2 hours ago, Spoon said:

Best Headwriter or EP that never worked at GL that you wish that they'd got a shot?

I was also going to say Sam Hall and Gordon Russell (though Russell died relatively young in 1981). They didn't just do Dark Shadows, they wrote OLTL during the 70s--that was a golden period for that show, I was just talking about it in the Iconic Soap Moments topic. I think they would have done well on GL, if Russell had lived longer.

Henry Slesar did not just write for EON, he also wrote for SFT and Somerset. He wasn't just good at writing mystery stories; my mom and I practically swooned over Adam and Nicole's love story on EON and he wrote some really interesting, complex characters. I could see him writing GL.

Then there's Harding Lemay, who I think wrote for GL for a while but not as HW. I don't know what the deal with him was; once he left AW he never was quite as good again. But maybe he could have got back some of his mojo writing GL.

EPs, I'm having a problem coming up with someone--if I didn't have 20/20 hindsight, I'd have thought that Rauch would have been a good EP because I loved AW when he ran it during the 1970s. I had no idea back then what a you-know-what he was.

What I wish more than anything is that Kobe had never been EP. I wish that Pat Falken Smith had been given a fair shot after Marland left. Unfotunately, Allen Potter had retired; I wish he had stuck around longer, too.

40 minutes ago, SoapDope78 said:

Lynn Deerfield did a week of Match Game in Sep 1976.

Thanks, I found it! That's very much how I remember her. I started watching shortly before she left the show. She had that short bob hairstyle (most GL promo stuff shows her with long hair).

She married news anchor Bill Beutel. I remember him very well because I grew up in New York and he worked on one of the local stations for many years. I guess she quit acting.

That "handsy-kissy" stuff was unfortunately extremely common on game shows back in the 1970s. Dawson was even "famous" for it.

12 hours ago, Spoon said:

Best Headwriter or EP that never worked at GL that you wish that they'd got a shot?

Wendy Riche or Linda Gottlieb as EP.

Michael Malone.

I liked Susan Bedsow-Horgan both as a writer and as an EP.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Sapounopera

9 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Thanks, I found it! That's very much how I remember her. I started watching shortly before she left the show. She had that short bob hairstyle (most GL promo stuff shows her with long hair).

She married news anchor Bill Beutel. I remember him very well because I grew up in New York and he worked on one of the local stations for many years. I guess she quit acting.

That "handsy-kissy" stuff was unfortunately extremely common on game shows back in the 1970s. Dawson was even "famous" for it.

Yes, I remember Richard Dawson kissing all the women/girls on Family Feud. In the 70's/80's men thought women found it flattering for them to come onto them.

According to info on Bill Beutel he was married before Lynn and had 4 children. He and Lynn married in 1975 and must have been over by 1976. In 1977 he had remarried briefly for a third time for few months before divorcing again the same year. He remarried again for a fourth time in 1980 and was married to that wife till his death in 2006. He was 20 years older than Lynn when they were married.

Was Roger's mother ever referred to as being deceased ? If not she could have been brought on canvas at some point.

There are a lot of characters from the late 60's and early 70's that could have been revived or children of those characters. Like Janet and Ken Norris daughter Emily.

16 hours ago, DeeVee said:

What I wish more than anything is that Kobe had never been EP.

Which EP do you think caused more long-term damage, Kobe or JFP?

56 minutes ago, SoapDope78 said:

Was Roger's mother ever referred to as being deceased ?

Since Roger lived with Adam and Barbara when he was a teen, I always assumed his mother was dead.

I can't recall anyone mentioning his mother.

28 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Which EP do you think caused more long-term damage, Kobe or JFP?

It's Kobe. She decimated the Bauers, along will almost every character created by the Dobsons and Marland. Even though they had that shot in the arm for a couple of years (which, honestly, I think anyone could have accomplished because Marland got too caught up in his pet storylines at the end) over the long term it caused a lot of problems.

Killing Maureen was definitely an idiot decision, maybe we would have gotten better Alan and Alex recasts with a different EP, but compared to dumping most of the Bauers, Reardons, and Marlers, it was not nearly as bad.

I often find that being a good head-writer doesn't automatically mean you'll be like that on every soap.

Wendy Riche I could see being a good EP for GL because she would have focused on the emotion and idealism about finding your own individual light.

In terms of head-writer, it would need to be a head-writer that could specialize in gothic overtones that got established back in the Dobson era (and possibly earlier), and continued on through the Curlee era of the early 90s. Perhaps, Agnes Nixon could have come back to right the ship and trained someone on the writing team to step up to continue that tone.

34 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

It's Kobe. She decimated the Bauers, along will almost every character created by the Dobsons and Marland. Even though they had that shot in the arm for a couple of years (which, honestly, I think anyone could have accomplished because Marland got too caught up in his pet storylines at the end) over the long term it caused a lot of problems.

Killing Maureen was definitely an idiot decision, maybe we would have gotten better Alan and Alex recasts with a different EP, but compared to dumping most of the Bauers, Reardons, and Marlers, it was not nearly as bad.

Kobe and JFP both got the ratings up initially but eventually caused long-term damage. I say Kobe gets more of a pass than JFP because Kobe set in motion characters and storylines that carried GL through its final 25 years whereas JFP decisions lead to GL limping along in its final 15 years.

3 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Kobe set in motion characters and storylines that carried GL through its final 25 years

That was Long and Ryder, who created the expanded Lewis family and Reva. Kobe insisted they write out a lot characters, but when it comes to creating characters, IMO, the writers get credit for that. Maybe Alex was created because Kobe (or the network) were able to get Bev to sign on. But, still, it was the writers who made her memorable.

40 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

I often find that being a good head-writer doesn't automatically mean you'll be like that on every soap.

This is very true. I'm sure some will disagree with me, because they loved the show, but I couldn't stand Santa Barbara when the Dobsons wrote it. Claire Labine is someone who was spotty from show to show. Like I said before, Harding Lemay never hit the heights he had with AW.

42 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

Wendy Riche I could see being a good EP for GL because she would have focused on the emotion and idealism about finding your own individual light.

She could have saved GL, but she was too busy saving GH.