10 hours ago, P.J. said:

There always should've been room for Hope on the canvas. Especially after Maureen died. She should've stepped in as the next Bauer matriarch. The aging of Alan Michael never was a barrier to that, as others have mentioned, actors playing parents/children haven't always been a generation apart. Successive writing regimes either weren't interested or didn't see the need.

I'm less convinced when it comes to Elizabeth Spaulding. The woman was dull as dishwater.

I say if Elizabeth had returned they would have recast. I doubt Lezlie Dalton would have returned after she was pretty much shown the door by Marland.

I saw that Dalton had a role on SFT in 1982. Are there any episodes from her time there available?

Dalton was Steve Kendall’s sports agent on “Search for Tomorrow” in May, 1983. I believe the episodes are online

2 hours ago, dc11786 said:

Dalton was Steve Kendall’s sports agent on “Search for Tomorrow” in May, 1983. I believe the episodes are online

I did a quick search and it seems there are no episodes listed for May 1983.

13 hours ago, P.J. said:

I'm less convinced when it comes to Elizabeth Spaulding. The woman was dull as dishwater.

That may be, but she was an important player in the Phillip storyline. It makes me SO mad that Marland totally dropped the ball on that storyline. I would have preferred he had it come out soon after taking over so we could get scenes of everyone giving Alan and Jackie hell for the garbage they pulled. Instead of killing off Jackie, he should have killed off Elizabeth. Then it would have somewhat made sense that Phillip was raised by Justin and Jackie. But not before this storyline was resolved.

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Life is not all suds for writer of soap operas By LYNDA HIRSCH

LOTS of interesting info in this article!

First thing: I thought Allen Potter retired right after GL. I thought that was the reason he left. I did not know he had been moved to AW.

So they went around telling everyone the new producer wouldn't change things too much, everyone was safe, and within a year the writers and half the cast had been fired.

(There's a saying about the entertainment industry, that they will "kill you with kindness." It's not at all unusual to have everyone tell you you're doing fantastic and then get fired the next day).

I'm trying to figure out the timeline for PFS and Browne. If she was fired at the 13 week mark in mid February, that means she started mid November. So that means PFS started mid August. Then you have to take into consideration that shows tape ahead of time. Was it only 3 weeks back then? Because on YT I found an episode dated March 4, 1983 that credited the Cullitons as headwriters.

Wasn't there also a brief writers strike Spring 83? I seem to remember that scabs were blamed for the goofy Rebecca/Mona storyline and how it resolved.

Here's another thing...I didn't realize Kobe had been hired almost right off of Texas' final episode. I watched the last few when they broadcast them, so that seems right, it ended with the holidays, Christmas and New Years. So basically, they decided to work out whatever was left of her contract by dropping her into GL. They could have sent her to a different one, but I guess the chaos after Potter and Marland fell out and Marland left made that the logical decision as far as P&G was concerned.

A shame that they never gave Browne another chance at headwriting a soap.

@SoapDope78 I found one! Lezlie starts at about 3:07.

VERY different from Elizabeth and she doesn't have breathy, affected accent that she used when she played her, either.

She might not have gotten another chance at being a head-writer, but she wrote a few tv movies (3 of which were Danielle Stelle adaptations), plus a primetime mini series that had potential.. but was put in a bad time slot.

29 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

@SoapDope78 I found one! Lezlie starts at about 3:07.

VERY different from Elizabeth and she doesn't have breathy, affected accent that she used when she played her, either.

Thanks for finding that. Yes she is very different from the way she acted on GL. I can picture her coming back to GL and looking and playing a stronger and more independent Elizabeth the way she is here.

I wonder why SFT didn't keep her on ? Maybe she just agreed to a short term since she seems to like being more of a theatre actress than doing TV. She was on Dean Martin's show back in the late 60's/early 70's as one of the Golddiggers troupe. Cathy Lee Crosby and Lee Crawford (Sally on Y&R) were also in the that troupe at one point.

1 hour ago, DeeVee said:

That may be, but she was an important player in the Phillip storyline. It makes me SO mad that Marland totally dropped the ball on that storyline. I would have preferred he had it come out soon after taking over so we could get scenes of everyone giving Alan and Jackie hell for the garbage they pulled. Instead of killing off Jackie, he should have killed off Elizabeth. Then it would have somewhat made sense that Phillip was raised by Justin and Jackie. But not before this storyline was resolved.

Here's another thing...I didn't realize Kobe had been hired almost right off of Texas' final episode. I watched the last few when they broadcast them, so that seems right, it ended with the holidays, Christmas and New Years. So basically, they decided to work out whatever was left of her contract by dropping her into GL. They could have sent her to a different one, but I guess the chaos after Potter and Marland fell out and Marland left made that the logical decision as far as P&G was concerned.

A shame that they never gave Browne another chance at headwriting a soap.

More important than Jackie or Justin, who were also canned? Yes, Elizabeth's absence is a gaping hole, and she could've returned at a couple of points to really impact Phillip's story. But not with Dalton. (I don't know who obviously directed her to be soft and wishy washy, and with that voice, but it was a very strange)

Re Kobe---it seems really odd to bring the team (Kobe/Long) from the show that just got canned to what's arguably your crown jewel at the time.

Years later, Browne would tell the Another World Home Page that she had raised GL's ratings by taking the show from eighth to third place. She also claimed that she continued to be credited as head writer for another nine months, which isn't true. Her name was removed from the credits by March 1983. Per what she told the Another World Home Page, Ken Fitts was the executive mentioned in Hirsch's article.

As I recollect, Falken Smith's work began airing in late September/early October 1982 and Browne and Palumbo's material started in late November/early December. I don't recall there being a writer's strike in 1983. The Cullitons, later with Gary Tomlin, were credited as head writers after Browne was fired. They were responsible for the conclusion of Rebecca's story. I think they also introduced Martin Bruner and Annabelle Sims. I seem to recall that Annabelle arrived in April 1983.

40 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Re Kobe---it seems really odd to bring the team (Kobe/Long) from the show that just got canned to what's arguably your crown jewel at the time.

SERIOUSLY. I don't know who would have been available to produce the show at the time. As for writers, probably the thing to do was try to get the Dobsons back, but I'm pretty sure they were at ATWT during this period, and then they would have left anyway to do SB.

I've never understood hiring people who have killed off shows. Maybe they felt that because Texas was a newish show that never found its audience it wasn't the same. But soaps have always been pretty incestous, they just keep rotating the same people from show to show.

42 minutes ago, robbwolff said:

I don't recall there being a writer's strike in 1983.

Stupid AI. (I didn't realize it was AI, it can be SNEAKY). One says there was one, then another said no. Finally got to the WGA site which does not list one for that year.

Oh, you mean they can't blame that awful ending of the Rebecca/Mark Evans story on scabs? YIKES.