 

9 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Since there's been some talk about "Hold on to Love" again recently, I remembered I had this from a soap channel that was briefly up last year and had a lot of rare content. It's alternate versions of the theme.

I should warn this has loud beeping at the start.

 

eeee...I don't like it. Any of it.

Side note: I went through the end credits. This has to be '94 (as both **** and Tangie are in the credits), and to see how many of the writing credits have changed. Not just the HW, but the scriptwriters. That was one thing I had noticed---through a lot of the '80's the scriptwriters had remained fairly stable. Names I recognized as being on ATWT so much later (like Melissa Salmons, who I adored) or knew (like Patrick Mulcahey) are gone. No wonder there's a shift in character's personalities.

And this is one of the few times I've caught Vanessa credited as Vanessa Chamberlain Lewis. It was always either Chamberlain or Lewis. Not both. Dinah is credited as Dinah Chamberlain Marler, which they never referred to her as, to my recollection. She's always been Dinah Marler.

And I have no idea why (when he's contract) Bryan Buffinton's picture isn't first. It's like some suit decided a child's picture just can't lead off. There was also a weird period of time when his picture was first, but his name was buried in the middle, or his picture was on twice.

9 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

How did it get the name "Hold on to Love"?  Is that what they named the instrumental song?

I assume that it was originally written in '90 with lyrics. We just never heard the lyrics until '92, at Hamp and Gilly's wedding.

I kind of assume "My Guiding Light" was also written with lyrics in mind, but we just never heard them. Although it's hard to imagine any lyrics to that music.

11 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

Reading through these posts, it does make sense that perhaps Marland didn't view the Phillip story as important since it does appear as though he puts it into B or C level position with the writing off of Elizabeth, and basically downplaying the whole Justin/Jackie/Alan situation by focusing on Alan's marriage to Hope and his affair with Rita while Justin/Jackie remarry and deal with the whole Ross/Carrie situation.

Long/Kobe do the sensible thing by reviving the story and shifting the story to Phillip's perspective.  It's a shame that they fired Justin and just focused on him with Beth over dealing with the fall out of learning of his true identity.

Looking at the timing, I'm not sure that's necessarily what happened. 

When Doug took over in '80, Justin is married to Elizabeth, Alan and Hope are just marrying (April? It's before Vanessa arrives in June), and Jackie and Alan have just divorced. 

Cindy Pickett is taking time away from the show (I gather). In the May '80 recap, (which would be February/March) Jackie takes off to Rome, leaving Justin a note apologizing for disrupting his life with the truth about Phillip. 

Elizabeth doesn't tell Mike the truth about Phillip until Christmas '80. I'm not exactly sure when Alan finds out Jackie and Justin are Phillip's natural parents. (It may even be after Jackie's death in '82, because he didn't know before Diane's death in Sept '81)

Marland has to write Roger's exit. 

Cindy Pickett briefly returns, but leaves the show and Carrie Mowbry is cast. (July '80)

I think Marland may have felt he then needed time to build up the reveal. The first scenes I've caught with Mowbry are Jackie, Justin and Phillip talking about taking a trip. So essentially, Marland has to rebuild Jackie/Justin, invest in the Mike/Elizabeth relationship, and get Alan/Hope to a point where Alan would trust her with the truth. He also has to give the audience time to adjust to Mowbry as Jackie and make the connection between Jackie and Phillip seem as natural as Pickett's was with Jarrod Ross.  

Whether Dalton was fired or she chose to leave I'm not sure, but Ross' last appearance as Phillip is also around this time. The reveal that Amanda was Alan's was January '81. Both Hope and Jackie give birth to children around August of '81. 

So I could see where maybe Marland was putting the pieces in place for Phillip to feel  devastated and displaced by both sets of parents. He just ran out of time when he abruptly left in '82, whether he had actually planned for Jackie to die or that was forced upon him with Mowbry's firing.

And as I just remembered, 1981 had a writer's strike that wasn't resolved until late July or August, as there's the story of the writers literally writing the Kelly/Nola confrontation as it was being taped.

Yes, it seems like a long time (and there were obvious stories Marland was heavily into like Nola/Kelly/Morgan, Carrie) but this is also the guy who took his sweet time with ATWT's Adam reveal, which hit the three year mark before Hal found out he was a father. Meanwhile, almost everyone else in town seemed to know. The Aaron reveal also took YEARS.

Edited October 12, 2025Oct 12 by P.J.

11 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

 But it's interesting that so many contract folks listed aren't in the opening (like HB, Stavros, Hamp, Bill, Michelle, Sid, etc etc). I remember at some point in late 95 and through 1996 when they split the opening into two versions, they actually matched the opening cast to the ending scrolling contact cast (if that makes sense haha).

Hamp at least was in the original version of the opening. (the earliest I could find skimming was July'91) It went Blake, Billy, weird pic of Mo and Ed, Alex, Roger, Hamp, Mindy, Mallet, Vanessa, Dylan, and Harley. And that went untouched for at least a year. At some point, I recall Eleni, Alan-Michael and Nick being added. 

So a lot of characters weren't included originally. Josh, Reva, Phillip, Beth and Rick weren't, because they were either gone (Reva) or leaving shortly (Josh, Phillip, Beth, Rick) that you would expect.

By May '92, the lineup is Blake, Billy, Holly (pic of Ed/Mo is bigger, but still weird) Ross, Alex, Roger, Hamp, Mindy, Mallet, Vanessa, Dylan, Nick, Harley.

I'm not sure Eugene Troobnick (Stavos) was ever a contract role, while Larry Gates and William Roerick (HB and Henry) would drift back and forth over the years.

Edited October 12, 2025Oct 12 by P.J.

11 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I wonder if Cindy would have returned to GL if asked for a Jackie return story, at least by the time her primetime career had cooled off. Not that GL cared...

That would have been great if Cindy had returned as Jackie, even if for a limited run. Imagine the emotional blow up with Phillip. Lezlie Dalton as Elizabeth could have also returned for that. I cannot believe the lazy writers that came through there and who had over 25 years of time never thought of that. They were too busy writing Reva plots and creating characters nobody gave a crap about.

If I were a soap writer, I would do my history research and see if anything could be mined for new storylines. Most writers don't care about the past and just throw something out there to see if it sticks or if they can shoehorn a character in by tying them to a legacy character.

 

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

Looking at the timing, I'm not sure that's necessarily what happened. 

When Doug took over in '80, Justin is married to Elizabeth, Alan and Hope are just marrying (April? It's before Vanessa arrives in June), and Jackie and Alan have just divorced. 

Cindy Pickett is taking time away from the show (I gather). In the May '80 recap, (which would be February/March) Jackie takes off to Rome, leaving Justin a note apologizing for disrupting his life with the truth about Phillip. 

Elizabeth doesn't tell Mike the truth about Phillip until Christmas '80. I'm not exactly sure when Alan finds out Jackie and Justin are Phillip's natural parents. (It may even be after Jackie's death in '82, because he didn't know before Diane's death in Sept '81)

Marland has to write Roger's exit. 

Cindy Pickett briefly returns, but leaves the show and Carrie Mowbry is cast. (July '80)

I think Marland may have felt he then needed time to build up the reveal. The first scenes I've caught with Mowbry are Jackie, Justin and Phillip talking about taking a trip. So essentially, Marland has to rebuild Jackie/Justin, invest in the Mike/Elizabeth relationship, and get Alan/Hope to a point where Alan would trust her with the truth. He also has to give the audience time to adjust to Mowbry as Jackie and make the connection between Jackie and Phillip seem as natural as Pickett's was with Jarrod Ross.  

Whether Dalton was fired or she chose to leave I'm not sure, but Ross' last appearance as Phillip is also around this time. The reveal that Amanda was Alan's was January '81. Both Hope and Jackie give birth to children around August of '81. 

So I could see where maybe Marland was putting the pieces in place for Phillip to feel  devastated and displaced by both sets of parents. He just ran out of time when he abruptly left in '82, whether he had actually planned for Jackie to die or that was forced upon him with Mowbry's firing.

And as I just remembered, 1981 had a writer's strike that wasn't resolved until late July or August, as there's the story of the writers literally writing the Kelly/Nola confrontation as it was being taped.

Yes, it seems like a long time (and there were obvious stories Marland was heavily into like Nola/Kelly/Morgan, Carrie) but this is also the guy who took his sweet time with ATWT's Adam reveal, which hit the three year mark before Hal found out he was a father. Meanwhile, almost everyone else in town seemed to know. The Aaron reveal also took YEARS.

Very good points.   I didn't explain properly that he put the Phillip story in B/C position because he needed to put other things in place before Phillip finds out, and having Pickett leaving in mid 80 officially probably postponed the reveal because he needed to ease the new Jackie onto the canvas by re-establishing her with Justin, Phillip, Elizabeth, etc.

I know that some of the actors probably weren't happy with his pacing and different way he wrote/structured the story.  I know that Maureen Garrett felt frustrated with how she was written post Roger and felt that the writers made her character operate with less agency than before Roger falling off the cliff (I wish more 1980 episodes would surface) hence why she opted to leave when her contract expired at the end of 1980.  Looking at the 1979 (when they were up)... Holly was front and center trying to survive being in prison and prove her innocent vs the few 1980 episodes that surfaced from summer 1980 where she's a zombie with no real indication that she's trying to move forward.

And there were some rumors the actress that played Rita felt the same way (but again, I wish more 1980 and 1981 episodes would surface to review).  And what he did to Diane Ballard making her more one note vs the more layered and complex character pre 1980 also should be noted.

 

20 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

Very good points.   I didn't explain properly that he put the Phillip story in B/C position because he needed to put other things in place before Phillip finds out, and having Pickett leaving in mid 80 officially probably postponed the reveal because he needed to ease the new Jackie onto the canvas by re-establishing her with Justin, Phillip, Elizabeth, etc.

LOL...that's ok. As you can see, my know-it-all-itis/explain-it-all-itis is operating in full force this morning!

2 hours ago, P.J. said:

When Doug took over in '80, Justin is married to Elizabeth, Alan and Hope are just marrying (April? It's before Vanessa arrives in June), and Jackie and Alan have just divorced. 

Cindy Pickett is taking time away from the show (I gather). In the May '80 recap, (which would be February/March) Jackie takes off to Rome, leaving Justin a note apologizing for disrupting his life with the truth about Phillip. 

Unless my memory is COMPLETELY off, what I remember is that Jackie was taking her Christmas decorations down (so around January '80) when she fell and hit her head. While she was in the hospital and out of it, Justin heard her mumbling the truth about Phillip's parentage.

It's almost the very first thing Marland did when he took over. He probably did it for two reasons: to accelerate the story and to have a reason to write Pickett out for a few months.

Those missing 1980 episodes had a lot of things going on. Justin finding out about Phillip and Mike and Elizabeth's affair, their divorce, Alan and Hope's wedding, Mike going all-out Javert investigating Alan's connection to Roger.

Justin and Jackie must have remarried very soon after Pickett's brief return because by the time Mowery takes over the role in summer of 1980, she and Justin are married. Have to assume Elizabeth and Justin got a quickie Caribbean divorce or something. 

Pretty much all we have now from the first half of 1980 is the downfall of Roger. I don't think Marland just wanted to be done with it--didn't Zaslow want to leave? Anyway, he did a great job with it, he definitely deserves a lot of credit. It won the show the Emmy, it's very memorable stuff, and it's very much part of GL's classic past. 

1 hour ago, Soaplovers said:

And there were some rumors the actress that played Rita felt the same way (but again, I wish more 1980 and 1981 episodes would surface to review). 

Lenore was on maternity leave for much of the first half of 1980. When she came back, they had Rita reconcile with Ed while setting up the affair with Alan. (Which is something else we're missing, dammit. I believe that would have been during the February 1981 sweeps). 

I am convinced that Marland had a big story planned around Rita/Alan/Hope. The soap mags were promoting the heck out of it. IIRC, there was even an article in TV Guide about it.

The story going around at the time was that Lenore and her husband (who is also an actor--he played the pilot of Alan and Hope's plane that crashed) wanted to go to Hollywood. Maybe she was unhappy, but all the signs were that she was going to get a very big storyline, so who knows.

Marland had Rita disappear, implying she was hiding a pregnancy and setting up a return later where she would blow up Ed's and Hope's lives at some point in the future. Of course, this never happened, although a Rita return was teased much later, I think around 1987. 

It’s ironic to compare modern leads like Jason Quartermaine or Brady Black; both scripted as slightly older than Alan, Jackie, Justin, and Elizabeth.  Their lives feel so much less sophisticated, less glamorous. No Caribbean divorces. No candlelit dinners in private clubs. The texture of their world is oddly drab by comparison.

9 minutes ago, j swift said:

It’s ironic to compare modern leads like Jason Quartermaine or Brady Black; both scripted as slightly older than Alan, Jackie, Justin, and Elizabeth.  Their lives feel so much less sophisticated, less glamorous. No Caribbean divorces. No candlelit dinners in private clubs. The texture of their world is oddly drab by comparison.

I think that had to do with the 80s, and also that soaps had a lot more money back then. 

Two things that always strike me when I go from watching a soap today to these old episodes is:

1. How many more extras and what I think they called "under fivers" (people with less than five lines of dialogue) there are in the old episodes. They often had CROWDS of people in scenes. Now, even in a restaurant scene or a party scene, the number of extras is much, much smaller.

2. How many more large parties with almost the entire cast participating in wildly fancy clothes. (Even the "poor" characters got glamed up, lol). It seems like during the mid to late 80s GL had a big do at the country club almost once a month!