OLTL History Question

[DRW50]

Gillian Spencer and Bernard Grant played husband and wife on GL. Robin and Paul. Robin had had a miscarriage after cleaning up her stepson's messy room. She blamed him and eventually drove him away from home. The climax of this story was when Sara McIntire showed up in Springfield and reconnected with old friend Paul. Robin threw herself in front of a car...dying the same way her stepmother Kathy had 15 years before, and angering viewers yet again. Irna Phillips was a cruel mistress.

There are some clips of some wonderful work from Gillian.

There's some more here.

http://glmemories.blogspot.com/2007/01/shadows-of-past.html

[Bright Eyes]

Gillian Spencer knocked everyone single one of her roles out of the park, eh? I didn't even know she was on The Guiding Light.

Paul you are being selfish! LoL Whatever you have on OLTL, would you be willing to meander around to a few of your favorite online buddies? Hint, hint?

[DRW50]

Sorry, I should thank Paul too

Yeah, Gillian was on GL for several years. Robin was a very important role. She was the show's major heroine in that age range. Viewers saw Robin grow up. There were several Robins but she was the last and she was very popular in the role. Agnes Nixon wrote heavily for her and that's one of the reasons she picked Gillian to play Viki.

The Robin before Gillian was that one of a kind writer Ellen Weston.

[Khan]

A WHAT??? Oh, please.

Gee, this sounds so familiar, lol.

[Bright Eyes]

I'm BACK!

And I have another question!

The Garretson's.

How were Rafe/Sammi/Delilia written out?

Was Sammi their daughter?

Are Rafe and Delila still married?

[DRW50]

I think they're still married.

Delilah left the show in late 1989 for a TV job out West, and I think Rafe followed her a few years later.

Sammi was their daughter. For a long time I thought she had carried Samantha Vernon's child, as she had the embryo transplanted into her when Samantha suddenly died, but apparently she miscarried that time.

Here's the episode where she leaves, and Asa is an ass to her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJVvqX2398M

OLTL had such vibrant female characters back then...I miss those days.

[Bright Eyes]

Thanks for clearing that up. All three characters should return. The little girl playing Sammi, Danielle Harris, is doing quite well for herself these days and Shelley Burch looks amazing. Poor Ken Meeker is a huge question mark though.

One more thing, Drew Ralston died right?

[DRW50]

Shelley is gorgeous, she was even when she returned a few years back. Delilah could do so much for the show.

I think Drew died in a holdup in 1983 or 1984.

[saynotoursoap]

Amello, I LOVED the Marcy Wade story. Of the early OLTL years, this is probably one of my very favorite plots, and without a doubt the most suspenseful of OLTL's first decade.

Marcy's story was based in the history of Viki. During OLTL's first year on the air, Viki's alter Niki Smith had emerged for the first time and complicated Viki's relationship with Joe Riley. Niki became involved with Vinny Wolek, while Viki planned to marry Joe. On the day of Joe and Viki's wedding, Niki emerged, and she fled the church with Vinny. Eventually Viki took over and returned to Joe. After therapy with psychiatrist Dr. Polk, Niki Smith seemingly disappeared for good. Joe, who was editor for the Lord newspaper The Banner, investigated a story about drug trafficking in Llanview. Viki's friend Cathy Craig had gotten hooked on dope, then Vinny was accused of murdering Artie Duncan, who was running drugs. Joe went to California to uncover information that he thought would help clear Vinny. While in California, Joe was in an accident and presumed killed.

Victor hired Steven Burke to replace Joe as the newspaper's editor. Viki was devastated by Joe's death and instantly clashed with Steve who she saw as attempting usurp Joe's memory. Steve's methods of running the paper were very different than Joe's, and Viki battled him at every turn. Victor had never particularly cared for Joe, but he approved wholeheartedly of Steve Burke, an educated, sophisticated man of fine breeding. Victor thought Steve an ideal husband material for Viki and pushed the two together whenever possible. As with any good drama, the more Viki and Steve sparred, the more physically attracted they became to one another. Steve ultimately broke down her defenses, and Viki agreed to marry him.

At this point in time, mid-1971, much of the action was focused at The Banner. Carla Gray and Cathy Craig both worked there, as did Viki and Steve's executive secretary Marcy Wade. Unknown to anyone, Marcy had fallen in love with Steve and fantaszied that she could have him, because Joe had been the love of Viki's life, and for all appearances, Viki and Steve had an antagonistic relationship. Marcy went over the edge with desperation when she learned that Steve and Viki had become engaged. Several of Viki's friends, Carla and Vinny in particular, remembered Niki Smith's appearance at Joe and Viki's aborted first wedding, and they feared that Niki might reemerge again. Carla confided her fears to Marcy, who pretended that she only had "poor Mrs. Riley's" best interests at heart while subtly fishing for details about Niki Smith.

Marcy decided that if Steve believed that Niki Smith had reemerged, he would get cold feet about marrying a woman with psychological problems. Marcy started drugging Viki's drinks with sleeping pills so that Viki would pass out and then think she had a blackout. While Viki was out, Marcy worked overtime to leave clues suggesting that Niki was back. Initially the plan worked, and Steve and Viki's planned wedding was ruined by fears that Niki had returned. However, things then backfired for Marcy. Steve became even more protective of Viki and determined to make sure that she was cured. Steve and Vinny worked together to ensure that Niki would be banished for good. This made Marcy even more psychotic and desperate.

She had learned that Niki once shot Victor, and thus began to develop a diabolical plan to shoot and kill Vinny, make it appear that Niki was the culprit, and then with Viki in jail or locked away in an aslyum, Marcy would have a clear path to Steve. The story began to culminate right after Thanksgiving 1971. Marcy had bought a wig and clothes that matched the recollections others had of Niki. Steve was going away to a convention, and while he was gone, Marcy plotted to lure Vinny to Ernie's Bar, a seedy dive on the docks of the Llantano River. Marcy had a pistol in her purse. She wrote a note stating that she had to kill Vinny because he wanted to help Viki gain control over her, and she signed it "Niki". Marcy had phoned Vinny, and using Niki's voice, told him that she would call him back and arrange a meeting with him. Meanwhile, she set about drugging Viki and stashing her away. Vinny told Steve that he had spoken to Niki and convinced her to meet him at the docks that night, and when Steve returned from his convention in Chicago, Vinny would have sorted out the situation with Niki.

This was one of those soap opera situations where all of this was supposed to occur in one day "Llanview time", but it actually ran nearly a full month of airtime. Marcy instructed Vinny to meet her outside Ernie's Bar. She stood outside in the mist with the note and gun in her purse. At the very end of the show on Friday, December 31, 1971, Marcy saw the figure of a man emerging from the shadows and fog. She clutched her gun anticipating Vinny's reaction, but when he grew closer and she saw his face...it was not Vinny but Steve Burke! Steve had forced Vinny to let him switch places because Steve was convinced that he could make Viki reemerge.

The following Monday, Steve was mortified to see not Niki Smith, but Marcy masquerading as her. He realized that the entire scenario had been staged by the deranged Marcy who was obsessively, psychotically infatuated with him. Marcy confessed everything, telling him that she did it because she loved him and she knew that Viki would never make him happy, but she could. Steve attempted to snap her out of it, coldy and angrily insisting that he could never love her. The situation quickly deteriorated. Marcy decided the only way out was to kill Steve. He lunged for the gun, and in the scuffle, Marcy's purse was flung behind some crates. She and Steve struggled over the pistol, and it went off, killing Marcy instantly.

The cop sent to investigate the homicide was Lt. Ed Hall. This is how the character was written into the story. Ed found the story of Marcy masquerading as Niki Smith to be preposterous. Ed thought that Steve was having an affair with Marcy behind Viki's back, and to keep Viki from finding out, he had murdered Marcy. Ed set out to make sure that Steve was tried and convicted of murder, which infuriated Viki and Steve's good friend Carla. Their arguments about Steve's guilt or innocence laid the groundwork for another romance. Family friend Dave Siegel defended Steve and searched for any scrap of evidence he could find that would corroborate Steve's story, but Marcy had very cleverly covered her tracks. The only evidence appeared to be the note that Marcy had written and planned to leave on Vinny's body, but the purse was missing.

After her death, a bum on the riverfront had discovered the purse and taken. He was looking through the contents and read the note. It was then that we saw his face. The bum was actually Joe Riley! Joe had not died in the car crash in California. He survived and returned to Llanview. Joe turned the purse over to the police at the eleventh hour, on the condition that he remain anonymous, and Steve was freed. This was wonderful story. Francesca James gave a superb performance as the psychotic Marcy. Marcy was one of the very first soap psychos. Prior to her, most villainesses had a good, logical reason for bad behavior, but Marcy was plain nuts. The story was epic, lasting almost a year, and it worked so well because only the audience was aware of what Marcy was doing. Everyone else believed that Niki was back, so the fun of watching was waiting to see if Marcy got her comeuppance or succeeded in her schemes. This plot was later redone in 1978-79 when Talbot Huddleston and Katrina Karr made it appear that Niki was back and had murdered Marco Dane but that storyline was a mystery, with the audience as in the dark as the show's characters. It was a nice use of history, though, and Gordon Russell even made reference to Marcy during Viki's trial for Marco's murder. Another fallout from the Marcy story was Meredith and Larry. Meredith was pregnant with twins throughout 1971. Believing that Niki had taken over Viki again, Meredith became neurotic with worry, and it affected her physically. Marcy's murder and Steve's arrest caused Meredith to go into premature labor, resulting in the death of one of her babies in January 1972.

[DRW50]

Thank you for this spellbinding synopsis. So Marcy was before Kit Vested?

I'd love to see this story. How fascinating. It doesn't sound like an Agnes story - who wrote it?

I didn't realize Carla and Viki were such close friends. I thought Erika Slezak didn't care for Viki being in Carla's wedding for that reason.

It's so much more effective when the show does not bring back these alters again and again and again and instead just makes a story about the fear of a return.