Linda Gottlieb article 1992

[Saving ATWT]

I think it is crazy how many of the things Gottlieb tried have ended up on other soaps. The 'Wiseguy' arc thing is everywhere, for example. The whole idea of making daytime more like primetime has overtaken the industry. This was happening a few years ago when Sheffer and Goutman tried prime time jumps on ATWT. This all worked to an extent on OLTL but, in general, has not served the genre well. The two genres are so different and, when you are on the air 250 days a week, nothing of the short term seems to work very well. I think some writers can master this better than others but, in general, it is rather hard. I love the Marland quote in regards to storytelling. Not sure if I totally agree; however, it shows that he was really from a different generation of storytellers.

I wonder how a writer like Marland would be regarded today in a time when the short term arc has won out? Also, why did Gottlieb leave soaps? She came at things from a fresh perspective and might be great for GH right now.

[Sylph]

Primetime and daytime are not genre categories.

[MarkH]

Primetime isn't.

But daytime soaps sure are. I am assuming this is the sense in which the terms is used?

[Sylph]

No. Daytime is a part of the day when stuff airs/programming block. Not only soaps air in daytime slots.

Daytime serial, daytime soap opera is a different matter.

[juppiter]

So clever of you to point out minutiae Sylph. Anything insightful to share?

Anyway, never been a Gottlieb fan. To me, her OLTL was very very 90s in a bad way. Too PC, too trying to be "cool." The exact opposite of OLTL under Rauch. That said, ratings went up under her tenure. OLTL was a popular show again. But I just don't feel she was true to the show. She produced a daytime "thirtysomething" and attracted new viewers, but IMO her tenure led to OLTL's upcoming demise.

[EricMontreal22]

Hrmm not sure I see too much based directly on thirtysomething (which I love...)

[Sylph]

Look who is back. When people don't see the obvious, it calls for pointing out. And no, the tone of my post wasn't: You're a stupid idiot, how can you not see that daytime is not a genre? D'oh! Just for you to know.

[Vee]

Back to the Carla topic for a moment - people always dog on Agnes Nixon (including Holly herself) for "abandoning" the show, but I personally have moved beyond that. What was particularly striking to me is footage I saw from Agnes doing press for OLTL's anniversary in '08, in which she (yet again) discussed the Carla Gray story, a topic well-worn in PR for the show by now. Except when Agnes discussed it, though it's so many years gone now, and described the scene in which Carla was revealed to be Sadie's daughter, she broke down crying on-camera.

[EricMontreal22]

She offered Ellen her job at Loving which I think Ellen saw as a snub (both Carla and her mom would join) but honestly I think was Agnes trying to make amends--she didn't have power over Rauch at OLTL anyway so couldn't really do anything but she did talk about (in the Paley 1988 seminars on her site) how Loving was too white and I bet she wanted to move the characters there partly for this reason (AMC at the time already had a strong Black presence, probably the strongest of any soap then). It's too bad Ellen didn't take it.

And yes in the same interviews Agnes also mentions the scene where we learn that Carla is Sadie's daughter (it was a Friday cliffhangar ending with Carla calling her "mama") and, liek Vee says, Agnesclearly starts crying saying she found it so moving. While I wish Agnes had maintained thecontrol at OLTL she did at AMC (and Loving even if that didn't exactly cause much success) I get why she didn't.

Carla also was involved in one of the first interacial romances, something often forgotten. I don't mean her romance when audiences assumed she was white, but in the late 70s when she briefly gotinvolved with the surgeon who saved her husband, Ed's, life, Dr Jack Scott. Agnes aknowledges this in the same interviewswhen asked aboutinteracial romances but does admit that it was clear rom the start that she'd always end up back with Ed. Did Ed leave aroudn the same time Ellen left (not the first time in 81 but the final time in 85)?

[Sylph]

Why?

[Vee]

Jack Scott was not white; he was played by a black actor, Arthur Burghardt (sp?), from the NY stage who Ellen Holly hated working with. I believe Carla married Jack, who died, then she left town to return several years later, having suddenly become a lawyer.

During that second stint, which I believe was under the Corringtons with their whole mob mess with Alex Crown and Laurel Chapin, the show had what Holly called something like "a silly little quad" with Ed dating Phylicia Rashad's character, sports press agent Courtney Wright, and cougar Carla dating quarterback Alec Lowndes (Roger Hill from "The Warriors," who Holly had a passionate affair with offscreen). (Alec Lowndes' football team was, I believe, owned by Bo.) The objective was for Ed and Carla to eventually reunite but that's before my time and judging by the limited episodes from the period I've seen, I'm not sure if that happened before Carla left Ed and Llanview again to take a judgeship in...Arizona, I think?

I know Ed didn't leave the show til several years later, in the late '80s at the earliest. I always wondered how exactly Larry Fishburne's Josh gave birth to a full-grown twentysomething son, Jared, by 2000. Also, in looking at the clips of Carla and Sadie discussing her troubles with Ed in the '80s, I noticed how like the Erika Slezak of the '90s Holly came across - a black Viki crying to her mom.

I also wish Carla and Sadie had migrated to Loving. Given Angie and Frankie's own passage through Corinth and the timeslot wilds of ABC Daytime, I'll wager that if they had, we might see more Halls today. Like the Hubbards, the family would still be recent in the viewer consciousness.

[EricMontreal22]

HAHA my bad--well she mentioned an interacial relationship on OLTL and I assumed it was that--that it was a brief affair more kind of thing. Dunno whatit was then...

I atually didn't realize there were clips on youtube of Carla and her mom--I'll have to track them down.

[EricMontreal22]

While she did write GL and AW at the same time briefly, and then wrote AW and OLTL because of contract issues for about 8 months at the same time, Agnes did say it was hard to focus on more than one show (she did just that with Loving but it's probably telling that, in the 80s anyway, whenever she'd focus more on Loving AMC tended to suffer a bit, and Loving was a bit of a mess when she wasn't there--post Marland). AMC was the show she had more ofa personalconnection with (it being her first creation, and she has said she based it a bit more on her life and people she knew), both shows had been sold to ABC so it was harder to keep control of both, etc, etc

[Sylph]

[Vee]

The only interracial romance I'm aware of Carla having was with Jim Craig in the '60s, when she was passing.

There are several '80s episodes on YouTube with Ed, Carla and Sadie, including the amusing sight of Ed and Carla hitting the hot dance clubs.