As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[vetsoapfan]

 

Even the Dark Shadows cast said they played it straight. Before Sheffer's dumb antics, ATWT was not known for low-brow camp...thank God.

 

I know Leslie slept with both boys on Y&R, but did Lorie sleep with Lucas too, or just Lance?

 

Yes, Lisa was hugely important to ATWT in the 1960s and '70s. Fulton was a true superstar.

[vetsoapfan]

 

 I loved Penny and Jeff and was REALLY annoyed at Nancy for trying to keep them apart. Nancy could be such a shrew in the early years. Mark Rydell as Jeff was not traditionally handsome, IMHO, but he had sparks with Rosemary Prinz and their on-screen chemistry was undeniable. I think a lot of us in the audience lived vicariously through their romance; we all wanted a love like that. Neil Wade was okay, but it was hard to accept Penny with another leading man after Jeff died in a car crash. Following Steven Frame's death on AW, Alice just never clicked with anyone else. It was a similar case with Penny. After Neal got hit by a car and died, Penny left Oakdale, vowing never to search for love again. I did not mourn Neil the way I mourned Jeff, because the sparks and chemistry with Penny had not been as memorable. We later heard via Nancy and Chris that Penny had married race-car driver Anton Cunningham in Europe and adopted a Eurasian child named Amy.  Amy visited Oakdale briefly in 1973, but did not do much and did not stay long. Penny was on-canvas and shared no scenes with Amy that year.  I don't believe we ever saw Anton.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I think Patrick Horgan was credited as Anton so he may have popped up during one of the late '80s visits (unless it was a different Anton).

[Soaplovers]

Supercouples were great in the short-term, but really hurt soaps in the long term.  They tended to limit a character's potential because a lot of time, when a couple broke up... viewers refused to move on.

 

Based on what @vetsoapfan said.. it sounded like there was a struggle to write Penny once her first husband Jeff perished since she didn't spark with hubby #2 nor with Sandy McGuire's ex-husband (I read once that Ellen Stewart was caught in the middle since Penny had been her best friend for years, yet she also was good friends with Sandy).

 

Is it just me, but does it seem like the show dressed Ellen Stewart much younger in the 80s than during the 70s and 90s?  Very few people could pull off the 80s looks, but the actress playing Ellen benefited from 80s fashion trends.. appearing more youthful (and looking younger in some cases than Bob/Kim/Lisa).  I'm also surprised the show didn't kill off Ellen when she became a great grandmother in the mid 80s (like they did with her mother Clare in the early 70s... a character I wish I could have seen since she sounded like a fascinating character and very neurotic it sounded like.. a vast contrast to Ellen).

Edited June 28, 2018 by Soaplovers

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

Speaking of Ellen, after mentioning Patricia Bruder recently I looked her up online. I was surprised to learn she was born in 1936. Meaning she was 47 when Dani Andropolous was born and Ellen became a great-grandmother. Perhaps Bruder was not playing her real age, and Ellen was meant to be older than Bruder actually was?

 

Equally surprising was the fact that Henderson Forsythe (David Stewart) was born in 1917. So he was 19 years older than Bruder. Does that mean David was supposed to be about 20 years older than Ellen? Were their ages ever addressed on camera? Was the David & Ellen relationship supposed to be a May-December romance? Obviously I didn't watch the show in the 60s and only started watching as a kid in the early 80s. I just never realized the apparent age difference between David and Ellen Stewart. It's kind of fascinating. I am assuming all Ellen's kids and most of her grandkids and great grandkids were born on camera.

 

Is there a family tree of the Stewarts with the years the characters were born?

[vetsoapfan]

 

You are right! According to IMDB, Horgan is credited as playing Anton Cunningham in 1986-7 and again in 1998. That's weird. I do not remember him appearing AT ALL during those years. I don't think he joined Penny for her parents' 50th anniversary or for her mom's birthday, and there would be no reason for him to show up without her. Does anyone remember?

[DRW50]

 

During the start of the Frannie/Sabrina story, Frannie lived with Penny in London, where she interacted with Penny and Amy a few times. I guess he must have been a part of that. For some reason I thought he also was there when Nancy visited Penny or when they had a party for Mac and Nancy in Oakdale or something. I don't know. I think Amy was in Oakdale briefly as I remember her meeting Lien.

 

That 1998 one has to be wrong. I don't remember him appearing on there then - not as Anton, anyway.

Edited June 28, 2018 by DRW50

[zanereed]

@vetsoapfan: Just curious - what was the chemistry like between John Reilly's Dan and Marie Masters during the time Dan and Kim were falling in love?

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

Random question -- I remember Lisby Larson playing a character named Aunt Mary in the early 90s, near the end of Marland's era. What was her storyline about and what happened to her? I am thinking she was recurring, not a major long-term character. Larson was/is a fantastic actress and always made a memorable impression in all her soap roles.

[Soaplovers]

 

An interesting case... originally she was introduced because Lucinda was trying to woo her.. and had Kirk help woo her.. and the two dated.  Then a curveball was thrown when it was revealed that she was the long lost mother of farm hand Hutch.. and the reason Linc's father left Linc's mother.  I think she ended up leaving town during the cast purge of late 1993

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

That's right...I remember Hutch turning out to be Linc's half-brother. The actors did resemble each other. I think there may have been someone named Woody...possibly he was the father of both boys, never seen, just mentioned when Mary was revealed as Hutch's mother. It's all a bit vague in my memory. I think these were characters Backus struggled to continue writing for after Marland's death. They most certainly would have lasted longer if Marland hadn't died, since I'm sure he introduced them with long-range plans in mind.

 

What was Mary's business? Why did Lucinda "want" her?

[Soaplovers]

I think she had a chain of coffee houses/bakeries that Lucinda was interested in buying an interest in.  They even had a coffee house set built and everything.

 

I did notice the farm aspect was scaled back post Marland until 1997.. which I wish had gone away

[AArredondo02]

When As The World Turns (ATWT) premiered in 1956, Ellen Lowell, who was at the time being played by Wendy Drew, was 16 years old. In a few short years, the Lowells would be phased out in favor of the Stewarts. When the story bible was written, the Lowell family should have had more male Lowells (i.e. brothers and uncles for Ellen) to carry storylines and prolong the family's longevity, but I digress. Anyways, by 1958, 18-year-old Ellen Lowell had an illegitimate son, Dan Stewart, adopted by the relatively older David and Betty Stewart. Going back to my earlier statement, instead of SORASing Dan Stewart during the sixties, if there were more male Lowells, like Ellen's brothers, written in the show's 1956 bible, any one of them could have just as easily been inserted in Dan's sixties and seventies storylines, preventing Ellen from being aged so quickly. Eileen Fulton, who was older than Bruder, incorporated a granny clause in her contract as a result of the out of control SORASing that took place on the show and remain a vibrant character.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Thanks. I was thinking there was something called Aunt Mary's apple pies...maybe that's what she was known for selling in her coffee shops and bakeries.

 

Edited June 28, 2018 by JarrodMFiresofLove

[vetsoapfan]

 

Well, to be fair, once I have my heart set on a certain couple being together, it's always hard for me to accept either one of the characters involved with anyone else. I did not fully get on board the Penny and Neil train, but maybe other viewers did. Rosemary Prinz was always featured heavily on the show when she was there, and they always seemed to be able to wrtite for her.

 

As most of her family disappeared around her, I was very worried that ATWT would eliminate Ellen, whom I adored and wanted to see more, not less, of. She became a total talk-to over time, but we still saw her on a regular basis up until 1996. I had been expecting her to get written out for a good decade by that point, so we were lucky to have her for as long as we did.

 

 

Yes, Amy did visit Oakdale again many years after her initial visit in 1973. Didn't she meet Lien at Nancy's wedding to Mac?

 

Excellent. Reilly was very charismatic and had chemistry with everyone, including Masters and Patricia Bruder. He was a wonderful Dan, better than the original actor IMHO.