13 hours ago, P.J. said:

Peter Simon returns with, dare I say, such emotion. It's some asinine plot about Alan going after Rick after Phillip was shot, and wants to make sure Rick doesn't get his medical license.

I always preferred MH as Ed, as he was on when I was a kid, watching and waiting for Match Game 76 to come on..but with Parker as Mo, I can see how Simon works better, as he is more volatile and emotional, where she is the calming influence. His work post Mo kicking it is so lethargic, and he is just there...I dont think the writers knew what the hell to do with him without Mo...the only option was for him to be completely unglued and start drinking and Rick stabilizes him (adult Rick never worked as a romantic interest or having drama, he too was good as a stabilizer a role too often looked over for more OT characters. )or Mike comes back to take over as the patriarch.

Alan's return was also a good time to liven up Ed, and have him go against him at the hospital ( I would have Hope caught in the middle) which they tried to do with this but it was just so stupid.

 

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

I always preferred MH as Ed, as he was on when I was a kid, watching and waiting for Match Game 76 to come on..but with Parker as Mo, I can see how Simon works better, as he is more volatile and emotional, where she is the calming influence. His work post Mo kicking it is so lethargic, and he is just there...I dont think the writers knew what the hell to do with him without Mo...the only option was for him to be completely unglued and start drinking and Rick stabilizes him (adult Rick never worked as a romantic interest or having drama, he too was good as a stabilizer a role too often looked over for more OT characters. )or Mike comes back to take over as the patriarch.

Alan's return was also a good time to liven up Ed, and have him go against him at the hospital ( I would have Hope caught in the middle) which they tried to do with this but it was just so stupid.

 

I remember Mart too from childhood---but not really any storylines. From reading the recaps, he seems to be a bit of a mess, always hung up on the previous woman in his life.

12 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I remember Mart too from childhood---but not really any storylines. From reading the recaps, he seems to be a bit of a mess, always hung up on the previous woman in his life.

Well, that's not Mart's fault. 😂

I would call Ed from that era "oblivious." Never caught on fast enough, whether it was Holly cheating, Rita pursuing him, Holly realizing she loved him, not satisfying Rita, Rita cheating with both the non-entity doctor and later Alan, Vanessa lying her ass off to him, etc., etc., etc.

I have to say, at the time, I wasn't Mart's biggest fan. But in retrospect, he gave Ed a likability that definitely was missing in later years.

Edited June 13Jun 13 by DeeVee

5 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Well, that's not Mart's fault. 😂

I would call Ed from that era "oblivious." Never caught on fast enough, whether it was Holly cheating, Rita pursuing him, Holly realizing she loved him, not satisfying Rita, Rita cheating with both the non-entity doctor and later Alan, Vanessa lying her ass off to him, etc., etc., etc.

I have to say at the time, I wasn't Mart's biggest fan. But in retrospect, he gave Ed a likability that definitely was missing in later years.

LOL...true, true. It's just odd to me--even though I watched Simon on and off for nearly 30 years, he's not as comforting a presence to me as Mart is on rewatch (what little there is.)

SO, I just watched an episode from August 1986 that I had inadvertently skipped because it was mixed in with May episodes, and found it very, very interesting:

Johnny Bauer is telling the camp kids a "San Rios legend" (ugh, the camp story is such a yawn). About some mythical woman called The Encantadora (the enchantress).

It's SUPER obvious this is meant to be the story of what happened to Alan in San Rios--that he was found almost dead in the jungle by a beautiful woman who cured him. There's an episode that I've seen elsewhere where Alan is commiserating with Phillip over Beth's "death" and it's clear he's referring to this woman, too.

Then I skip over to episodes from October 1986 and... there's ANOTHER HW change. They dropped whatever was being set up here. Those two years he was missing were left mostly a mystery. I seem to remember some local someone named Tito who was out to get him for a while, but that was it.

I wonder--was this story possibly repurposed as the Sonni story for Josh? Beautiful, exotic, mysterious woman who wreaks havoc with his life?

We'll never know where this was going, but interesting to speculate. 

Edited June 13Jun 13 by DeeVee

1 hour ago, DeeVee said:

SO, I just watched an episode from August 1986 that I had inadvertently skipped because it was mixed in with May episodes, and found it very, very interesting:

Johnny Bauer is telling the camp kids a "San Rios legend" (ugh, the camp story is such a yawn). About some mythical woman called The Encantadora (the enchantress).

It's SUPER obvious this is meant to be the story of what happened to Alan in San Rios--that he was found almost dead in the jungle by a beautiful woman who cured him. There's an episode that I've seen elsewhere where Alan is commiserating with Phillip over Beth's "death" and it's clear he's referring to this woman, too.

Then I skip over to episodes from October 1986 and... there's ANOTHER HW change. They dropped whatever was being set up here. Those two years he was missing were left mostly a mystery. I seem to remember some local someone named Tito who was out to get him for a while, but that was it.

I wonder--was this story possibly repurposed as the Sonni story for Josh? Beautiful, exotic, mysterious woman who wreaks havoc with his life?

We'll never know where this was going, but interesting to speculate. 

Oh God..the Encantadora...I thought Marland was ghost writing simply because they kept saying that name over and over..and the summer camp and the lake monster..though we do get shots of Kimmer on location snorkling (because of course, she is Reva...) at the height of her hotness..there you could see every man in town chasing her (40 year old her no...) We do get to see good old Encanta in a flashback...she drops a rock on a snake about to bite knocked out Alan..and doesnt she help Alex, when she is held hostage by that cheesy guerrilla eneny of Alan's? I love that they have her making her escape back to Johnny Bauer's plane by stealing a bike, though Bev was spared having to film that.

I always thought that Poser should have been a daughter Alan had or adopted by Encanta (no need to see her or say the name over and over again...) Poser looked exotic enough and it would have saved us all the people bitching about seeing dull Kathleen Cullen back. Maybe they never recast Hope cause people would bitch about bringing dull ER back!

2 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I have to say, at the time, I wasn't Mart's biggest fan. But in retrospect, he gave Ed a likability that definitely was missing in later years.

I could see Mart as MOL's dad also.. I think he and Parker would make a great..normal looking tentpole couple...(which means JFP would have driven them both off that cliff.)

More chapter summaries of Kim's book:

Chapter 5 - she talks about her early days at Guiding Light. She said Reva was probably a little too hard to take in the beginning because she played her larger than life. Kim and Pam Long had such a love/hate relationship and both felt like they were part of Reva, so when they disagreed about the writing/portrayal of Reva, they would really get into it until they both saw each other’s sides and Kim would usually always then cave to what Pam wanted. Pam lived vicariously through Reva. She then talks about her friendship with Robert Newman and what a dream he’s been; they’re basically the most intimate relationship she’s ever had without being physical in the real world. They trusted each other and were so connected as scene partners. They spent nearly every day together for 2 straight years. They would sometimes get in fights, like true married couples, mostly about storylines or how they felt about their character’s reactions to things. Kim calls out the storyline where Reva is dying of cancer and Josh is ‘canoodling’ with Cassie. Kim hated it and Josh felt it was something his character would do and they got into a fight about it.

Because Reva was with so many men, she warned new actors that came onto GL that their character will be in love with Reva within a week. On set she would always say Reva has a golden pu$$y, and even sang that to the tune of the Willy Wonka song “I’ve got a golden ticket”. 😳😂

She talks about the set used in the 80s and how there was a party room where lots of things went on that you could only whisper about. Lots of experimentation because after all, it was the 80s. She didn’t name names, but said one of the younger actresses at the time got so wasted one night that she ended up getting duct taped to the outside of the office door. She actually admitted that she never saw that with her own eyes.

She talks about Chris Bernau - a real ballbuster. He scared lots of people because he was so focused on getting the job done right and moving on; he lived and breathed the character of Alan Spaulding. There was no laughter with him and others, but of course Kim says she got to make him laugh a lot and they gave each other sh!t. She thinks he might have gotten a bug on one of his exotic trips (he traveled a lot) and that’s what led to his early death.

She liked and admired Tina Sloan (Lillian) and her work, but they rarely shared scenes together. They were friends but total opposites in real life. Tina was a classic Upper East Side elitist, married to a very rich husband and she only likely worked because she enjoyed it, not because she had to. She insisted that Kim get a car and driver  vs. taking the bus to work once she moved to New Jersey, but Kim refused. She comes from a blue collar family who works hard, saves their money and didn’t want to be seen as a diva.

Large party or courtroom scenes were hard to shoot because they were 16-20 hour days with several contract/day-players involved. Courtroom scenes in particular were boring for them because they had to sit in pews the entire time, so they tried to make games out of it. She admired Jerry (Ross) for having the hardest job during those scenes, delivering 5-10 pages of dialogue alone in front of everyone.

Grant (Phillip) and Michael (Rick) shared a dressing room and it was known as Chez Phillipe, the party lounge. Grant made the best margaritas from scratch, but eventually it got shot down because too many actors showed up toasted on set.

During the last few years of GL, she admitted that she would drink 2-3 glasses of wine at lunch each day and then go back and shoot scenes. She called it self-medicating because she was fed up with pretty much everything, but wouldn’t give GL the satisfaction of quitting. She drank to make the days more tolerable. She made pals with the on-set crew and would talk sh!t about the executives, who could overhear her, but she didn’t care. Wow - now I want to go watch some of those episodes and see if I can tell haha.

Chapter 6 - she goes into the more standout actors she enjoyed and had the most privilege knowing or working with at GL:

1. Beverlee McKinsey (Alexandra) - Kim aspired to be just like her; unlike other actors, Kim was the only one where Beverlee forgot her lines a lot, so Kim asked if it’s something she’s doing and Beverelee said she just gets lost in her blue eyes and forgets where she is (hmm); underneath her wit and charm was a hurt and angry woman, and didn’t hold her tongue when she didn’t like creative decisions that were made; tells the story she was told about Beverlee’s mandated contract agreement to take the same month off each year, but in 1992, no one came to renegotiate with her, so when her month came, she took it and never came back to work - she had someone clean out her dressing room and that was it; Kim was very sad and upset with the Emmys for not doing a tribute to Beverlee when she died in 2008 and they left her out of the memorial tribute they do each year (wtf!).
2. Michael Zaslow (Roger) - apparently Zas was tired of playing Roger and wanted to make sure there was no possibility that his character could come back, so they had him die in 1980 by falling off a cliff and he insisted they show his battered and broken dead body so there was no doubt (ha - he returns 8 years later); a force to be reckoned with and took no sh!t from anyone; told it like it was and knew the character of Roger so well and fought hard for him; if a scene was written about Roger any less than who Michael thought he was, he’d throw a royal fit until it was fixed to his liking; talked about his ALS and she said it was shocking to her that GL didn’t renew his contract, leaving him sick AND without a job; fortunate that he still had friends at ABC that wrote for him on OLTL until he could no longer go on; his memorial was one of the most moving experiences of her life and she misses him terribly.
3. Vince Williams (Hampton) - one of the nicest and gentlest man she’s ever known, never said an unkind word about anyone; in 1990, at Kim’s going away party, he played “You Are So Beautiful” on his sax as a gift to her and it was one of the best gifts she’s ever received; she then said she never had a chance to work with him again, as he died from cancer shortly after she moved back to LA. This can’t be right though, as Hamp was on GL in 1995 during her return, granted she was in Goshen that entire year so they never had a scene together, but he was also in 5-6 episodes I’ve seen throughout 1996 as well. I guess they didn’t have a chance to run into each other if they never shared and scene and he was barely on, but he certainly didn’t pass while she wasn’t at GL.
4. Charita Bauer (Bert) - talks about losing her foot and how they wrote that into storyline (losing her leg) and would mentor Robert Newman when his character was in a car accident and became paralyzed (“old guard teaching the new regime”); Kim never worked with her, as she left GL the year before Kim started and soon passed a year later, but Robert told her so many stories of how great she was; a very salt of the earth person.

Another juicy mystery to solve: she then goes on to say soap casts are like family and sometimes there is a black sheep or troublemaker that doesn’t last. She talks about an actress that fell in love with every costar of hers, and those costars who were the object of her affection were all too happy to oblige. She fell in love with one costar while she was married, so divorced her husband to be with him and move in with him. That relationship didn’t last, so her next costar conquest, who was also married (and she already remarried to someone outside the soap business), got with her so she divorced her husband, the costar was planning to get out of his marriage but then got cold feet and never left his wife. Kim said this was the first time she knew her both unmarried and now single and she was scorned like no other. The actress was miserable on set, off set, everywhere she went; her presence on set was a dark energy until she eventually left the show, however Kim was secretly upset she left because the show suffered from the loss of her character.  Who could that be??

Chapter 7 - mostly about her husband, 3 kids and being pregnant while filming.  She mentioned bringing her son Max on set to take care of him, which Chris Bernau (Alan) despised. However one day, she caught Chris holding her baby and cooing at him in a sweet moment, and it made her see him in a completely different light. Kim also talked about some struggles she had with never being home with her husband during the long work weeks, or some weekends when they had to do press tours or mall visits with fans. She said she wishes she would have gone straight home after work sometimes vs. going out with Robert Newman while he was single in her first few years on GL. She even said it was fun to go out with her love interest and flirt in real life (uhh…you’re married, Kim haha). She said she never had sex with any of her costars/love interests in real life, but fell in love with being in love with them on-screen.

27 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

She thinks he might have gotten a bug on one of his exotic trips (he traveled a lot) and that’s what led to his early death.

Even as late as 2012, people were lying about the real reason Bernau died. 

And the show was OFF THE AIR by then!

Wow.

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

Oh God..the Encantadora...I thought Marland was ghost writing simply because they kept saying that name over and over..and the summer camp and the lake monster..though we do get shots of Kimmer on location snorkling (because of course, she is Reva...) at the height of her hotness..there you could see every man in town chasing her (40 year old her no...) We do get to see good old Encanta in a flashback...she drops a rock on a snake about to bite knocked out Alan..and doesnt she help Alex, when she is held hostage by that cheesy guerrilla eneny of Alan's? I love that they have her making her escape back to Johnny Bauer's plane by stealing a bike, though Bev was spared having to film that.

I had no idea any of this was dramatized. Was an actress ever shown as the character? (I'm not saying the name again, LOL). Or was it one of those things where you see her feet or only from the back or a shadow or something like that?

I'm guessing dropping that story was one of the better decisions TPTB made.

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

Maybe they never recast Hope cause people would bitch about bringing dull ER back!

I think someone with some backstage info said they would not have brought back Roussel if Hope had returned. 

I liked her, but I don't think that would have been a very difficult recast. Kasdorf, OTOH, would have been a challenge to replace.

1 hour ago, alwaysAMC said:

Charita Bauer (Bert) - talks about losing her foot and how they wrote that into storyline (losing her leg) and would mentor Robert Newman when his character was in a car accident and became paralyzed (“old guard teaching the new regime”); Kim never worked with her, as she left GL the year before Kim started and soon passed a year later, but Robert told her so many stories of how great she was; a very salt of the earth person.

Not true and what Kim wrote should tell her that...Bert helped Josh after his car crash and that was because he was so upset about...Reva! Kimmer has always been very complimentary about Charita and said she was the FORCE on the show and the set.

 

13 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

had no idea any of this was dramatized. Was an actress ever shown as the character? (I'm not saying the name again, LOL). Or was it one of those things where you see her feet or only from the back or a shadow or something like that?

I don' t know if we ever saw her face..I think she healed Alex when she had that soap staple, a tropical fever...the show WAS a fever dream during this time, unfortunatley not in a Twin Peaks interesting way.

@alwaysAMCthanks as always for your rundown of Zimmer's book. Your analysis is so detailed.

Kim Zimmer knew exactly why Chris Bernau died. I understand why she might not have wanted to reveal the details, but why create a lie about it? She didn't have to even bring it up. "An illness" would have sufficed. @DeeVeeare still pretending actors weren't gay and didn't die of AIDS in the eighties/nineties.  Up until recently, everyone was pretending Anthony Geary was straight. It wasn't until his husband starting posting on instagram that fans starting talking about it, but I don't know if any of his castmates have ever publicly acknowledged it (beyond just liking posts). I realize that Anthony Geary is a private person, but he's not so private if he's allowing his adorable husband to post.

This is what I don't like about the gossip/blind items in Zimmer's memoir. If you're not going to reveal names, don't include it. It's annoying. I'm not a detective in an Agatha Christie novel.

17 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Not true and what Kim wrote should tell her that...Bert helped Josh after his car crash and that was because he was so upset about...Reva! Kimmer has always been very complimentary about Charita and said she was the FORCE on the show and the set.

!!! That is so wild to me that she gets some of these basic things wrong. Same with Hamp (which even I knew, and I'm 3 months into being a big GL fan now haha).

14 minutes ago, chrisml said:

@alwaysAMCthanks as always for your rundown of Zimmer's book. Your analysis is so detailed.

Kim Zimmer knew exactly why Chris Bernau died. I understand why she might not have wanted to reveal the details, but why create a lie about it? She didn't have to even bring it up. "An illness" would have sufficed.

This is what I don't like about the gossip/blind items in Zimmer's memoir. If you're not going to reveal names, don't include it. It's annoying. I'm not a detective in an Agatha Christie novel.

You're welcome, happy to do it!  

And LOL - I agree, I don't want to play detective, Kim, just tell us!  

1 hour ago, alwaysAMC said:

More chapter summaries of Kim's book:

Chapter 5 - she talks about her early days at Guiding Light. She said Reva was probably a little too hard to take in the beginning because she played her larger than life. Kim and Pam Long had such a love/hate relationship and both felt like they were part of Reva, so when they disagreed about the writing/portrayal of Reva, they would really get into it until they both saw each other’s sides and Kim would usually always then cave to what Pam wanted. Pam lived vicariously through Reva. She then talks about her friendship with Robert Newman and what a dream he’s been; they’re basically the most intimate relationship she’s ever had without being physical in the real world. They trusted each other and were so connected as scene partners. They spent nearly every day together for 2 straight years. T

 

Large party or courtroom scenes were hard to shoot because they were 16-20 hour days with several contract/day-players involved. Courtroom scenes in particular were boring for them because they had to sit in pews the entire time, so they tried to make games out of it. She admired Jerry (Ross) for having the hardest job during those scenes, delivering 5-10 pages of dialogue alone in front of everyone.

 

Chapter 6 - she goes into the more standout actors she enjoyed and had the most privilege knowing or working with at GL:

1. Beverlee McKinsey (Alexandra) - Kim aspired to be just like her; unlike other actors, Kim was the only one where Beverlee forgot her lines a lot, so Kim asked if it’s something she’s doing and Beverelee said she just gets lost in her blue eyes and forgets where she is (hmm); underneath her wit and charm was a hurt and angry woman, and didn’t hold her tongue when she didn’t like creative decisions that were made; tells the story she was told about Beverlee’s mandated contract agreement to take the same month off each year, but in 1992, no one came to renegotiate with her, so when her month came, she took it and never came back to work - she had someone clean out her dressing room and that was it; Kim was very sad and upset with the Emmys for not doing a tribute to Beverlee when she died in 2008 and they left her out of the memorial tribute they do each year (wtf!).
2. Michael Zaslow (Roger) - apparently Zas was tired of playing Roger and wanted to make sure there was no possibility that his character could come back, so they had him die in 1980 by falling off a cliff and he insisted they show his battered and broken dead body so there was no doubt (ha - he returns 8 years later); a force to be reckoned with and took no sh!t from anyone; told it like it was and knew the character of Roger so well and fought hard for him; if a scene was written about Roger any less than who Michael thought he was, he’d throw a royal fit until it was fixed to his liking; talked about his ALS and she said it was shocking to her that GL didn’t renew his contract, leaving him sick AND without a job; fortunate that he still had friends at ABC that wrote for him on OLTL until he could no longer go on; his memorial was one of the most moving experiences of her life and she misses him terribly.
3. Vince Williams (Hampton) - one of the nicest and gentlest man she’s ever known, never said an unkind word about anyone; in 1990, at Kim’s going away party, he played “You Are So Beautiful” on his sax as a gift to her and it was one of the best gifts she’s ever received; she then said she never had a chance to work with him again, as he died from cancer shortly after she moved back to LA. This can’t be right though, as Hamp was on GL in 1995 during her return, granted she was in Goshen that entire year so they never had a scene together, but he was also in 5-6 episodes I’ve seen throughout 1996 as well. I guess they didn’t have a chance to run into each other if they never shared and scene and he was barely on, but he certainly didn’t pass while she wasn’t at GL.
4. Charita Bauer (Bert) - talks about losing her foot and how they wrote that into storyline (losing her leg) and would mentor Robert Newman when his character was in a car accident and became paralyzed (“old guard teaching the new regime”); Kim never worked with her, as she left GL the year before Kim started and soon passed a year later, but Robert told her so many stories of how great she was; a very salt of the earth person.

Another juicy mystery to solve: she then goes on to say soap casts are like family and sometimes there is a black sheep or troublemaker that doesn’t last. She talks about an actress that fell in love with every costar of hers, and those costars who were the object of her affection were all too happy to oblige. She fell in love with one costar while she was married, so divorced her husband to be with him and move in with him. That relationship didn’t last, so her next costar conquest, who was also married (and she already remarried to someone outside the soap business), got with her so she divorced her husband, the costar was planning to get out of his marriage but then got cold feet and never left his wife. Kim said this was the first time she knew her both unmarried and now single and she was scorned like no other. The actress was miserable on set, off set, everywhere she went; her presence on set was a dark energy until she eventually left the show, however Kim was secretly upset she left because the show suffered from the loss of her character.  Who could that be??

 

1. At the beginning, now I find Reva totally unsympathetic, not because she was "larger than life", but because she's a lying, user skank. But I guess that's my perspective...lol.

2. I don't know at what point she and Robert were "screen partners for two straight years", but it wouldn't have been until at least 1987. Robert left in November '84, practically a year to the day of Reva's debut. And he was sparingly used that last month or two after Josh regained the ability to walk. You can tell that they shot his goodbye scenes out of order, because Maeve was just returning from maternity leave. Vanessa returns with longer hair (that is perfectly accented with the fur she's wearing, lol), gives birth while HB is in having his heart surgery, but a week or so before, when Billy goes to Switzerland to try and persuade her to come home, she's got shorter hair.

3. There is a story about one of those courtroom scenes. Zas mooned the cast from off-stage during one of the trials.

4. sweet story about Vince.

5. She's got her dates mixed up about Charita. I know memories are fuzzy, or maybe the editing's bad, but Reva was the reason Josh had the accident, so obviously Charita hadn't left the show the year before. She's right they didn't work together much though.

6. the only actress (the one falling in love with her costars) that even remotely sounds like is Beth Ehlers. But I don't think Ehlers was divorced twice. 

 

Oh, and of course, she's got the deets wrong about Beverlee's departure. Why even include that story, when it took place two years after she left in '90? And I don't believe Bev messed up her lines because of Kimmy's blue, blue eyes. GMAB.

Edited June 13Jun 13 by P.J.

17 minutes ago, P.J. said:

 

6. the only actress (the one falling in love with her costars) that even remotely sounds like is Beth Ehlers. But I don't think Ehlers was divorced twice. 

 

Ehlers was married and divorced twice, but the timeline of those marriages and divorces don't exactly line up with Zimmer's version, but then Zimmer is not good with dates. Ehlers could have left her first husband for Derwin. She left GL for LA with Derwin. She broke up with Derwin. She married someone named Matthew Christian in 1996. She returns to GL in 1997. However, her next relationship would have possibly been with Ricky Paull Goldin but he didn't join until 2001. He was also married in 2001. He did leave his wife as they were  divorced in 2002.  However, Ehlers was married to Christian until 2005. She left GL in 2008 and went to AMC which disastrous for her. Goldin went there too.

Edited June 13Jun 13 by chrisml

45 minutes ago, P.J. said:

3. There is a story about one of those courtroom scenes. Zas mooned the cast from off-stage during one of the trials.

Oh, and of course, she's got the deets wrong about Beverlee's departure. Why even include that story, when it took place two years after she left in '90? And I don't believe Bev messed up her lines because of Kimmy's blue, blue eyes. GMAB.

LOL, I love Zaslow. And yeah, when I was reading that about her dreamy blue eyes, I was like are you kidding me Kim.  Kim loves Kim.

28 minutes ago, chrisml said:

However, Ehlers was married to Christian until 2005. She left GL in 2008 and went to AMC which disastrous for her. Goldin went there too.

VERY disastrous. And she got herself into trouble with the comments she made about JR Martinez. It was a really bad look.

Edited June 13Jun 13 by alwaysAMC