Linda Gottlieb article 1992

[Paul Raven]

I know this woman elicits strong feelings among some posters here.

Here's an article from 92.I think Connie Passalacqua(Marlena DeLaCroix was the writer)

When the daytime soap world gathers at the Sheraton New York Hotel tonight for the 19th annual Daytime Emmy Awards, the main schmooze for once won't be Susan Lucci's 12-time failure to win the best actress statuette. The buzz instead will be about the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live, " whose new producer, Linda Gottlieb, has been making a controversial attempt to revolutionize the stagnant daytime soap opera form.

Gottlieb, who produced the hit film "Dirty Dancing, " had no prior daytime soap experience when she took the job last July. In the insular world of daytime television, which traditionally promotes and hires from within, her name may as well be Fletcher Christian.

' "One Life to Live' is the anti-soap, " says Robert Rorke, senior editor of Soap Opera Digest. "Like a soap opera antihero, you never know what it's going to do next. "

Soap audiences used to perfect-looking actors and actresses have tuned into such scenes as one in which a bald man (Paul Bartel) defended a psychotic woman for murder; the key clue to that murder may have been provided by an even balder man (Wallace Shawn). In a world where it's de rigueur for soap hunks to be monosyllabic, "One Life to Live " characters quote Shakespeare and recite the poetry of Burns, Donne, Rossetti and Shelley. In a genre that spins on endless romances, fantasy and froth, one recent "OLTL " storyline hinged on a scene straight out of "The Snake Pit " -- one character's visit to the sanitarium where her sister grew up.

"I had hoped by the end of my stint that I would be able to do for the world of daytime what Steven Bochco did for nighttime TV, " says Gottlieb, referring to the writer-producer whose "Hill Street Blues " revolutionized the hour police drama. "He took a form that was mired in its own preconceptions and brought it into the modern world. He showed things that were rough and uneven, and that characters aren't gorgeous all the time. And that's what makes his shows seem alive. Look, I've hired a guy with a scar on his face (Mark Brettschneider, who plays teen rebel Jason Webb). "

That's just one of her changes. Gottlieb, who admits she had never watched a daytime soap before agreeing to take the helm of "One Life to Live, " says, "It's rare to have a chance to come in to something that you don't know anything about. Either it means you are going to fall on your face or you're free to rethink it. "

Soaps had never kept up with new technology, says Gottlieb, who has introduced film-like post-production techniques, including computerized music editing. Gottlieb envisions making music as intrinsic to the success of "One Life to Live " as it was to "Dirty Dancing. " She has already hired personal friends Judy Collins (to sing a love theme) and off-Broadway composer Elizabeth Swados (to score a location sequence). And she has also used such cult actors as Bartel ( "Eating Raoul ") and Shawn ( "My Dinner With Andre ") in guest roles.

"Why not get the best people working for this medium? We're reaching a ton of people. It's as if soaps in the past have been self-conscious adolescents saying, 'We're gawky; we'd better not go after the good-looking guys,' " she says in an interview in her office at "OLTL's " West Side studio.

Gottlieb's most valuable, if not radical, hire has been head writer Michael Malone, a former University of Pennsylvania professor and well-reviewed author of such complex novels as "Time's Witness " and the recent "Foolscap. " Most head writers are veterans who hop from show to show, but Malone, like Gottlieb, had no soap experience.

Not everyone is sold on her approach. "There are tried-and-true rules that make a soap work, " says Freeman Gunter, a managing editor of Soap Opera Weekly. "Gottlieb wants to reinvent the wheel, but the wheel's already been here for 40 years. Some think it's working just fine. "

Indeed, in Gottlieb's rush to innovate, she has cast aside the three crucial soap opera elements that have kept audiences addicted since the dawn of TV:

* Continuity: In an admirable attempt to pick up the slow pace of soaps, "One Life to Live " has done several short-term, close-ended storylines -- on such subjects as wife-beating and prejudice -- reminiscent to the arcs used on the prime-time drama "Wiseguy. " But these stories simply ended, leaving viewers free to zap to other soaps. "In soaps, continuity is the most important element in building ratings and audiences, " says Douglas Marland, head writer of CBS' "As the World Turns. "

* Familiarity: "What makes a soap work for people is the familiarity they feel with characters -- the predictability, " Gunter says. "They're shocked when they tune in and see a character acting like they're on a medication which doesn't agree with them. " Under Gottlieb, the heroic Viki Buchanan (played by Erika Slezak), the show's central focus for 23 years, was suddenly pushed to the back burner and was transformed from a kindly, liberal figure into a meddling mother-in-law.

* Likability: Soap audiences tune in every day to see characters they love or love to hate, no matter how stereotypical they seem. In an attempt to build more complex, lifelike characters, Malone's creations are many shades of gray.

In her defense, Gottlieb says she's not producing the show for the soap audience, but more from her own tastes and instincts.

As with any insurgent, there has been resistance toward Gottlieb in the soap industry. "She's perceived as arrogant for saying she can reinvent something that everyone else has been doing for so long, " Gunter says.

Others, however, feel that soap operas, whose formats haven't changed much in 40 years, desperately need a kick. "Soaps have never responded to the new competition presented by cable and video, " says Soap Opera Digest's Rorke. "Soap audiences also now include substantial percentages of men and college students as well as the traditional audience of homemakers. If Gottlieb is being dynamic and shaking things up, then good for her. "

And there is evidence that Gottlieb's gambles may be paying off, even if the soap was not nominated this year for an Emmy as best daytime serial. "One Life to Live " (seen weekdays at 1 p.m. on ABC, Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42) ranked 10th (out of 11) in the ratings when Gottlieb arrived last year and is now fifth. Still, that's not as high as it reached through most of the '80s, when it placed third or fourth.

Gottlieb says she's aware of the negative industry talk about her attempts. She shrugs: "You've just got to keep pushing the envelope. The great thing about soaps is if you fail one day, you can pick yourself up and try something else the next. "

[EricMontreal22]

I didn't even know Paul Baretl (who I knew and loved from Eating Raoul, Frankenweenie and other cult films) was on OLTL--it's not even on his imdb! Anyone reember the story--I assume it's one of the short term stories that Gottlieb and Malone attempted at first--these hardly even get a description in the OLTL coffee table book. Was Mark Brettschneider the main Jason Webb--cuz they act like he wasn't good looking due to a scar--if it's who I think it is he still would fit my description of a soap hunk...

WOW OLTL really slipped quickly in the last two years of Rauch's run--to 10th place??

Anyway, I loved the show under her though, as I've said I wasn't there for that first year--till late 92 or so (whenever Billy Douglas was) and some of what's being critized here was gone by then. Vicki certainly seemed *more* like herself (though I know some don't like her under that era period) the short term stories were completely dropped, etc.

I do get why many foudn her arrogant--she came from ZERO background in the industry and made all these changes. That said, she sounds a lot less arrogant than people in the soap industry now do--she makes big statements but it's clear she's trying things out and wants what ultimately will work best, and nothing she says is exactly disrespectful to the history or audiences of soaps IMHO. It's telling asa soap fan that when her show was at its best (late 92-94) it had become more traditional soap than this, but that doesn't ignore the huge innovations she did bring about--and some, like the music issue have become (sometimes for better AND worse) an indelible part of modern soap opera. (I think the article argues a bit too strongly that her hiring "uglier" actors was a big change--the New York soaps in particular often had "interesting looking" actors who weren't all romance novel cover models in the 70s and 80s--but I do wish it was something done more, I love the eye candy of soaps, don't get me wrong but it starts to make the shows less compelling to me when everyone looks like an underwear model).

I do wish Griffith would get more mention--I know he wasn't there for Malone's first year (Feb 91 to Jan 92) but he obviously helped Malone, as Malone has said many times, actually be able to shape soap storylines, etc.

Anyway while I don't think she was completely successful, I do think hiring her showed good instincts on the part of ABC daytime, and overall to me he rand Malone were more succesful than other hires from outside the industry--liek Sheffer (though I liked his first year as well). Really it's the kind of thing that they still need to consider doing.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I will say this about Gottlieb's OLTL, visually and aesthetically, the show never LOOKED and SOUNDED better. The rich people looked glamorous and wealthy, the show was directed superbly, and the musical scoring was some of the best scoring ever assembled for a daytime soap. It was like a East Coast Y&R, production-wise, the lighting was also very dim and Gothic-styled, and the newly created sets were fabulous.

What she did production-wise for a soap, especially a soap that isn't based in Hollywood, was great.

I may not be Malone's biggest fan, but I always sensed Gottlieb had great taste.

[SFK]

I agree with you guys. I just do not get the Gottlieb hate, and maybe soap folks' feathers were ruffled because here came somebody who knew nothing about the medium yet had undeniably good ideas and fresh perspective. I do not know her personally, so maybe it was in the *way* she said she'd make change that bothered people, who knows. But I loved her era of OLTL, Y&R could use her. I mean, I can only speak from personal taste, that's all I've got, but I thought the show looked great, the score was great, the storylines pulled me in, there was a dark, edgy, sexiness about the show. It had that Y&R thing goin' on where it always felt like it was about 5pm, and that coupled with all of that deep psychological family drama of the Lord saga that imho made great use of the show's history (in comparison to the stuntish stuff we've gotten in more recent years) made for a really enjoyable, can't-miss show.

* * *

When I was coming home after Christmas, I thought I spotted LG at Penn Station in a chinchilla jacket and hat which put her on my mind and got me to Googling the other night. I found a funny article in the Times where she was interviewed about house sitters from hell. She and her husband let a new acquaintance stay in their duplex at the Beresford on CPW (on her Hotline, Robin Strasser once raved about the impeccable taste with which LG decorated this apartment) and the house sitter let their plant die, threw a huge party, and proceeded to wear ALL of LG's underwear and leave it dirty in the hamper. Wow.

[Paul Raven]

Here's what Michael Logan had to say about La Gottlieb in TV Guide Oct 92

It's been 15 months since ABC - desperate to resuscitate One Life To Live - boldly went where no network had gone before: to the producer of smash-hit movie. But in hiring Linda Gottlieb (whose credits include the 1987 blockbuster "Dirty Dancing," HBO's "Citizen Cohn," and the CBS TV-movie "Face of a Stranger," which won Gena Rowlands a 1992 Emmy), ABC did much more than jump-start its 24-year-old junk heap. It may possibly have salvaged the medium.

For way too many years, network heads have labored under the assumption that to executive produce or head-write a soap, extensive daytime experience is a must. This meant new blood was consistently overlooked while show after show fell victim to a select group of rotating dinosaurs - most of whom had reputations that far exceeded their talents. Reeling from the calamitous 1990 return of executive producer Gloria Monty to General Hospital, ABC broke with tradition and, starting with OLTL, turned three of its four soaps over to non-soap executive producers. The results are mixed: GH is still messy, but Loving is nicely improved and One Life is barely recognizable.

Chockablock with hambone performances and dorky sci-fi plots (time travel, underground civilizations), OLTL was the laughingstock of daytime when Gottlieb showed up. Armed with a head writer who also had no suds experience - acclaimed novelist Michael Malone - she energized the show (and raised the ratings) with short-term, groundbreaking story arcs dealing with lupus, wife-beating, homophobia, even S&M sex. She introduced three red-hot discoveries - Susan Batten (Luna), Susan Haskell (Marty) and Grace Phillips (Sarah). But, more important, she and Malone mined deep into OLTL's existent landscape and struck a mother lode with several regulars who had long been ill-used. Among them: Elaine Princi (Dorian), Tonja Walker (Alex), Patricia Elliott (Renee) and, especially, veteran cowboy star Phil Carey (Asa), who - lo and behold - isn't the crusty old fossil we'd been led to believe but a powerful, ripsnortin' performer who deserves some respect come Emmy time. Even three-time Emmy winner Erika Slezak - who for years had been playing matriarch Viki Buchanan like a high-falutin puff-toad - has come magnificently down to earth in her romance with Roy Thinnes (Sloan). Toiling under Gottlieb - who reportedly changes her mind as often as she exhales - ain't exactly nirvana. She is said to be a perfectionist and a whip-cracker. In the final analysis, though, not only is she proof that an outsider can deliver the goods in daytime, but she's also shown an entire industry how to execute a splendid U-turn.

[SFK]

I really like the Erika Slezak I know from interviews and such, but I have a feeling that if I knew her personally, we would disagree on a couple of things like her (imo) over-praise of Rauch and JFP (and FF while we're at it), and her dislike of LG's contribuion to the the show. I don't want to think that it boils down to something as simple and DARE I say self-centered, but it seems like she's been unhappiest in the past when Viki wasn't glued to the front burner. Even she has admitted that she's had more than her fair share of time in the sun, but I'd like to know specifically why she didn't think LG was particularly good for the show. I didn't dislike Viki during that era, I thought she was a great character, more realistic than the often OTT character she was in the '80s, but... Maybe it was personal.

[bellcurve]

Gottlieb tried to do something innvoative, lush, beautiful and REAL for daytime.

And it's so typical...someone who thinks outside the box or someone who wants to do something good for daytime is cast aside like trash while recycled hack after recycled hack continue to destroy what little is left of this industry.

It's no surprise there were "critics" out there who didn't get Gottlieb's vision for OLTL or thought she was an arrogant bitch. It's why daytime is in the state it's in today.

[SFK]

Exactly. And if JFP has her defenders in the industry, LG must have hers too. Until I hear more concrete examples of why she was so awful, I'm just going to have to chalk it all up to hateration. How many of us know how things truly function behind the scenes of our favorite soaps, but who among us couldn't walk in and give them a laundry list of what they're doing wrong and what they should be trying to do to fix it??

[Doyen]

Check out the breakdown I wrote on my site about the various admin (HW, EP) eras of OLTL.

OLTL - Era In Review

[DRW50]

ACEM, that page is well put together, I especially like your choices of photos.

SFK, that is interesting about Slezak and Gottlieb. I would have said it involved breaking up Viki/Clint but since Slezak did not want them put back together after Sloan's death, obviously that wasn't a big issue for her. I guess it might have been the huge change in tenor of the show, and the shift in Viki not being quite the central force she once was, at least for the first few years. For a lot of 1991 and 1992, wasn't Viki in more of a mother role?

I also wonder how she feels about all the atrocities which were piled onto Viki, and onto Victor's legacy. It did produce some great drama but in the long term the show kept adding on and adding on and it has made the Lords so bogged down in tragedy, they struggle to go on as characters.

[EricMontreal22]

There was a lot of talk that one thing the crazy Rauch era did do--was put Vicki front and center when really even under Russell, she hadn't been.

[EricMontreal22]

Those are absolutely wonderful! thanks for pointing them out

[EricMontreal22]

Well exactly--she took a dead on its feet soap, tried new things, while always respecting her audience (IMHO this is key) and for the most part they were a success.

[DRW50]

I do think that some felt the early portion of her run was not respectful of the audience, in terms of all the big changes made to some stories and characters. I can see where some might have had issues with the shift in how the Buchanans were written, and it seemed like some of the actors also struggled with that. She also brought a lot of new characters in quickly, although I think generally she did well at integrating them, from the pieces of that era I've seen.

But in the long run, it did help give the show new life.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I wish someone would interview Gottlieb today and have her reflect on her time at OLTL, what she thought she did right and what she thought she could have done better, amongst other things.

Does anyone know how old she is? I think she must be very up there in age...