Days: 45 years of days!

[teplin]

Margaret Mason's Linda was a delicious villainess, but one of my favorite memories of her character is when she took Mike to bed because he was doubting his heterosexuality. That brings to mind one of my favorite forgotten supercouples: Mike and Trish. I thought they, not Trish and David, belonged together, and I didn't like Mike's romance with Margo, though it was certainly heartbreaking at the end. I remember tearing up at a Mike-Margo montage that was set to Trish singing "Time in a Bottle."

And that brings up one of my very favorite things about the DAYS of yore: the musical performances. I loved hearing Doug, Trish and Liz singing songs that always somehow related to one or more of the characters listening. I really missed that after Gloria Loring departed.

[saynotoursoap]

jam is correct. Bill Bell had every intention of killing Addie off at Christmas 1973. Addie's condition grew quite grave at the end of the year, and Tom wanted to induce labor of her unborn baby, but she refused. Her condition grew quite grave, and all seemed hopeless (no pun intended). Immediately after the baby was born, Addie had one last shot at life, a potent drug which would either send her into remission or kill her. The drug was administered, and Addie lapsed into a coma. Addie and Alice had spent a good deal of time praying and talking about their faith in God. Doug was furious. He renounced his faith in God, and told a horrified Alice that he blamed baby Hope for Addie's condition. Julie confided to Laura that she now wanted her mother to recover and make a happy family with Doug. Although Julie still loved Doug, for the first time she could see how very deeply he loved Addie, an abiding, spiritual love that was different from the kind of physical attraction she shared with him. Those were tear-jerking episodes, regardless of whom you rooted for.

Bell had Addie emerge from the coma in complete remission. It was a trick aimed at the vocal audience. He still intended to kill her off, but waited a few more months and it had it happen suddenly.

[saynotoursoap]

TV's PATRICIA BARRY "DIES" FOR THE GOOD OF THE PLOT

By Jerry Buck

July 9, 1974

The soap opera heroine begins coughing. Or finds a funny bump. Daytime television fans know the signs. She isn’t long for the show. The character must die for the good of the plot.

Sometimes it happens suddenly -as it did to Addie, the troubled, middle-aged widow in NBC’s “Days of Our Lives.” A truck hit her on June 28.

Of course she was living on borrowed time. She was to have died of leukemia last Christmas.

“I went out the door and all you heard was the screeching of brakes,” says Patrcia Barry, who played the character. “They didn’t even let me play my death scene.”

“I take it personally,” says Mrs. Barry, now appearing in “Twigs” at the AC Theater in Seattle. “In soaps more than anything else you identify with your character.”

Betty Corday, producer of the daily series for Columbia Pictures Television says, “What happens in daytime series is that the story dictates where we have to go. We’ve wept for wonderful people we’ve lost. But it was impossible for this character not to die for the story to progress.”

In “Days of Our Lives,” Mrs, Barry played the 40-ish daughter of MacDonald Carey. She was a widow with a grown daughter and had remarried. But her new husband, Doug, who is much younger, was in love with the daughter. It is just everyday life in soap opera land.

Mrs. Barry is the wife of Phil Barry, creative vice president of Tomorrow Entertainment, and the mother of two daughters. She has appeared in more than 800 television plays and once starred in the series “90 Bristol Court.”

“It all started a year ago,” Mrs. Barry says. “I had it in my contract that I could be written out to do plays. I went to Minneapolis to do The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, and when I got back, I found out I was to die of leukemia.”

“I said, what’s this?”

They said, “You’ll be dead by Christmas.”

“I was already 17 months pregnant -the Watergate hearings had delayed me a bit. I was supposed to have the baby and die at Christmas.”

Mrs. Barry says she was saved by an uproar from fans. A remission was quickly written into the script.

“I’m so confused. All this popularity. A lot of middle-aged women identify with my character and the ability to have a menopause baby,” Mrs. Barry says. “It seems you would be of value to someone.”

[saynotoursoap]

I totally agree, teplin. I remember the seduction scene where Mike was trying to explain to Linda that he feared he might be homosexual. He was about to say the word, and she put her fingers gently on his mouth to stop him and quietly began to undress him. For that era, it was fairly racy. They had spoken about the fact that Mike and Trish were both virgins, and although using euphemisms, it was stated quite clearly that when Mike and Trish attempted to make love, Mike could not get it up. As Time pointed out, they were not doing this sort of thing on the other soaps! I felt that the story with Linda and Mike was dropped too quickly. After their lovemaking, Mike fell in love with Linda, or at least what he thought was love. The situation with Mike/Linda/Mickey/Trish could have gone on for years. And, I concur. Trish was better with Mike than with David. Personally, I always rooted for David and Valerie, but I suppose interracial romance must have been too much for Days in the long run.

I loved Doug's Place and the musical interludes. It was another thing that set Days apart from the rest of the pack. The lighting in Doug's was Y&R style, very dark and moody. It was the perfect venue for characters to have affairs, pick fights with rivals, and for Doug, Trish, or Robert to sing a sad love song while the camera panned over happy and miserable couples. I enjoyed it when the songs were sung for ironic effect, like when Trish returned to Salem after abandoning David and Scotty. David refused to have anything to do with her, and Trish sang "Have I Stayed Too Long At the Fair?" Folks, they do not make them like this any longer.

[DRW50]

Was it Patty's choice to leave DAYS? Do you think she was right?

That's interesting, Pat Barry's very vocal anger at being written out. You'd think that she would have been used to losing a job, since she had been acting for quite a few years. That seems to have been a conflict on DAYS for a long time, the question of whether an actor is bigger than the show. I wonder how she reacted when Miss Sally died on GL.

[JAS0N47]

It seems it was Patty's decision to leave both times, to focus on her music.

She first left the show in 1978: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=K90NAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M20DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5275,2889732&dq=patty-weaver&hl=en

And then left the show again in 1982: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vu4tAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RIgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2411,8982330&dq=patty-weaver&hl=en

[DRW50]

Thanks. I wonder if she ever thought of returning or if she decided Y&R was better for her, since Bill Bell created Trish.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Her husband, Jerry Birn, also wrote for Y&R and then B&B, so she was quite close to the Bell's.

[DRW50]

Oh. I keep forgetting about that.

I miss Patty Weaver. She had such a warm presence which is now nowhere to be found on soaps.

[Sapounopera]

Bill Bell's DAYS seem like a great soap opera, a lot different than other shows of that period.

Mike's paternity being a secret for all these years, Susan and the Peters brothers story, Mike thinking that he is gay, David and Valerie, Julie/Doug/Addie..

I consider Brad Bell's B&B a cheap, trashy version of Bill Bell's DAYS. A big family with many children and grandchildren who come and go from time to time with so many love triangles within the family.

Was Trish Clayton a character similar to B&B's Amber Moore?

Too bad that Susan never returned with her daughter Annie and that the show was not committed to the next generation of Hortons.

Am I the only one who thinks that Kristian Alfonso was miscast as Hope?

The show should have paired Marlena with a Horton instead of Roman and Don. Perhaps a triangle with Bill and Mike.

I would really love to know what Bill Bell had in mind for the DAYS to come...

[Guest dc cubs]

The Sony Days web site has some videos up to celebrate the 45th Anniversary. There is a classic clips section with 4 clips up currently and 9 more to come. The other two videos feature the cast thanking the fans and stating their favorite things about the show.

Classic Clips

http://www.daysofourlives.com/video/45th/

Happy 45th:

http://www.daysofourlives.com/video/days_45th_int/index.php?id=0

Favorite things:

http://www.daysofourlives.com/video/days_45th_int/index.php?id=1