Douglas Marland interview

[Y&RWorldTurner]

According to Nancy Curlee, Long had never heard of Roger and Holly and didn't know anything about their history, so maybe.

[DRW50]

Wasn't it Long supposedly who was put off at Holly returning with her hair in a bun and dressed in a matronly manner, and asked them to make her look more attractive?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Yes, and thank goodness for that.

Holly looked like a devout Mormon preacher's wife in the 70's. Maureen Garrett was/is a beautiful woman, I'm glad they dressed and styled her accordingly in the early 90's.

[Paul Raven]

I always find it amazing to read that some headwriters don't know anything about the history of their shows and miss out on mining years of story.

[Mitch]

I don't get it either, especially since Roger and Holly were so important to the show and effected two significant families, the Bauers and the Spauldings...oh, I get it, they didnt have anything to do with the Lewises!

But yes, I did read an interview where Long brought Holly back just for the Christmas episodes, and when she watched the monitors she said, "That woman is SEXY!" and brought her back and had her dresses appropriately. So Long at least in that interview took credit for at least Holly's return..but it does have Curlee written all over it.

[Soaplovers]

If Long had done her research, Holly did have a connection to the Lewis family. Wasn't her brother Andy Married Josh/Billy's sister Trish? I often wondered if the actress hadn't left in 1980, if a more pronounced connection between Holly and the Lewis family would have been developed by Marland and later writers?

Seeing a youtube of Holly in 1980 and in 1988, looked like two completely different characters. The holly in 1980 was so sad and afraid of the outside world (of course this was after Roger falling off the cliff) as opposed to the Holly in 1988 that was confident and more sexy. In storyline terms, it made sense because she had charted a new life for herself, married a man of wealth (shame we never got to meet him) and became powerful in her own right. I think that was mostly due to Curlee/Long.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Underneath the surface though, Holly was very much the same women. Curlee and company especially really kept her true to her neurotic nature, though on the surface her looks were more stylized. She had the same dark and pessimistic sense of humour and still needed both Roger and Ed's attention.

I'm always sad that Maureen Garrett never gets the attention and credit she deserves. Truly one of the greatest soap actresses I've ever seen, and she does it without the over the top dramatics of other actresses. There's a real and genuine quality to her performances that have always resonated with me.

[DRW50]

I think a woman on a soap is only likely to get noticed if she reinforces the stereotypes of daytime -- if she's campy, if she cries a lot.

Garrett was such a naturalistic actress that she managed to fit into both of the relatively thoughtful eras of GL (Dobsons and Curlee). She was never quite the same when they gave her more OTT material like the Nursery Rhyme stuff but she played that with campy zest which made it better than it should have been.

The Dobsons-era, and whoever the producer was then (Allen Potter?) seemed to be very reluctant to have sexualized women. All of the women were restrained, reserved, and they were often afraid of their desires. The most sexual was Rita, who often had no control of her lusts and needs and who was thus polarizing to viewers and feared or loathed by a number of female characters.

Sexuality was more natural later on, and Garrett fit into that well.

It's too bad she didn't ever get another role to suit her talents. She came into Ryan's Hope at a weak period and in a story which I didn't care for, and when your story revolves around people with names like "Oxnard" you are going to have a struggle.

[DRW50]

Something I appreciated when they did the triangle with Holly/Ross/Blake was they didn't try to make Holly frumpy or act like she was a wretched pathetic thing, as a lot of soaps would have done, and as GL itself did with women later that decade (as happened to Bridget and Vanessa at different points when it was time to hype up Dinah or Beth).

I just loved the raw power of the scenes between Garrett and Sherry Stringfield. Stringfield really was her mother's daughter -- when she was bitten she bit back twice as hard. Liz Keifer is a good actress and she made Blake her own over time but when Holly lashed out at her she just played the pain and hurt and not the fire. I guess that's one of the reasons why after a while Holly and Blake became close and generally stayed that way up to the hilarious Second Chances/Ben Warren/Nursery stalker stuff.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Maureen Garrett also aged really gracefully. I was happy they brought her back for that 2 minute scene with Ed during one of GL's final episodes. It might not have been a substantial scene, but I'm glad that Ed and Holly ended up together at the end with Maureen and Roger out of the way. When the show made it apparent during its final decade that it no longer wanted to write for characters like Ed and Holly, they should have paired them and sent them off happily, and not rushed their reunion for one of the very last episodes.

I'm glad that Holly and Ed got their happy ending. Ed/Holly, even when they weren't romantic, had one of the best male/female friendships/partnerships that I've ever seen on a soap. Their past also kept in, but you could always tell no matter what, they had each other's backs.

[DRW50]

On the one hand I often thought that Holly and Ed might be too damaged emotionally to exist as a couple, but then, as they both matured, they seemed to overcome their demons. I do wish they had given them more time together at the end...I don't really know why the returns were so short or why so much of Holly's was about Otalia. At the time I decided to enjoy it because honestly I never ever thought that I would see Ed, Holly, Bridget, etc. ever again, and that this was probably the best it would get. I guess considering ATWT's lack of interest in bringing many back, I was right. Another thing which was impressive was that even with the brutal filming style of the last year so many of those who came back had barely aged, even with years out of the business. Melissa Hayden, Maureen Garret, et al.

I wish the show had tried Holly/Alan instead of writing Holly off. Ron Raines wasn't exactly a dynamo in romantic pairings but with their long histories in Springfield that story could have had some dramatic sparks, especially if they had been able to get Peter Simon back and revived the old feud between Alan and Ed. I would have preferred that to WTF stuff like Beth and Alan.

[DRW50]

This is a May 1980 episode which often confuses me because I can never tell whether this is Marland's work. I guess it must have been his work, since he wrote Roger's exit and since Marland favorite John Wesley Shipp is there, but it's still Dobson-esque -- Holly is still there (for a long time I thought she was just about gone when Marland was there), Jackie is still played by Cindy Pickett which shocked me the first time I watched this as I remember her having a big emotional goodbye around time that Roger kidnapped Rita in the hall of mirrors (I guess Cindy was just taking a break to make that Roger Vadim movie?), and there is some charity shop I do not remember seeing during Marland's era.

Here's an episode which must be close to the end for Marland's run, August 1982.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I wonder if Michael Zaslow hadn't wanted to leave, how Marland would have written Roger.

The Dobson's based a lot of their GL on Roger, and did the same with John Dixon on ATWT, who Marland later softened and made less cut-throat. I wonder if he would have taken a similar approach to Roger if he had more time with the character.

[DRW50]

In some ways I think the Dobsons tried to redo those stories while giving John an out. The rape trial with John and Dee was written to make sure that ultimately viewers knew Dee had consensually had sex with John, as she apparently thought he was someone else.

By the time Marland showed up at ATWT, John was a cantankerous guy but a loving father to Dusty and offcamera Andrew, and settling back down with Lyla. At first Marland seemed to bring back some of his edge (his love/obsession with Sierra and jealousy of Craig driving away Lyla), then softened him.

I think if Roger had lived he might have been more like Marland's version of James Stenbeck.

[Soaplovers]

I could have seen this happening but then we would have been deprived of what Long/Curlee did with the Roger character if that had happened. They made him more of a gray character then an outright villian (like James stenbeck turned out to be).

I'm more intrigued over what he would have done long-term with Holly's character. Until recently, I had assumed she left the show right around the time of Roger's demise but it looks like she remained for at least another six months or so afterwards. I'm guessing he would have kept her on long-term since they reintroduced her brother Andy. Do you think they would have written her as long-suffering, stable, or made her hardened?