It's a shame none of those other primetime soaps seems to make it past the pilot stage. I really wish the one starring Joan Crawford had been picked up. I believe it was called Della and the pilot is available.

Here's the unaired pilot for Della also known as Royal Bay, the 1964 primetime soap starring Joan Crawford.

Edited January 1, 201213 yr by Chris B

Too bad that didn't happen -Joan would have been perfect in a primetime soap.

I wonder why they didn't pick it up. She's a huge name and it really doesn't seem like a bad show. Very Dynasty. The 80s would never have passed up on a soap daytime or primetime starring someone as big as Crawford. It's a shame Bette Davis got stuck with Hotel when she got into the game and of course the show was so bad she refused to return after the pilot.

I thought she couldn't return because of her stroke.

That is correct and her friend Anne Baxter took over.

In Bette's memoir This and That she said that she was able to return, but the scripts she received were so poor that she kept telling them she was too sick to return until they stopped asking her.

I could see that, but she was very noticeably impaired after her stroke, for the rest of her life. I wonder if she was just saving face.

In 1965 From Here To Eternity,first a book,then a movie was piloted for ABC.It was filmed in Hawaii and starred Darren McGavin,Roger Davis and Sally Kellerman.

In 1980 another version made it to air on NBC.

That is true, but she went back to work on several projects after her stroke. I'm sure they did try to get her back, but she wasn't interested. I would've loved her in a Angela Channing role or something on Knots Landing.

Bette Davis' In aaron Spelling's 1965 Unaired Pilot, "The Decorator"

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/whKTEGyNh1M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

God,that was bad!

Bette tried a few times to land a series but the 50's and 60's weren't ready for female leads in dramas..Stanwyck was an exception.

Speaking of Joan and eighties primetime soaps, Mommie Dearest has always looked and felt very much like an eighties primetime soap, or at least TV movie, to me. The acting, and the glamour of the sets and costumes are right on point. The scene where she's in the white robe and turban on the huge chaise lounge after she's just vaporized Christina's "babies" is just what I imagine Faye's Sable Colby would have been like.

Edited January 2, 201213 yr by SFK

SOW reported in a profile of James E Reilly in 1995 that had developed a nightime soap for P&G titled Turn Left at the Light

A May 1985 Digest mentions that the Dan O'Herlihy role on Dark Mansions was originally offered to Cary Grant and Gregory Peck.

Wow, that's like The Colby's style casting.