As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[vetsoapfan]

Irna Phillips on To Tell the Truth.

 

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[DRW50]

I never knew that about Alice. Wow. If that had happened it would have altered AW forever - and it probably would have meant the show would not even have survived the '60s.

 

What was the 'bottle of hope' scene? 

[Mitch]

Stop it..your making me love that old bitch even more!!!!She could have showed Reilly how to do grisly death..with no camp!!!

[Khan]

I wonder what Jacquie Courtney did to make Irna want to kill her off, and in such a grisly fashion, too.

 

For some reason, Irna believed she could control every aspect of her actors' lives; and if you did even the slightest thing to displease her, you were forever on her [!@#$%^&*] list.  She was a wonderful storyteller, but she also had serious emotional issues.

 

So could have Bill Bell.  David Kimble's death via trash compactor gives me chills to this day.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Khan

[vetsoapfan]

 

Knowing what we know now about the show's future, killing off A|lice on AW would have completely altered its course, and not for the better. I'm glad Irna changed her mind.

 

Before Irna Phillips was successful at killing off ATWT's Liz, she had taken another stab at it which was vetoed by P&G. The character was at death's door in the hospital, with the doctors having little hope she would survive, when TPTB stepped in and convinced Irna to reverse her decision. So into the hospital room comes Ellen Stewart, who sits by Liz's bed and announces that she simply cannot die, not with a young daughter and a rich life ahead of her. Ellen pulls out an empty bottle and places it beside Liz's bed, announcing that while the bottle may look empty, it is actually full: full of hope that Liz will defy the odds, prove the doctors wrong, and pull through. Ellen urges Liz to use the hope in that bottle to will herself back to life. Lo and behold, she does. Ellen Stewart, miracle worker!

[DRW50]

 

That sounds...odd. I wish I could see it. I'm sure Pat Bruder was terrific.

 

I'm trying to remember if the Stewarts was the family I read the anecdote about where even the child actors were brought into the room and they were all let go at once. 

 

I'm sorry if I asked this before, but were you bothered by the scene that upset some, where David took Ellen to a bar or restaurant to tell her Paul had died?

[vetsoapfan]

 

Irna was vicious in how she killed off beloved characters in the most awful ways. We never met Susan Hughes, the daughter of Chris and Nancy on ATWT, but being electrocuted while swimming...yikes! Don't get me started on how she killed poor Chuckie White on TGL!

 

 

During AW's first year, Irna became vexed with Jacquie for being too bubbly in the role of Alice. The actress played the character more like the typical, over-excited 1960s' teen. Think Gidget on uppers. Irna wanted Alice to be more subdued, more somber. When Jacquie continued to be too bubbly, Irna decided that the young actress was not going to work out in the role, and she told TPTB that she was going to send Alice off to summer camp, where the character would burn to death in a raging fire.

 

Back at the studio, trying to save her job for her, the director kept telling Jacquie to tone it down, to be more demure. She couldn't understand why she was being criticized every day for her performance, so she finally got fed up and said, "Fine! From now on, I'm not going to move a muscle on my face!" She went in and started playing Alice as a much more introspective, reserved girl, which Irna instantly loved. The next time she saw Jacquie, Irna grabbed her and hugged her and gushed, "My Alice!!! Forget the summer camp! Forget the fire! Forget everything!" 

 

Courtney's job was saved, Alice became more...Alice, and the rest is history.

 

 

Bruder was wonderful in the bottle of hope scene, but it was just so...weird. Who really recovers from a near-death experience because someone brings an empty bottle into her hospital room and announces it's filled with hope?

 

If I recall correctly, David brought Ellen to a bar and fed her alcohol before telling her that Paul had died of a brain tumor. That premise was offensive enough, but it became downright STUPID when Ellen simply replied (something like),"Oh well, David, we must carry on even in the face of death."

 

It was like watching a David Lynch production long before anyone even knew who DL was, LOL. Surreal. It looked like Irna was losing her marbles, frankly. I was relieved when she was replaced again as headwriter. She was no longer up for the job.

 

 

[DRW50]

 

Now I want to see it even more...

 

That's a great story about Jacqueline Courtney. I guess Irna had the right instincts, as she often did. If she hadn't pushed so hard then we may never had the Alice we knew and who was so important to AW. 

 

I think I've asked you this before as well, some years back, but Irna said something in an interview about some type of living off the land story with Carol and Tom. Did that go anywhere? 

[vetsoapfan]

 

The show was hard to watch at that point because the writing was so chaotic, and characters were being axed left, right and center. ATWT only became itself again after Irna herself was axed and replaced by the Soderbergs. Those writers revised the character of Kim, who had originally been more independent and...Garbo-esque, into a traditional, long-suffering soap heroine. This was necessary to redeem Kim and Bob, whom the audience found offensive at that point for their illicit affair. (Bob was married to Kim's sister Jennifer).

 

My ancient memory banks are not recalling any living-off-the-land story with Tom and Carol, sorry.

[DramatistDreamer]

Okay, this is sort of off-track but weirdly sorta on-topic.  It belongs in ATWT thread because it concerns a strange piece of trivia about 2 alumnae. 

 

I was doing research on IMDB and veered off into reading about A Different World (my persistent obsession with finding a playlist of songs from Season 1 episodes) and got further sidetracked reading the bits of trivia.

 

I'm sure most of you know that Marissa Tomei (Marcy) was featured in Season 1 but did you know that Meg Ryan (Betsy Andropolous) was originally cast to play the role but by then was actively pursuing a movie career and turned down the role of Maggie Lauten?

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  I thought I knew all the BTS factoids but somehow this one missed me!

 

Maggie, Meg and Marissa.

[j swift]

Does this mean that Paul didn't die on screen or was Ellen just not at the hospital to witness it?

 

Also, was Paul well received as a character?

[Dax7000]

I wish there was more Youtube videos of the plot to kill Lisa that occurred between 88-89 after Earl went missing. I think the episode just before James henchman tried is uploaded, but not the actual part where they try. I am so mystified that so much "new" All My Children content is steadily uploaded from the 80's and 90's, but so little ATWT. Was AMC the most popular soap during those years?

[vetsoapfan]

 

 Paul had left Oakdale, and was therefore off screen, when he died. 

 

The character was received well enough, but he never became one of the show's major players or most popular characters.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

There seems to be quite a bit of AW's episodes being posted lately too.

 

It looks like there is a lot of ATWT uploaded to You Tube but in reality, there are many duplicate and incomplete episodes posted. 

There are quite a number of key episodes missing:

1). critical resolutions to some of the show's most popular murder mysteries (just about every entertaining murder mystery of the 1980s and 1990s).

2). Kim's fraught labor (which literally took place around Labor Day Weekend 1986) where Casey Peretti helped to delivery Bob and Kim's son Christopher (at the same time Craig and Sierra were literally making a baby, unbeknownst to them).  

3). What happened after Bob walks into the house where Beau Farrell's crazy sister was lying in wait for him?  (It was strike material but still...)

[Khan]

 

At one time, AMC was reportedly the most videotaped series on TV.