28 minutes ago, SoapDope78 said:

Mart appears in swim trunks in this 1979 episode with Rita. I noticed this aired August 24.

He looks fine!

The thing that offends me about Ed in this episode is that hideous yellow suit.

The 70s....sigh. My dad had suits in pastel colors, too. My mother hated them.

Ι remember an episode with Ed and Kelly crying together, it looked as though they were breaking up.

It seemed to me that someone had a lot of fun with the scene for a specific audience, knowing that the others would not even suspect what was implied.

Edited Wednesday at 06:56 AM2 days by Sapounopera

I looked it up, and it was not even mentioned on IMDB, but it was the real Ellen Foley. It was one day, maybe just one scene, of her playing Hope on the phone. About Alan-Michael.

I was watching with a group of other people my own age who knew her from her collaboration with Meatloaf and her own single, Young Lust, so there was no mistake. We were all shocked, even exstatically hopeful that she would take the role... and there was the announcement "the role of Hope Bauer is being played by Ellen Foley" or we might not have even processed it was her. I knew her from radio but not her broadway past. Certainly not by appearance but my friends who knew better confirmed it.

It must have been just prior to her time on Night Court. By then I knew it was the same person.

Sorry I should have tagged several other posters.

Rough week

1 minute ago, Stevel said:

I looked it up, and it was not even mentioned on IMDB, but it was the real Ellen Foley. It was one day, maybe just one scene, of her playing Hope on the phone. About Alan-Michael.

According to Wikipedia Foley appeared on Night Court during the 1984 - 1985 season. Elvera left GL late November 1983.

Do you remember who she was talking to? Was it her father or Alan?

The last scene of Elvera as Hope that's been available to see is the one where she talks about the divorce with Alan and tells him off, then leaves. That seems to be her last scene, but I've wondered for a while now if she did any scenes after where she tells people she's moving to New York. I don't remember that from watching the show during it's original run.

If Elvera had already left and they wanted to explain what she was going to do next, then hiring someone briefly to explain it would have made sense.

Ellen Foley also appeared on OLTL.

Lucy Ferri Ritenburg was a huge part of GL's first two decades. She finished up in 1974.I hope she enjoyed her retirement. I wonder if she kept watching or made a clean break?

THE DAILY NEWS, TARRYTOWN, NY, UKDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. I967

NEW YORK-Lucy Rittenberg is one of the most unlikely looking and best qualified television producers you will ever come across. For the past 17 years, Lucy has been associated with the daytime drama, The Guiding Light, beginning as a production assistant. Today she is executive producer. The spry and slender Mrs. Rittenberg looks quite like a healthy young sapling. And one can almost see her being buffeted by the variety of windy problems that blow daily through the world of soap operas. "Oh yes, you have to have a certain resiliency to stay in this business," Lucy admitted. " I know many people, producers and directors mainly, who can succeed with other types of shows, even the best, but would crumble here. "Most are rock hard and demanding like any good executive. But you can't be like that in daytime dramas."

Lucy again reminded us of the sapling who takes the wind and bounces back while the staunch old oak is uprooted and blown into the sea. "People have often asked me what the secret of the daytime dramas is: what makes the audience relate so much to the actors and the situations. If there is a good answer to that, it must be an all encompassing one. "I hate to say that our whole production crew is like a big family. It's so corny and trite, but there is no other way to say it. And it is that that makes the show. And any other show like this one. "If you don't have a well knit, completely coordinated an d smooth running machine to put on a 15-minute or half-hour show every single day, you are never going to be successful. Not because you won't get a show on the air. "Anybody can get a show on. But getting one that will hold the audience is the trick. It is a total effort from scenic design ers to script writers and carpenters to cameramen."

Mrs. Rittenberg knows what she is talking about and she learned It the hard way. She came to New York to become an actress and like the thousands of other bright-eyed and disappointed youngsters, wound up a secretary instead. Fortunately, she was gal Friday to a lady radio producer who introduced her into the wonder world of the soap operas. "I've seen all kinds of changes," she admitted, "right from the radio-TV transition, to the introduction of tape and now into color. "And I've lived through every joy and tragedy known to the human race and a few unknown . . . not only in the story lines, but in the lives of all the people in the crew with whom you must be on close, even intimate grounds. "And sometimes when the 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. grind, five-daysa-week, starts to eat me up. I wonder what I'm doing In this crazy business. "But that lasts for about five seconds. The thought of being in any other business scares me stiff. I love this. I really do."

Apparently she appeared on AMC as well. Missed that.

I think she was talking to her father Mike Bauer, or maybe even Bert. I think it must have been very shortly before her time on Night Court. Even that came as a surprise.

When I try to picture it I think of that Lecy actress from Roseanne etc. My friends were much more familiar with her pedigree than I was. I hadn't known of her Broadway past and had trouble believing she was the same Ellen Foley as the singer of "Young Lust"

I wonder if it was a bit of stunt casting, or just a friend at GL who needed a favour.

I absolutely remember the typical recast announcement and thought it was just some actress with the same name, but my friends were all "that's really her!"

1 hour ago, Stevel said:

I wonder if it was a bit of stunt casting, or just a friend at GL who needed a favour.

Apparently, she also briefly appeared on SFT and EON.

I would like to believe that when Elvera's contract ran out and they realized they hadn't given a reason for why she was no longer around, they asked her to do a few more episodes off contract and she told them to stuff it. Necessitating hiring someone to plug in a scene explaining where she was.

Come to think of it, it's super-odd that they spent something like five months blowing up Alan and Hope's marriage so they could boot her off the show, and then forgot to write a scene or two explaining why she was no longer in SF.

So I was looking around for more information about Foley and ran into what was a "fictional" interview with Julia Barr (Brooke, AMC) where it says she was being hired to play Hope Bauer in 2007.

I think this is supposed to be promoting fanfic, but at the moment I can't find it (people in the comments took it seriously).

Julia would have been a phenomenal Hope. Too bad it wasn't for real. Anyway, here it is:

Edited yesterday at 03:24 AM1 day by DeeVee

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Ellen Foley also appeared on OLTL.

Lucy Ferri Ritenburg was a huge part of GL's first two decades. She finished up in 1974.I hope she enjoyed her retirement. I wonder if she kept watching or made a clean break?

THE DAILY NEWS, TARRYTOWN, NY, UKDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. I967

NEW YORK-Lucy Rittenberg is one of the most unlikely looking and best qualified television producers you will ever come across. For the past 17 years, Lucy has been associated with the daytime drama, The Guiding Light, beginning as a production assistant. Today she is executive producer. The spry and slender Mrs. Rittenberg looks quite like a healthy young sapling. And one can almost see her being buffeted by the variety of windy problems that blow daily through the world of soap operas. "Oh yes, you have to have a certain resiliency to stay in this business," Lucy admitted. " I know many people, producers and directors mainly, who can succeed with other types of shows, even the best, but would crumble here. "Most are rock hard and demanding like any good executive. But you can't be like that in daytime dramas."

Lucy again reminded us of the sapling who takes the wind and bounces back while the staunch old oak is uprooted and blown into the sea. "People have often asked me what the secret of the daytime dramas is: what makes the audience relate so much to the actors and the situations. If there is a good answer to that, it must be an all encompassing one. "I hate to say that our whole production crew is like a big family. It's so corny and trite, but there is no other way to say it. And it is that that makes the show. And any other show like this one. "If you don't have a well knit, completely coordinated an d smooth running machine to put on a 15-minute or half-hour show every single day, you are never going to be successful. Not because you won't get a show on the air. "Anybody can get a show on. But getting one that will hold the audience is the trick. It is a total effort from scenic design ers to script writers and carpenters to cameramen."

Mrs. Rittenberg knows what she is talking about and she learned It the hard way. She came to New York to become an actress and like the thousands of other bright-eyed and disappointed youngsters, wound up a secretary instead. Fortunately, she was gal Friday to a lady radio producer who introduced her into the wonder world of the soap operas. "I've seen all kinds of changes," she admitted, "right from the radio-TV transition, to the introduction of tape and now into color. "And I've lived through every joy and tragedy known to the human race and a few unknown . . . not only in the story lines, but in the lives of all the people in the crew with whom you must be on close, even intimate grounds. "And sometimes when the 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. grind, five-daysa-week, starts to eat me up. I wonder what I'm doing In this crazy business. "But that lasts for about five seconds. The thought of being in any other business scares me stiff. I love this. I really do."

Thanks. This is a refreshing interview compared to the egomania of many producer interviews.

I spent some time on the German channel. I am obsessed now with finding the Foley episode.

I did not find it. 😟

But I did find one thing--Hope leaving town was mentioned. Mike ran into Alan at the country club. The translation thing on YT is trash, but what I could gather is that Mike mentioned Hope was offered a job with a designer in NYC and Alan was threatening legal action because of Alan Michael.

It didn't get mentioned again because during this period Alan was busy framing Ross with a prostitute to wreck his run for D.A., looking for Phillip who had run off with Beth, bringing Reva to town so she could wreck Billy's engagement to Vanessa, getting involved with the Dreaming Death research...he was stirring almost every pot in town. While I didn't love every storyline, that is how Alan should have always been used.

Something that I also noticed is that Don Stewart was hardly around late in 1983. I think he was in like three or four episodes over November and December. That should have been a big red flag and it's not shocking he was out for good later in 1984.

Since Julia Barr was mentioned in thread, her daughter Allison Hirschlag played a teenage Lizzie from 2002-2003, after Mackenzie Mauzy and before Crystal Hunt. I might add, I thought she was pretty good in what scenes she had.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Spoon

On 5/12/2026 at 8:33 AM, P.J. said:

It's not other shows were stacked with matinee idols running around in swimming trunks. Other than maybe Y&R.

On 5/12/2026 at 1:45 PM, Soaplovers said:

The late 1970s was the start of focusing on the looks of an actor/actress over talent.

On 5/12/2026 at 3:06 PM, DeeVee said:

Definitely a reaction to the success of the early years of Y&R. They had young, beautiful people strutting around in bathing suits and underwear A LOT.

I once read that the difference between New York soaps and Los Angeles soaps was that the New York soaps were all about the theater and the Los Angeles soaps were all about the looks. When you factor in what we saw onscreen in the 1980s, I don't know how true that is though.

THE JOURNAL-NEWS, SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1975

Soap opera heroines fill gaps by Tom Donelly

WASHINGTON-It isn’t every day you can talk to a soap opera heroine in the flesh and when two such heroines come to town for interviews, the chance to clear up various little mysteries is not to be missed. After all, even the most ardent soap opera freak is bound to miss a crucial episode now and then. Lynne Adams and Fran Myers, who play Leslie Bauer and Peggy Fletcher on ‘The Guiding Light” weekdays on CBS were most obliging about supplying answers to nagging questions.

The most baffling single episode I've ever seen on a soap opera took place some time ago on “The Guiding Light.” We zoomed in on a London telephone booth containing Leslie Bauer. Leslie rang up her mother, an enigmatic lady named Victoria Ballenger, and said: ‘‘Hi Mom! I'm in town unexpectedly, and I’m coming right over to your flat.” Or words to that effect. Whereupon Mrs. Ballenger, looking upset in the extreme, turned to the distinguished gray-haired gentleman seated beside her and told him that she couldn’t explain why, but a woman was going to turn up in a few minutes and pretend to be Mrs Ballenger’s daughter, and the gray-haired man should pretend to be a clerk who worked in Mrs. Ballenger’s boutique. Whereupon the man leaped up, announced that Mrs. Ballenger was obviously trying to drive him crazy, and raced for the door, vowing that he was going to take a taxi back to the sanitarium, where he wouldn’t be subjected to such vile and incomprehensible games. ‘‘I can’t explain! But trust me!” shouted Mrs. Ballenger. ‘‘I have a reason!

Now what was that all about? Miss Adams said: ‘‘Well, you see Victoria Ballenger was a really terrible phony. She ran out on my father, Dr. Stephen Jackson, and me when I was a baby, and then years later she turned up pretending she was full of maternal feelings. But what she was after was money to pay for psychiatric treatments for her lover — the man who was in her flat with her. He was on leave from a mental institution. “So I had a big crying scene when I found out she didn’t really love me all that much, and she turned on me and said: ‘You think I’ve been lying to you! Well, your father has been lying to you! He’s not your father!’ So for a few weeks I was terribly upset and wouldn’t talk to him, but then I realized the man who brings you up and takes care of you is your real father even if he isn’t your blood father. You know, like in ‘Silas Mamer.’ The viewers wouldn’t know Dr. Jackson isn’t my actual fatner it they missed a few episodes. We go on the way we’ve always gone on.” See? Naturally a woman who has a lover in the booby hatch wouldn’t want him to know she was raising the money for his cure by telling fibs.

‘‘The Guiding Light” began on radio in 1937 and switched to televison on June 30, 1952. Miss Adams started playing Leslie in 1966 and Miss Myers signed on as Peggy a year earlier.

Although the bloom of youth is bright upon them - MissAdams in 28, Miss Myers is 24, these women have suffered, professionally speaking, more agony than Bette Davis and Joan Crawford collectively endured in all their years in Hollywood. During the course of the interview, I kept calling Miss Myers “Peggy” because, off and on, I’ve watched her grow from a 15-year-old boarding school innocent to a woman on trial for the murder of her first husband to a somewhat older woman whose second husband seems to have disappeared into thin air. Miss Myers said:“The writers just felt he was expendable, I guess. We’re never told why they get rid of somebody. I mean, when it happens all of a sudden like that.” Whatever became of Bill Bauer, the first character in a TV serial to have a heart transplant? Peggy, I mean Fran Myers, said: “He was reported missing after a plane crash in Alaska five years ago. But he might turn up one day.

Miss Adams said: “There’s lots more suspense in soap opera than there is in primetime television. You know Mary Tyler Moore isn’t going to drop dead on Saturday night, and whereas a series hero may be in great peril between 9 and 10 p.m. you know he'll come out of it. But you can’t ever be sure when a soap opera character will be snuffed out.” The soaps are plotted a year in advance, Miss Myers said. But changes are constantly being made, sometimes drastic ones. “The writers often get us involved in a story that looks terrific on paper,” Miss Adams said. “But when I left ‘The Guiding Light’ to play in ‘The Secret Storm’ a couple of years, nobody seemed to mind. I must say I didn’t like the story line on ‘Storm’ at all. I’m married and I think I’m pregnant but by the time I find it’s a false alarm my husband has become paralyzed. He’s living for the birth of our child, so I decide to have one by artificial insemination. And, can you believe it? The doctor who takes care of me is in love with me so he acts as the donor. ” ‘‘Such a romantic gesture,” said Miss Myers. “The whole idea was so icky I really didn’t want to do it,” Miss Adams said. “But you have no choice.”

The two heroines got into a slight argument about how the characters they play on “The Guiding Light” feel about another character, apparently a most irresponsible type “Nobody really blamed her for letting the child catch fire,” Miss Myers said. “I blamed her,” said Miss Adams. “I most certainly did blame her. At first, anyway.” Miss Myers said: “Here we go again. We iust naturally get to talking that wav.” Miss Adams said: “We were in a cab and Fran was saying, Do you think I murdered him?’ I said, ‘I’m not sure.’ And Fran said, ‘Well, he did get me pregnant. We suddenly realized the cab driver was getting more and more nervous, so we put his mind at rest. We’re always wondering out loud whether the characters we play have really done this or that. The producers seem to feel it would spoil the effect if we knew in advance. Laurence Olivier does all right, even though he’s read the third act. But then, he’s Olivier.”