Gordon Russell's Work on OLTL

[Scotty]

You know, it seems hard to believe now, but at one time (1969-70) there were 19 soaps on daytime television. My how times have changed.

[EricMontreal22]

Of course they were all a half hour ( a year or two before a couple were still 15 mins)

[Paul Raven]

Mention of Karen Wolek reminds me that in a Christine Tudor interview(Gwyneth LOV)in SOD,she states that before landing that role,she auditioned for Karen at OLTL when they were considering bringing her back-plans that were obviously dropped.

How interesting if Karen had have returned.

[SFK]

Oh wow, that is really interesting! I'd love to see her on OLTL, in a decent role.

[LoyaltoAMC]

Don't mean to detour this great thread, but I never truly understood why CBS cancelled Search, given its still decent numbers. It was barely 1/2 point Y&R, which it followed in most markets at the time. Were their demos awful? Was it some backstage political thing engineered by Conboy? Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Capitol, especially its first two years, but Search was a much better written and acted show that had a human quality about it that Capitol never did. Obviously, NBC, which was in big trouble, saw a chance to add a decently rated show to its failing line-up, and we all know how that turned out.

[EricMontreal22]

Cuz CBS was arrogant and power hungry then (same reason they canceled Capitol--though of course they had a new Bill Bell soap in the wings). They hated having a somewhat low rated soap, plus I think they felt Search like LOL was just too old fashioned to bother revamping, etc.

[EricMontreal22]

I only recently found out that Roin Strasser was initially asked to play Cathy Craig around 1975... I wonder if she had, if Cathy would still be on the canvas?

[SFK]

I doubt it. I think she would have been swept up and away in the show's attempt at Alice/Steve/Rachel Part Deux, I don't think it would have lasted. She was wise to hold out and choose to play a character who's the lead's antagonist, then she injected Dorian with all of her ideas of glamour and humor. She's an astute actress who steered the character in her own direction... I mean literally made the part her own.

[DRW50]

When Robin began as Dorian, Dorian was basically a cold manipulator, wasn't she? When was it they started to get more inside Dorian's head and make her more of an antiheroine? When Cassie showed up?

[EricMontreal22]

I thought they'd already made DOrian softer (with Claire Mallis, or whatever her name is) by the time she came in.

Yeah Cathy would be a weird fit I think--of course then she played Christina on AMC which was a very weird fit.

[DRW50]

I haven't seen Malis. I thought Robin's early stories as Dorian were all about getting Herb into the highest echelons, and using Karen's testimony to start a witch hunt against Larry at the hospital (or was that Claire?).