Wisner Washam interview

[LoyaltoAMC]

Part 1 was just posted on welovesoaps.com. I've been waiting for an interview with him for years, and finally seeing one totally made my day. Hell, it made my month. I need to get a life LOL. I assume parts 2 and 3 will be posted over the next several days. There's also a very recent interview with his wife, Judith Barcroft (ex-Ann, AMC; ex-Lenore, AW, among various soap roles) just posted in their interview archive. Enjoy.

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/02/wisner-washam-interview-part-1-of-3.html#more

[Paul Raven]

The WLS team need to be commended for these interviews.

the only frustrating thing is that they don't always ask the questions I would!!

[EricMontreal22]

Wow--he's been sorta a myster figure in AMC's history (the only lengthy piece I can find on him is the 1976 interview in All Her Children--about how he had been a fave Stage Manager of Neil Simon, etc) so it's great to have something..

[CSF]

So far, so good. Looking forward to parts 2 and 3.

[Jonathan]

I've been wanting to hear from him also! Can't wait for part 2.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

Wow, I have been wondering about him. Whenever I do research on AMC and his name is mentioned, I always wonder what he's doing in life. WLS does really well with these interviews, looking forward to the next 2 parts.

[All My Shadows]

Wow, I'm reading the Barcroft interview and I'm shocked to see that Virginia Dwyer is still alive. I thought she passed years ago.

[SFK]

A couple years ago, someone at WoST was wondering about her and managed to locate her address. She was living in midtown Manhattan at the time.

[Sylph]

My world is complete.

[Sylph]

I always knew he was my kind of writer, but Agnes — wasn't.

[EricMontreal22]

I didn't know you watched any of his stuff, Sylph--what made you suspect he was your kind of writer? It does sound like the combo is a good one for those reasons.

[Sylph]

I have just started. After annoying the hell out of LoyaltoAMC in every possible thread with questions about Wisner, I have finally found who has tapes of AMC from that era. So don't ask me anything just yet.

[EricMontreal22]

HAHA okok, I just like bugging you cuz of your Agnes bias Of course Wisner is pretty much co headwriter (sometimes credited as full, even though for much of it Agnes still was tops--or co creditedwith Broderick for chunks of the 80s) for anything 1975-1990 in some capacity. So many of the classic eps on youtube are partly his work. I'll be interested though (ages from now when you'e seen some) if you think you can spot what's his work and what's Nixon's--though to be fair I think for much of it they worked as a team... Certainly, in All Her Children's chapter on Wisner he mentions that everything helearned about how to plot and sturcture a soap as well as the style of stories he does,k he learned from Agnes directly, but his definition of being more of a realist, does make sense (even if Agnes already is more of a realist in how she writes then, say, Bell).

(I hope that the further parts of the interview go into exactly what their working relationship was and even what stories or eras he was more involved in, etc)

[DRW50]

In the long run I think killing off Ann was a mistake, especially as the Tylers as a family were all but extinct by 1990.

[LoyaltoAMC]

The feeling was probably that there were too many major families on the show at that time. I think the Martins would've been gone by that point too, if not for the incredible popularity of Michael E. Knight. He clearly carried that family from the 80s and on. If not for him, it's hard to imagine the Martins lasting as long as they have. The Tylers never produced THAT popular a young actor to center the family around. Brooke, of course, was a Tyler by exntension, but by the late 80s she seemed to be more defined by whatever family she'd married into--the Chandlers or the Martins. She kind of languished when not connected to those families. Although Agnes/Wisner had the Tylers morph into the Wallingfords, it did seem like they deliberately stopped the Tyler line by killing off Chuck & Donna's son Johnny and Paul & Ann's daughter Beth, and not having Linc and Kelly have any kids of their own. I'd kill to know her exact reason for that.