As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[Vee]

I find the discussion of Phillips's rough second stint fascinating - what did she regress the show from? What strides did she make? Those second go-rounds with titans of the industry, be they showrunners in daytime or primetime, are always interesting, and often fraught with peril.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Vee

[DRW50]

I get the feeling that the show wasn't in a good state when she came back. She made some choices that helped keep the show #1 until near the end of the decade, as Kim and Carol were both new heroines who were very popular with the audience and helped freshening things up (especially since the show had lost a lot of female characters due to aging up or popular actors leaving the show). And she made some choices that were a huge disaster.

The whole thing with Liz always bothers me the most, as she, if the soap books are true, loathed the actress for doing a nude scene on Broadway (Lenny), and wanted the character dead as a result. Fans refused to let it happen (Liz was supposed to die of an illness). Once the actress left, the character wasn't as popular, so she got away with killing her. Liz sounds like an interesting character who could have run a long time.

There is one episode of that era available, although it's poor quality and you may have seen it already.

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Many pages back saynotoursoap talked in some detail about that era, if anyone wants to find it.

Edited May 12, 2014 by DRW50

[Vee]

All I know about the character is Irna was mad at the actress for going nude in Lenny and she died falling up the stairs. That and Kim arriving - by most accounts, a character very close to Irna's ideal vision of herself - is the most I know of the era. I don't know when Jennifer was brought in or by who, or whether the move away from Bob and Kim was her idea or someone else's. I don't know what kind of sea changes she made.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Vee

[amybrickwallace]

Thanks for sharing those clips! I looked it up and she did indeed write for ATWT in the early 90s. Ms. Spencer also wrote for AW and AMC (as previously mentioned), promoted to script writer on the latter after working as a story consultant, a script writer on DAYS and GL, and a breakdown writer on GH and OLTL (also serving as OLTL's interim headwriter the last few months of 1999).

[DRW50]

She created Kim and she wanted them to be together and raise their child. She was fired due to refusing to back down from this. Her replacements made the changes P&G wanted. saynotoursoap (I think) said in his comments on that era that the Kim/Bob story was actually pretty rough going in terms of their behavior (I think she flew down to Florida to seduce him, or something, even though he was married to her sister), and that Kim only became more of a mainstream heroine after Irna left.

She wrote out Dan, Susan, and killed off Liz and Paul, due to the storyline disgusting her.

She also put Tom and Carol together. She wanted them to focus on organic foods and living off the land, as she felt that was timely.

Lisa's material in that era involved the phantom fetus (she thought she was pregnant with Don's baby - this is when Eileen almost died due to the oxygen tent, I think, wasn't it?), and then I think Lisa was involved with a minister or with some magnate played by Jerry Lacy.

She also brought in Penny's Vietnamese adopted daughter, and planned to, presumably, tell an issue story, but when she was fired they wrote Amy out, although Marland brought her back briefly in the late 80s.

Edited May 12, 2014 by DRW50

[amybrickwallace]

According to some soap book I read awhile back (can't recall the name of it now), Irna was going to have Liz burn to death in her honeymoon suite on her wedding night. P&G nixed that because one of their other soaps (EON, I believe) was going to be running a similar plot. Then the recast, then the falling UP the stairs.

Say what you want about Irna, but her stories were never boring!! Sadly, she didn't seem to know (or care) the difference between fact and fiction (like insisting on calling the actors on her shows by their character names). Didn't she pass away not long after the firing by ATWT in the early 70s?

[DRW50]

She planned for Liz to die in the hospital. Viewers caught on and protested. Liz was spared, but Jane House still left, as she was unhappy with that environment. She planned to burn the recast Liz. As you said, P&G said no.

She died some months after being fired, yes. I think she knew the realities of the world but didn't want to face them, or didn't want the viewers to face them. Looking at all the actors who humiliate themselves on Twitter, I think she may have had a point.

[Vee]

Jerry Lacy! Good lord.

Who were Liz and Paul and what was the story? Did any story other than Kim take off?

[DRW50]

Liz was a friend of the Hughes family, I believe, who had come from England. Paul was Dan's brother. Liz and Dan were in love and had sex. Unfortunately for them, he'd also had sex with Susan during their relationship (I'm sure it was more complicated than this and hopefully someone can give better detail as my memory sucks) and she told him she was pregnant. He and Susan had to marry. Liz was also pregnant. Liz chose not to tell him he was the father, so he would stay with Susan. She married Paul, who, I think, fell in love with her.

Irna was appalled by this storyline and killed off Paul (I think he and Dan were both shot), then Liz. The guy who played Dan wasn't happy with the show and she wrote him out. She married Susan off to an impotent man, then wrote her out.

I think the only other story she told that caught on with fans was Tom/Carol.

Paul should have been kept around, as there was potential for great conflict with Dan (he was the bio son of David and his first wife, while Dan was the son they adopted and passed off as their bio son), but they seemed to have problems with the character, and he was recast multiple times (once with the atrocious Michael Hawkins, using another name at the time). The last actor in the role even said that he understood why he was going, as he thought the stories were sick.

I put some articles with these actors many pages ago. I'll have to find them.

Here we go:

http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/topic/37693-as-the-world-turns-discussion-thread/?p=928253

[Vee]

Thanks for that.

Organic foods! Tom and Irna were ahead of their time for hipster Brooklyn.

[Paul Raven]

Friday Dec 1st 67

After receiving a call from Lisa, who sounds very sick, Bob prepares to go to her apartment and check on her. He convinces Chris not to mention anything to Nancy because it is probably nothing and Bob doesn't want Nancy worrying. Arriving at Lisa's apartment, Bob is perplexed by her serious cough and does a routine examination on her which indicates she has pneumonia. Bob says it is imperative that Lisa get to the hospital for a thorough examination but she refuses to leave the apartment. He can't understand why she refuses to go to the hospital, but the reason becomes clear when Lisa tells him she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Chris and Pa talk about the mystery behind Sandy's disappearance and whether she will show up for the holiday season. Bob is shocked by Lisa's news and can't understand why she would let herself become pregnant again. Bob arranges for Lisa to have a private room at the hospital and she reluctantly agrees.

Monday Nov 1st 1965

The Cassens and the Hughes learn that Ellen has agreed to marry David. When Ellen tells Claire, Doug, and Judge Lowell about her engagement, they are shocked because they had been certain that she would marry Donald. Doug even confronts David, accusing him of taking advantage of Ellen's love for her son, Dan. The Hughes also had been certain that Donald would marry Ellen, until he shared the news of the broken engagement at Grandpa Hughes's birthday celebration. Ultimately, Ellen and David are the only ones who seem pleased with the turn of events.

Friday Oct 7th 1966

Claire Cassen lies wideawake in the middle of the night waiting for her husband, Dr. Doug Cassen, to arrive home from a house call to Mrs. Rogers. When Doug returns home, he's very distraught because his patient has suddenly died of heart failure. The next day, Ted Rogers visits Doug's office to find out exactly what happened to his wife. Doug doesn't know what to tell Ted, and the grieving husband demands that an autopsy be done. Doug then reveals some past medical information about Mrs. Rogers which shocks Ted. In a rage, Ted pushes Doug away and the doctor trips over a chair and hits his head on the floor.

[Khan]

Although I'm sure Irna meant well, that "phantom fetus" storyline comes across as being too absurd.

[amybrickwallace]

I hear that. Irna was also a notorious hypochondriac, according to the DAYS trivia book by Gerry Waggett, which I wasn't surprised to hear after reading a little about her life and her life in soaps (Rosemary Prinz was certainly not an Irna fan).

Can you even imagine if Twitter had been around when Irna was alive??? Wow.

[amybrickwallace]

That sounds like something out of The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt - or a Stephen King story. LOL

[Khan]

Oh, between Twitter and message boards such as SON, Irna wouldn't have had a prayer, lol.