Ellen Holly 1971 interview, photos

[DRW50]

July 71 Daytime TV

Sterling's Magazines, Inc

[Y&RWorldTurner]

She was strikingly beautiful. None of the soap rags would print this article today.

[DRW50]

[SFK]

+1

I love this. Thank you Carl. Ellen and Robin, if I didn't know better I'd think you were giving me a belated birthday present.

[SFK]

Opposed to the white Esther Rolle.

[EricMontreal22]

It's very similar to a NYT article she did the year before that I have saved on my computer but can't figure out how to get it here without typing it all out--in that one she gives Agnes a lot of praise but does say basically that despite that, Agnes doesn't know the whole experience (something I bet even Aggie would agree with). But the comments about feeling like an outsider are the same too. It's too bad that she seems to have been wasted for much of the 70s and certainly the 80s... I know she felt it beneath her when she was let go on OLTL and Agnes offered her and her character's mother's actress to move their characters to Loving, but I wish they had (though that show changed focus so much in the 80s who knows what impact it woulda had).

[SFK]

Miss Holly lives not far from me in NY and I've often considered writing her but had my doubts about invading her privacy. And now reading this article I really wonder. Life is short however.

[DRW50]

SFK, I was saving the Ellen Holly one for when I knew you were back on the board. I'm glad you got to read it. Thanks for replying, both of you, I'm glad people enjoy reading this.

It's sad to think this actress and this story would never be on a soap today. At least we have some of this as a legacy I guess.

[SFK]

Actually, I think the offer was only to Miss Hayman as Miss Holly was still employed at the time, but I'm not sure. I remember in her book her saying that Mrs. Nixon remarked that she was familiar with Mr. Rauch's history and none of his behaviour at One Life surprised her.

[DRW50]

I can't blame her for not wanting to go to Loving but like you said, I wish she had. (If that was the offer). The show was socially conscious in those first few years, yet did not have a black presence for a long time. I think Agnes also might have been more interested in Loving in the 80s if Carla and Sadie had been there.

The whole thing is so sad...and yet it's something which can't be told enough.

[SFK]

<--The manliest ever.

[DeeeDee]

Exactly.

[SFK]

Yeah, it would have been really awesome if they'd had the opportunity to do a Carla and Sadie 2.0 on Loving where they got back in touch with some socially-relevant juicy material. I choke up imagining a s/l where Carla finally meets her fair-skinned father and Sadie mournfully shares that she always felt that she was too dark and unattractive for him, that she thought he was ashamed of her and that's why he left, why Carla's rejection was twice as painful.

I've brought this up before, but I can't help but hold Carla and Sadie up against Erica and Mona, Ada and Rachel, even Kate and Ava... these mother-daughter duos with absent fathers, no siblings... all daughters a handful for their put upon mothers. Though Carla wasn't a bitch, she did have shades of selfish vixen if we judge by the synopses. I guess she was motivated by something deeper however, and the idea of making her character less than sympathetic would have undermined the story.

[DRW50]

Some of us have talked about these actors or characters or stories so much, when I was able to post some of the material from that time which helps shed some light I thought we'd enjoy it.

Eric, I didn't remember about the NYT article, sorry; I hope you can still post it eventually.

[DRW50]

Cabot Alden!

There weren't enough black mother/daughter relationships on soaps. I guess the one which was most striking was Lilliebelle and Dru on Y&R, then some others (I liked Gilly/Vivian on GL until it got very trashy). I wish more of Carla and Sadie was available.