24 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

They definitely errred by writing out Alan just as Roger came in. Their emnity was so important to the show for a time, and the fact that Roger ended up married to his sister should have kicked off oodles of conflict. By the time he came back, that was long over. 

Even though I would never believe Alan trying to kill Roger (he literally had no motive at that point, and one consistent thing about Alan was that he wasn't a killer) they could have still butted heads about a lot of things. 

Reminds me of when Alan was putting hits on people under the Wheeler era.  When Harley was being framed by Alan for Phillip's murder, Alan had a guy killed that Harley/Gus were onto.  At least RR's Alan knew enough to hire people to do his dirty work by then.

27 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

They definitely errred by writing out Alan just as Roger came in. Their emnity was so important to the show for a time, and the fact that Roger ended up married to his sister should have kicked off oodles of conflict. By the time he came back, that was long over. 

Even though I would never believe Alan trying to kill Roger (he literally had no motive at that point, and one consistent thing about Alan was that he wasn't a killer) they could have still butted heads about a lot of things. For instance, what if Alan pursued Holly to get under Roger's skin? While Holly had good reason to resent Alan (she ended up in jail because he helped Roger fake his death) they were bound by the fact that they were both his victims, and both went to jail because of him while he was never punished for his crimes. 

Maybe they didn't look further for an Alan replacement after Zaslow turned them down because it was a money thing? It just seems weird that they waited five years to bring back the character. He was rich. Rich people don't serve full prison sentences. 😆

I would bet that part of the reason Alan wasn't recast sooner was Phillip's absence. Yes, Alan-Michael was also his son, but the dynamic was always about Phillip.

Final chapter summaries from Kim's book below. Overall, easy and fun read. I'm happy to have spent the time and money. 

Chapter 19 - she talks about the ‘So Long, Springfield’ tours they did after the series finale aired. They went to several cities where GL demographics were strong and spent the weekend with fans, reminiscing about the show. She mentions that Frank Dicopoulos (Frank) was a teddy bear, never had a bad thing to say to or about anyone. He is a gung ho company man. She said Michael O’Leary (Rick) was the funniest person on their show, ever. She recalls when Robert Newman (Josh) made a flub in his lines that made it to air, which viewers called in about - he was supposed to say ’10 million bucks’, but it came out as ’10 million ducks’, and it was a running gag for years with them. She talks about how Grant Alexander (Phillip) and Michael O’Leary were best friends and shared a dressing room their entire run together. Michael was messy and Grant was a neat freak, so they were like the odd couple. Grant would always complain when Michael’s underwear was on the floor.

As part of the tours, they had an entertainment session where actors/crew members would sing or play music. Robert Newman and Ron Raines (Alan) would sing, and so would Kim. She mentions she’s been able to sing the national anthem at a few sporting events. She recalls singing on GL at the Blue Orchid nightclub, doing “Proud Mary”, and she was so into it that she lost her balance dancing and almost fell off the bar, but the waiters caught her. She said the director didn’t stop or pan away, so you can see it happen on the episode. She talks about how much she loves fans and would rarely ever get upset when asked for a picture. When traveling internationally, she would get recognized because American soaps were widely shown over there. One time in Italy, a group of young men recognized her. She said Chris Bernau (Alan) loved going to Italy because he was so famous there and never had to pay for a thing.

Chapter 20 - she reflects on her career and says if she had to do it all over again, she wouldn’t have changed a thing. She is happy to have been on GL as Reva. The reality of finding work again after the show ended was daunting. An overweight 55-year old woman is hard to sell to anyone these days. People who don’t know Reva Shayne don’t care. She wanted to work in television, because movies were a different beast, and she didn’t like the idea of sitting around bored on a movie set everyday. She liked the fast pace nature of daytime TV. She was thankful to get back on OLTL as Echo, which was a full circle moment for her. At the time of writing her book, she said OLTL was the last standing soap opera to be produced in New York, and she thought that was sad. But, she was happy to be back at bigger sets, and she even said it was a joy to see real ice cubes again. At GL, they had to use plastic ice cubes that got washed and reused.

Epilogue - she comments that as she was finalizing her book, ABC just announced that AMC and OLTL were being cancelled. She is heartbroken, but says all good things must come to an end. Every end is a new beginning. But, she asks - how many out-of-work soap opera stars does it take to start a network… “I’m just sayin’”!

______________________________________________________________________________________

I found the Proud Mary clip online, go to the 6:20 mark to see her almost fall. Bolger looked like a good time there haha.

 

Edited June 28Jun 28 by alwaysAMC

43 minutes ago, Spoon said:

Reminds me of when Alan was putting hits on people under the Wheeler era.  When Harley was being framed by Alan for Phillip's murder, Alan had a guy killed that Harley/Gus were onto.  At least RR's Alan knew enough to hire people to do his dirty work by then.

One thing I'm learning hanging out here is I was wise to mostly skip that era of GL. 

And they "redeemed" him at the end by having him give up his life for Phillip. Ugh.

44 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I would bet that part of the reason Alan wasn't recast sooner was Phillip's absence. Yes, Alan-Michael was also his son, but the dynamic was always about Phillip.

That would have been a perfect opportunity to change that dynamic, so Alan Michael didn't become disposable later on. Of course, part of the problem was no one wanted to bring back his mother Hope, which would have tethered him more to the Bauers.

12 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

I found the Proud Mary clip online, go to the 6:20 mark to see her almost fall. Bolger looked like a good time there haha.

 

That was great fun! And, yeah, that wasn't just almost a fall, it looked like it could have been a very very bad fall!!! I love Bolger as a wild man. I think he is seriously undervalued as an actor. KZ can sing. So can RN, plus he also plays the piano. And, Ron Raines, my god he was gifted with a natural set of pipes & unless I am way off he's spent a lot of time in training his voice, his breath control, etc. I'd go so far as to say RR is a singer who can incidentally act a bit. Paul Anthony Stewart also has an amazing voice & he uses it well. It makes me laugh to think of Kim worrying about breaking the 4th wall. This is not Reva. This is Kim!!! 

I was so tempted to go with my mom to the farewell tour when they stopped in  Pittsburgh.  We Pittsburghers were always a loyal fan base for the show.

16 hours ago, bboy875 said:

I don’t remember the year, but there was a time when he dropped Ron Raines down to recurring, then at some point put him back on contract 

Question, after Philip was "killed off" and then the show wanted him back, anyone know what they planned to do with him had Grant returned? I always wondered if they planned on having him do a lot of the villain stuff they had Alan do, and if Alan would've been on the backburner. Didn't they first try and get him to come back before the reveal that Philip was alive, Grant said no, so the mystery dragged on? Anyone have any idea? 

The last time this came up I declined to reply, but what the hey. My information is that Grant was, or, no, became aware that 2 people were dominating the time available for front burner A storyline, him & KZ. And, at that point he let it be known that he would be okay with taking a sacrificial hit to give other people some of that frontburner time & space.  Then, later, when it seemed like Philip was needed again, he was not sure about the believability, but someone convinced him that they could & would write it in a way where it would work. IIRC he had some BTS type understanding about script writing so he made them show him how they'd do it & when they satisfied him, it went forward. I'm not at all sure if I've answered your question but perhaps I have answered a question adjacent to it. 

I think this story makes some people uncomfortable because it paints this soap actor as unselfish. The thing is I believe many of them, are. Sure, notably, some are not. But so what? Not everyone has to be the same. 

 

2 hours ago, chrisml said:

From what I've seen of Daniel Pilon, he's fine as Alan. I don't know why they didn't just keep him as Alan as an Alan/Roger feud would have been interesting as @P.J.suggests. Plus, Pilon was charismatic so you always want a leading man who can go into some sort of romance/triangle. 

I don't have the animosity towards Raines that some people do, but that's because I didn't see a lot of him. I also saw some of Dusay's work and thought she was so miscast as Alexaandra that Raines looks better in comparison. 1994's Dusay was terrible from what I've seen (and this is before Alex in the Conboy era--being vague as not to spoil it for those watching it chronologically). I know she was Emmy nominated in 94/95?, but she was completely neutered and devoid of personality. It was shocking how bad it was. I blame JFP and the writers for most of it, but still. 

I think Raines suffered because he was not Bernau. In like fashion I think Dusay suffered by not being Beverlee. The two former actors were so brilliant in their roles that anyone who tried to follow their act may have been doomed. 

49 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

One thing I'm learning hanging out here is I was wise to mostly skip that era of GL. 

And they "redeemed" him at the end by having him give up his life for Phillip. Ugh.

That would have been a perfect opportunity to change that dynamic, so Alan Michael didn't become disposable later on. Of course, part of the problem was no one wanted to bring back his mother Hope, which would have tethered him more to the Bauers.

But, what a redemption it was!!!

21 hours ago, P.J. said:

So did Jackie Marler. And Bill Bauer's original death was in an airplane crash.

At least from what I've observed from '89 to '93, if they start playing the actor's pictures, they run the cast list.

Well, it seems to me that 4 deaths by commercial air calamity is too much, too many, but at least they were separated by a number of years. 

17 hours ago, DeeVee said:

So your mom was the one person who liked Pilon as Alan! LOL.

I'm just joking. The guy was in a tough spot. I think I read somewhere that he was doing both Ryan's Hope and GL at the same time (must not have been on contract at either show at first). Which would help explain how low energy his performance was. And I could never could get used to Alan having a French Canadian accent. (I still prefer him to Raines).

You are thinking of the movie Portrait of Jennie. Ironically, a film made by David O. Selznick as a vehicle for Jones, who was his lover at the time.

That's it, yes! And, they went on to marry. 

17 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Soaps were frequently stealing from old movies back then. Gloria Monty did it a lot on GH, with ideas taken from movies like It Happened One Night and The Maltese Falcon. They stole from newer ones (at the time), too. Quint was GL's version of Indiana Jones. Ryan's Hope stole from Jaws and The Godfather.

Besides directing THE SECRET STORM for about 15 years, Monty also directed a number of B movies, used as, well, later to be called Movie of the Week. So, those tropes were right in her wheelhouse!!!

 

Thank you @alwaysAMCfor your wonderful summaries of Kim Zimmer's books. They brought about so much discussion. 

The Proud Mary clip makes me think of my mother's comment about the OLTL musical episode and how that got her into OLTL for a bit. The "Proud Mary" scene was something fun and different and it rewarded fans for watching. Moments like that do make me want to be loyal to a show, but that's not something that happened on GL very often if at all after a certain point. Those lighter moments don't seem important to EP's or execs, but viewers remember them. I bet my mother remembers the Proud Mary scene.  And it's important to have performers like Bolger, Burton and Zimmer who can pull it off. 

Instead, too many GL producers punished existing viewers at the expense of trying to find the elusive GL viewers who were going to be lured in by endless fires, snowstorms, fires, snowstorms, killing off matriarchs, ghosts, The Amish, rapes, magical paintings, rapes,  the mob, gum-chewing hat check girls, baseball fields, slapping daughters, sexy psycho sons in underwear (that one might have worked on me), psycho son, cousin sex, etc. 

 

1 hour ago, Contessa Donatella said:

I think Raines suffered because he was not Bernau. In like fashion I think Dusay suffered by not being Beverlee. The two former actors were so brilliant in their roles that anyone who tried to follow their act may have been doomed.

Not going to disagree that Chris and Beverlee were brilliant. But I think the right actors were out there somewhere. IMO Ron and Marj were miscast. I'm also going to blame the writing again, because there have been cases where an actor on a soap has been unimpressive until they get the right storyline. I would put Robert Newman in that category. Never would have predicted he would one day become the show's de facto romantic lead when he first was on the show.

39 minutes ago, chrisml said:

Instead, too many GL producers punished existing viewers at the expense of trying to find the elusive GL viewers who were going to be lured in by endless fires, snowstorms, fires, snowstorms, killing off matriarchs, ghosts, The Amish, rapes, magical paintings, rapes,  the mob, gum-chewing hat check girls, baseball fields, slapping daughters, sexy psycho sons in underwear (that one might have worked on me), psycho son, cousin sex, etc. 

SO TRUE. And it started as far back as the mid-1980s. Watching the early 1987 episodes (1987 is shaping up to be as no bueno as 1986) and it's all this junk about art theft, shadowy somebodies wanting to take over Lewis Oil, and a ton of side characters with really bad foreign accents. A memo must have been sent from on high to the producer to have the young guys bare-chested as much as possible. Grant Alexander, James Goodwin, and Terrell Anthony have their shirts off A LOT. There was one episode where Johnny had his shirt off for the whole episode, which included a fist-fight with a jealous husband. The background music sounded like it came from a 1970s cop show. 

Not that this is hard on the eyes, but not what I want from a soap opera necessarily.

Edited June 28Jun 28 by DeeVee

9 hours ago, DeeVee said:

From what I recall, they were chem testing Frank with almost everyone in a skirt the first few years (similar to what they did with Josh in the beginning). Then, they imported Eleni for him, like they did with Reva for Josh. (The worst was Samantha. She was way too young for him, it was icky).

Like I said, I think Pilon was in a tough spot. Why bother investing in a role if it's temporary? The timing of Roger's return, and the whole story about the show going to Zaslow with the offer of playing Alan, shows they had to have been searching for a permanent replacement pretty soon after Bernau's final exit. Bernau's last episode was broadcast summer of '88, he must have taped it late spring. Then Zaslow shows up in January of '89, probably first taping around November of '88. So I'm guessing Pilon always knew he was not ever going to be permanent. In fact, he probably would have been there a much shorter time if Zaslow had accepted the offer to play Alan or if they had found another permanent replacement.

It's obvious they picked him because he was tall, dark, good-looking, and played a very similar role on Ryan's Hope. Even though I thought his exit story was idiotic, to me it seemed he finally got into the groove of the character at the end. He probably thought at the time to hell with it, I'm leaving anyway, may as well go for it.

I've heard Raines is a lovely human being, and I don't like to beat up on actors. But he just was not Alan. He didn't have the charisma or the darkness to play that part. At least Pilon could play that dark side of Alan. He also had no chemistry with the actresses they paired him with. Alan was supposed to be a player, both in business and with women. Raines never convinced me.

He might have done better if the writing for the character had been better. Same for Saundra Santiago as Carmen. Even really good actors can't overcome bad writing.

I do wonder what would have happened if Frank/Eleni hadn't clicked. Sometimes I think they would have gotten more story out of having her in a real romance with Alan-Michael but given the state of the Spauldings by that time, maybe not. Pre and post-Eleni, Frank seemed to be at a loss and lucky to be there. I think Frank's basic likeability and easy connection with those closest to him (as Buzz and Harley were meant to be bigger characters than he was) helped him out. And being the main cop on the show.

I liked the Frank/Blake FWB relationship as it was another example of how fluid and intelligent relationships were on the show in those years. And Frank and Sherry had very good chemistry. 

Saundra had her moments as Carmen (I remember some strong scenes with Danny or with Maria), but she mostly just did what was on the page. I do think she was a good fit for Carmen. I don't think Ron ever was. I just don't think he had the right charisma and I don't think he could believably play Alan's darker side. I'm sure he had charisma onstage, but there was just something missing. It didn't help that they could not write any of the complex relationships with women they wrote for Chris' Alan, but when Alan did have romantic relationships with women, he felt too generic to find potential layers. 

I think he seemed most comfortable when he got to play Grandpa Alan with HP's Lizzie.

I was joking about what Abby said to Claire @alwaysAMC although I wish she'd said that...

Thank you for the last chapters of Kim's book, and all your summaries. And thanks for the Reva and Philip clip. I wish they'd done more with them in later years, although she really suited John Bolger more than Grant (Grant was too uptight). They did have a few scenes. I suppose the friendship mostly ended after Philip betrayed her in his plan against Alan (and Reva was mostly taken out of Alan's sphere).

 I had forgotten that it ends with Alex doing a handshake with Philip and cutting a rug with Warren. A rarity for Bev's Alex to be quite that light...but then you remember she really wasn't that old and given her old groupies days she probably loved that song back when it first came out. She had to lost most of that side after Lujack died (and the character seemed to age further).

Edited June 29Jun 29 by DRW50

1 hour ago, chrisml said:

Instead, too many GL producers punished existing viewers at the expense of trying to find the elusive GL viewers who were going to be lured in by endless fires, snowstorms, fires, snowstorms, killing off matriarchs, ghosts, The Amish, rapes, magical paintings, rapes,  the mob, gum-chewing hat check girls, baseball fields, slapping daughters, sexy psycho sons in underwear (that one might have worked on me), psycho son, cousin sex, etc. 

Chasing the W18-34 demo was something that all soaps did after a certain point.  It was a plague visited upon the entire genre.  I contend that it was basically a lie but the ad agencies had so much power, with the show, yes, but more, with the almighty Nielsen ratings. What year was that foisted upon us? It can be checked. 

2 hours ago, DeeVee said:

SO TRUE. And it started as far back as the mid-1980s. Watching the early 1987 episodes (1987 is shaping up to be as no bueno as 1986) and it's all this junk about art theft, shadowy somebodies wanting to take over Lewis Oil, and a ton of side characters with really bad foreign accents. A memo must have been sent from on high to the producer to have the young guys bare-chested as much as possible. Grant Alexander, James Goodwin, and Terrell Anthony have their shirts off A LOT. There was one episode where Johnny had his shirt off for the whole episode, which included a fist-fight with a jealous husband. The background music sounded like it came from a 1970s cop show. 

Not that this is hard on the eyes, but not what I want from a soap opera necessarily.

Reminds me of 1979's Edge of Night where nearly the entire male cast wears low cut shirts almost down to their navel. I'm not complaining about it per se, but it is rather amusing especially in dramatic moments. Maybe I'm wrong but was the shirtless fad in 1987 the soaps' way of approaching sexuality without having a lot of sex scenes? Didn't someone say that GL became pretty sexless in 1987? Or am I misremembering? It's nice to have eye candy, but I would prefer a plot with my candy so to speak.

I know people lost their minds in 2003 when Daniel Crosgrove and Mark Collier (ATWT) showed their backsides. The pearl clutching that went on!  Rape was ok. Violence was ok. But a man's ass! One step too far.

 

47 minutes ago, chrisml said:

I know people lost their minds in 2003 when Daniel Crosgrove and Mark Collier (ATWT) showed their backsides. The pearl clutching that went on!  Rape was ok. Violence was ok. But a man's ass! One step too far.

Male nudity is the breaking point for a lot of people. The same reason why any time an actor had full frontal nudity in a film it was treated as a scandal and endless attention was paid, acting like there was an epidemic. Even if Nipplegate hadn't happened I think that trend would have stopped soon.

Edited June 29Jun 29 by DRW50

6 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Not going to disagree that Chris and Beverlee were brilliant. But I think the right actors were out there somewhere. IMO Ron and Marj were miscast. I'm also going to blame the writing again, because there have been cases where an actor on a soap has been unimpressive until they get the right storyline. I would put Robert Newman in that category. Never would have predicted he would one day become the show's de facto romantic lead when he first was on the show.

I always says that any role can be recast but not every role should be. I love Marj & I particularly loved her on AMC. But, I think that Beverlee & Bernau made the recasting difficult. And, again I bring out that P&G were cheapskates, at least at this point. 

But remember on GL Grant never wore anything skimpier than those tiny white shorts but on AMC he wore a Speedo, often.

Edited June 29Jun 29 by Contessa Donatella

55 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

And, again I bring out that P&G were cheapskates, at least at this point. 

That explains a lot. The obvious thing to do when they had to replace Bernau was go outside of daytime, which they ended up doing eventually. But they should have picked someone not only more suited to the role than Raines, he also should have had a little bit of name recognition. Not super famous, obviously, but someone on the level of a Doug Watson, Phil Carey, Eric Braeden, David Canary, etc. It would have given the recast some oomph, probably would have made viewers a little more inclined to accept the replacement. 

But of course that would have cost mucho dinero, so...