Seeing this latest trend in best/worst threads, I thought to start my own.

Who are some of your favourite daytime divas, those bigger-than-life, magnetic, super stylish femmes fatales of daytime? It can be anyone from a long-forgotten guest star in the '70s to the main female protagonist on the show. Villainess, fairy godmother, the characters ethics and morality are not the point.

And not to forget: is there a particularly soapy name of a female character you like? Like e.g. Dominique Deveraux (not daytime, but hey), Angelique DuVal, Helena Cassadine, those French/Italian/German/Greek sounding names, that sort of thing.

P. S. If a mod could change the b in the title to a capital, I'd be grateful.

Edited October 19, 200916 yr by Sylph

The only scene I seem to remember pretty clearly from Titans was when two teens, a boy and a girl, I think one of them was Victoria Principal's grandson, "borrowed" her Aston-Martin and went joy riding. And of course the title always reminded me of the episodes of the same name where the Colbys were still being introduced on Dynasty.

I REALLY agree with your last sentence. We go out to eat a lot, see movies/theatre and such, but I've never been a club-goer, I always preferred the lounge scene where we could drink (and smoke once upon a time) and have good conversation. We tend to do this during the week, so in many ways, I still feel like a kid when Saturday night roles around, except there is NOTHING good on anymore. Oh how I long for the Saturday nights of my youth, when Ray Combs Family Feud came on in the evening, Mama's Family in syndication at 7:30, then over to NBC from 8-11, 227, Amen, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Nurses, round out the night with Hunter and later Sisters. Those were the days.

It's amazing how tv went from Sat being the biggest night to the least--but people just don't watch tv on Sats like they used to. I guess cuz tv used to be more appointment viewing? You couldn't depend on DVDs or even repeats, you could wathc with your friends, etc. I'm out nearly every Friday and baiscally every Sat so that suits me fine but it is too bad the networks have just given up on these days.

I actually (I hope Chuck Pratt doesn't hear this) liked Titans, or at least felt it had potential to be a new Dynasty. I think the boy you're talking about was Kevin Zegers (from Transamerica, etc, who back then I felt a bit creepy finding cute cuz he was 16 and I was 19). Not sure if I'd care for it at all now, especially since I've actually SEEN Dynasty since then thanks to DVD but I was disappointed it was canceled so quickly (CBS really trumped it up too--the irony is at the time, 1999 or whatever, the zeitgeist was NOT into the idea of that kinda show--big glamour etc-0-whereas only a few years later it probably would have done at the least a bit better)

She doesn't have a bad rep, but she's been known to get pointed in interviews, especially when people pussyfoot around the blatantly racist treatment she's had to endure in the past.

Glad to hear that--she was beyond outstanding and perfect for Sunset Blvd. I later saw the MUCH scaled down American tour with petula Clark who was surprisingly *awful*

That was some novel!!! I've re-read it just a short while ago.

But why do you think there isn't a straught, as you say, portralay of some rich (feuding or not) families on TV anymore? Why is it always about nasty, spoiled teens bored with life? I really miss the "trials and tribulations" of middle-aged rich people, adults, not immature teens.

You read Wharton? I'm impressed--for a while she was my fave author, basically an easier to read Henry James thematically. I also think Scorsese's movie of Age is oine of the finest "costume dramas" ever (it's interesting he calls it one of his most violent movies--not cuz of gore but emotional violence).

I agree. I thought DSM had potential but I agree it was too tongue in cheek (and never could find the right tone)--certainly the cast was largely there (Jill Clayburgh as a matriarch? heaven). I think it's because networks think that audiences now are too self aware for something liek Dynasty, not realizing that the campa ctually works better when it's played straight. It's a little like how every new soap has to have some sort of almost post modern gimmick shoved onto it. Then again the fact that shows like Titans (which I felt was trying to be a new Dynasty) and Pacific Palisades (which I thought was trying to be a new Knots Landing) even Pasadena were all big flops probably makes the safe network heads seek shows that are more knowingly campy, or whatever. Of course they never think about other reasons they coulda been flops

It'd be fun if one of the cable networks tried a big old 80s style soap opera again--I know HBo and Showtime etc get off on being "cool" but they could almost be even more cool by going back to something like that.

The Age of Innocence is beautiful. And not to sound like a complete sap but The House of Mirth kinda made me cry in the end. This woman literally edged out of polite society to her downfall.

Because -- and this is horribly simple -- TV execs are obsessed with the youth demographic. Absolutely obsessed. Sometimes I wonder if these execs are not projecting their own anxieties about getting older and receeding hairlines (Jeff Zucker, I'm looking at you) on all of us.

One of the ironies of a show like Gossip Girl (which I know you hate) is that the character actors playing the parentals -- Kelly Rutherford, Margaret Colin, the man playing Bart Bass, snobby social maven CeeCee, Dorota -- very often completely steal the show.

If you cried at Mirth, don't read Ethan Fromme lol (though ti's much less focused on high society).

You're right. Another irony is I think they don't realize that a lot of teens LIKE to watch adult characters. Sure the original 90210 etc were popular cuz of young teen audiences, but I bet a lot of teens watched Melrose Place as well. When you're that age you wanna see and fantasize about what ones a bit older than you (I mean it's like Archie comics--they're mainly read by kids fantasizing in a way about being teenagers, when you're actually Archie's age you prob have grown past ther comics, or Saved by the Bell). That's one reason when they refocus soaps on very young characters it doesn't really make the younger generation watch more--they watched for teen stories sure but I think they also watch for the adults.

I think one of the reasons those shows died out was because the attempts to keep them going in the 90s came across as so empty. Stuff like Titans. Even though the actors were not playing parody, that's how it came across.

I don't mind that Brothers & Sisters doesn't try to play to what they may see as the stereotype of rich people, because I think that would seem too forced (as Holly does when they try to make her into the superbitch).

I think they had worn out their welcome (just as Melrose did) by the end of the 90s and as you say they prob weren't that good, but things swing around.

On the other hand I think B&S is a different matter altogether, it feels liek they were trying for a mix of a rich person's show with the "real" and talky and less "soapy" probs of a Herskovitz/Zwick show (where of course Ken Olin who is an EP comes from) liek thirtysomething, My So Called Life, and Once and Again. While I watch B&S nd ave had times I really enjoy it, I think that's part fo the reason it doesn't work for me--i LOVED those Her/Zwick shows and was sad their new one wasn't picked up, but it's like B&S wants to have the best of both worlds and frankly I have a hard time sympathizing with their problems because I know just how much political power and money they have. That wasn't an issue for Dynasty or Dallas.

Titans seemed very different from Melrose and 90210, it was more of an 80s throwback, so I think they might have appealed to different audiences, if Titans had stayed on the air.

I thought the biggest problem, aside from how played out it seemed, was the cast. I thought most of the lead actors were uncharismatic and a bit awkward. I did like Perry King, but he didn't last long.

The promos definetely made it into the new Dynasty--I think they basically said "Dynasty for the new millenium (ie from the producer of Dynsty, not of Melrose) even if it was created/head written by Charles Pratt who was behind Melrose's highest rated years and Models Inc (I thought he did the Knots throwback Pacific Palisades, but I guess not). It was totally NBC mishandling it, people were really over these kinds of shows (even if they were diff) cuz of MP and 90210 ennui and I think ti was the wrong time in terms of what people wanted--the zeitgest was much more into these broad camp shows 2 or so years later (which is when the Footballers Wives remake was planned isn't it)?

Anyway I'm glad someone else liked Titans--I thought by the end of its short run it was on the right path and I actually thought the cast was a good mix of the typical 80s soap cast--strong older actors, some less strong pretty ex soap stars, and people in between

Speaking of--I love Footballers, well the first three or so seasons and love Tanya Tucker but I'm not sure she's quite an Alexis. She's MUCH more willing to slum it and seems to even come from a rougher background than those 80s OTT characters.

Edited January 20, 201015 yr by EricMontreal22

There are two '80s primetime soap business women I've never had the pleasure of seeing, and I'd really like to: the bodacious Anita Morris as Babs Berrenger in Berrenger's, and Jessica Walter as Ava Marshall in Bare Essence.

Most people know Jessica from Arrested Development, and Play Misty For Me before that. Esther Shapiro really championed her for the role of Alexis once Sophia Loren turned it down (and I guess Raquel Welch didn't turn out either). Lee Grant played Ava in the TV movie, and Jessica took over when it went to series.

Jessica is also in the 90210 reboot isn't she? Or is she already gone--when I watched the early eps her and her drunken ex star grandma character were by far the best parts of the show. But yes she woulda made a GREAT choice for the role back then.

Berrenger's is one of several prime time soaps I've always been curious about--not even credits seem to exist on youtube. The others are the 1975 Upstairs Downstairs ( afave of mine) remake set in 1920's boston, Beacon Hill, the others are Emerald Point NAS, Berrenger's, Secrets of Midland Heights (a title that doesn't exactly role of the tongue) and Four Corners from the late 90s.

Edited January 20, 201015 yr by EricMontreal22

SFK, there was a warmth and a joy, yes. I also enjoy the old Britcoms from the 70s and early 80s for that reason, before people like Ricky Gervais moved those into the same dreary cynical, I'm-so-cool-I-hate-everything type of crap you get on a lot of American sitcoms now. It's sad that the most popular sitcom on today is Two and a Half Men, which is a very bitter show.

What the heck is GLOW? LOL Wiki turns up nothing.

So many of those sitcoms when I was growing up (think Blossom) are now unwatchable but a few are gems IMHO--and I agree that 2 and a Half Men is a VERY mean spirited show--I really don't get its appeal--and it's advertised as a family sitcom?? Wha?. (Funny as Chuck Lorre's other shows liek Dharma and Greg and even now Big Bnag Theory are a lot less so).

GLOW is Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

They're all champions in the ring. (and Spanish Red is a goddess!!)

Edited January 20, 201015 yr by CarlD2

I can see how some think so.

However, those are two very different personas and actresses. Whereas Elizabeth Taylor is alluring, mysterious, sophisticated in an aristrocratic way, Joan Collins is much more closer to Earth, "quicker", trashier, doesn't aspire to lofty heights... Both no sh!t about fashion these days. I mean — leopard print?! Baaaaaaad surgery! Then too much make-up, messy hair... Disastrous! Joan knows sh!t.

All things considered I think Liz still looks kinda decent... lol

But I agree with you. Certainly I could never see Joan having played Desiree in the Sondheim musical A Little Night Music like Liz did (granted the movie isn't the best but the casting was spot on--Joan doesn't have the underlying vulnerability) or in her younger days a character like Angela Vickers in Place in the Sun (Actually I always have wondered why a soap, to my knowledge, hasn't stolen the storyline of A Place in the Sun/or Dreisser's original novel American Tragedy. But without the best direction and Monty Clift and Liz to make you care and get the characters I guess it would be hard to have a hero you both sympathize with an find heinous for murdering his pregnant lover to have a life with the rich pretty girl LOL--on a soap nowadays it'd prob completely backfire).

GLOW is Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

They're all champions in the ring.

HAHA~ I don't know what to say

If I were an 11-year old today and turned on the TV to find, say, Miley Cyrus gyrating around a stripper pole (Party in the USA is catchy, though) or Paris Hilton doing... whatever it is she does -- I don't know. I'm probably generalizing and maybe there are some bad-ass "role models" (blech, but I can't find a more appropriate phrase) out there. I just haven't encountered them yet.

You can always find good and bad examples--recently we've had things like Buffy and Sydney on Alias (funny though both of those are action heroes) which are IMHO a long way from Cahrlie's Angels or even the 70s Bionic Woman.

But it is true that's it's kinda scary thinking that young girls who maybe would idoliza Princess Di in the 80s and see her humanitarian work in this generation would maybe be idolizing Paris or the Kardashians

Yup.

Which is why I never quite warmed up to her fully.

LOL and prob why I'm far more drawn to her than Collins (who, don't get me wrong is *great*)

HAHA~ I don't know what to say

You haven't even seen Divine's Russian twin, Matilda the Hun, and of course, who can beat Jackie Stallone the rap star?

Joan always was scrappy and she never forgot what life was like beyond the movie-star fringe. Her career went through ups and downs -- in the 70s she starred in The Bitch (dismissed as soft-core porn at the time) in order to pay the rent and medical bills for one of her little girls who was sick (she was divorced by then and essentially raising her kids on her own). She was also physically much tougher (Anthony Newley, her second husband, had home videos of her doing the twist by their pool in LA a mere two days before giving birth! He said Joan was always as strong as an ox and just popped those babies out). No wonder she enjoyed the glory days when they arrived -- she could better appreciate them in light of the lean years. And, as she always said, she knew she wasn't a great acting talent, but she did know her own strengths. She was never the great movie star -- "Britain's Elizabeth Taylor" -- that she was billed. But an iconic TV star? Oh, yes.

Spot on (I forgot she was marrited to Newley--wow that musta had its ups and downs). Funny that The Bitch and its sequel prob helped her get the role on Dynasty in a way...

Which is why I never understood the argument in the 90s that the reason women "moved on" from Dynasty and those sort of shows was because they could not relate to the "masculine" female characters -- the bitches of the boardroom. Ironically, I was a tween growing up in quiet, surburban Boston and I *totally* got those ladies! I think audiences left Dynasty when the writing jumped the shark (Moldavia, Krystle kidnapped for the eighth-billionth time, boring stories, etc). But the idea that Alexis or Sable or, heck, Blanche Devereux, were NOT feminine? LOL, no.

I hate this argument and often it's directed at female creations created by gay men. The girls from Sex and the City (even if I'm not a big fan) come to mind, but so do the classic leading ladies from Tennessee Williams, or (tieing this back to Liz and the comments on Virginia Woolfe) Albee.

I find the statement that these women were written as men (or campy gay drag queens) offensive in *so* many ways.

Well, not always. And trashy does not = drunk & loose. In my dictionary at least.

I'm with Sylph here--sorry Carl. i thinkt he public persona of Joan is a bit more trashy (if we have to uyse that word) than Liz--sure she played a drunk a number of times, and won an Oscar for Butterfield 8 but those were fiarly rpestige picture and not comparable to The Stud. Even that crazy Italian film Liz did in the 70s umm... *goes to look up* Identikit, aka Driver's Seat, aka Psychotic could be called a bold experiment LOL (it's a wonderful camp film though--just so... bizarre). Although, while a pretty [!@#$%^&*] adaptation of one of my fave Tenn Williams' plays, Sweet Bird of Youth, the tv movie version she did (for director Nicholas Roeg! with Mark Harsmon int he Paul Newman role lol) is worth seeing for her campy performance (too bad they've never filmed a decent version of that play--the Brooks film is so censored with that ridiculous happy ending not in the play even if it preserves Newman and Geraldine Page's amazing performances).

But yeah, to me someone like her role in Virginia Woolfe isn't "trashy".