OLTL - old articles, behind the scenes, etc.

[Scotty]

I doubt that would ever happen...even if OLTL were by some chance to extend an invitation to her. From what I've read over the years, she still seems very bitter over the firing.

But it would be nice to see her in Llanview again...I've never seen the character of Carla first hand, just in old video clips on Youtube.

[Vee]

I went looking for anything recent on her on Google after she got dragged out to give a quote in some major outlet's news item on the Y&R race controversy and subsequent hiring of Susan Dansby. I couldn't believe they asked her.

[Scotty]

TV Article

'One Life' Breaks One Taboo

''One Life to Live'' breaks a taboo -- The daytime soap confronts prejudice against gays

By Mark Harris | Jun 26, 1992

Mark Harris

Mark Harris is a writer and former executive editor of EW

At first the scene sounds scarcely melodramatic enough for a soap opera: A bright, pleasant teenager seeks advice from his minister. He's the new kid in town; his parents don't understand him; he feels trapped and lonely. But on the June 26 episode of ABC's One Life to Live, 16-year-old Billy Douglas will tell the Reverend Andrew Carpenter one more thing: He's gay. And with that, One Life to Livewill boldly go where no soap has gone before — into a major plot line about homosexuality and intolerance that will involve a dozen of the residents of fictional Llanview, Pa., the show's locale.

Although adult gay characters made low-key, skittish appearances on All My Children in 1983 and As the World Turns in 1988, daytime has never put a gay plot line-let alone a gay teenager — on its front burner. Even though Billy will not be sexually involved with anyone on One Life ''it's a difficult subject,'' says executive producer Linda Gottlieb. ''But (head writer) Michael Malone has developed a story about fear that's woven into the fabric of the town.'' In July, Llanview's emotions will flare when the minister's kindness to Billy sparks a whispering campaign that leads to ostra-cism, gay bashing, and vandalism. As the story line continues through Labor Day, ''we will not flinch from the ugliness of it,'' says Gottlieb. ''It will bring out the very worst in some people, their cruelest impulses. It's quite a challenge.'

'The challenge may be greatest for Ryan Phillippe, a 17-year-old from Delaware who won the role of Billy over doz-ens of actors. ''When I auditioned, I had no idea Billy was gay,'' Phillippe says. ''They told me, and I said 'Oh! Okay!' but a shock went through my system. I thought, 'What is my family going to think? What about my friends?' But I realized that for Billy, the torment is a hundred times that.''

Before filming started, Gottlieb brought in psychiatrist Richard Isay, a specialist in issues faced by gay teens. ''I had a lot of questions,'' says Phillippe. ''But when he told us that three times as many gay teenagers kill themselves as do straight teens, I realized that maybe this role is where I'm supposed to be. Maybe some kids will see that there are ways to deal with this positively. And,'' he adds, laughing, ''I get the chance to do some really cool acting. I mean, the most dramatic scene I did before this was a Nintendo commercial.'' Phillippe says that Billy's coming-out scene was ''the first time ever that I didn't have to force tears. My voice went all quivery and they just flowed out of me.''

''The emotional scenes are very difficult,'' says Wortham Krimmer, who plays the Reverend Carpenter. ''But I feel a big responsibility to make it work. We read about homophobia every day in the newspapers, but it's informational, not emotional. These scenes really hit you hard.''

The homophobia plot line marks Gottlieb's latest attempt to give One Life — which shunned ''issue'' story lines for much of the 1980s — a harder edge. ''She's obviously interested in tackling current subjects, and that's terrific,'' says Erika Slezak, who has starred in the series since 1971. ''It's tricky, but treated with intelligence, it can work.''

Nonetheless, Gottlieb admits that One Life can go only so far. ''In a sense we're copping out,'' she says. ''We're not dealing with this kid in a gay relationship. We discussed it at length, but you do what you can do, and we can tell a strong story. Some people will be alienated; we'll get vicious mail. But I hope that by seeing a young gay boy, getting to like him, and sympathize with his pain, audiences will understand the hurt that awful jokes, dumb remarks, and exclusionary behavior can cause. We have an hour every day — what better place to explore this than daytime?''

Originally posted Jun 26, 1992 Published in issue #124-125 Jun 26, 1992

[Scotty]

Bursting the Soaps' Bubble

Television: As the industry gathers to hand out Daytime Emmys tonight, the talk will be about 'One Life to Live' breaking all the rules.

June 23, 1992|CONNIE PASSALACQUA | SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

NEW YORK — When the daytime soap world gathers at the Sheraton New York Hotel tonight for the 19th annual Daytime Emmy Awards, the main schmooze for once won't be Susan Lucci's 12-time failure to win the best actress statuette. The buzz instead will be about the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live," whose new producer, Linda Gottlieb, has been making a controversial attempt to revolutionize the stagnant daytime soap opera form.

Gottlieb, who produced the hit film "Dirty Dancing," had no prior daytime soap experience when she took the job last July. In the insular world of daytime television, which traditionally promotes and hires from within, her name may as well be Fletcher Christian.

'"One Life to Live' is the anti-soap," says Robert Rorke, senior editor of Soap Opera Digest. "Like a soap opera antihero, you never know what it's going to do next."

Soap audiences used to perfect-looking actors and actresses have tuned into such scenes as one in which a bald man (Paul Bartel) defended a psychotic woman for murder; the key clue to that murder may have been provided by an even balder man (Wallace Shawn). In a world where it's de rigueur for soap hunks to be monosyllabic, "One Life to Live" characters quote Shakespeare and recite the poetry of Burns, Donne, Rossetti and Shelley. In a genre that spins on endless romances, fantasy and froth, one recent "OLTL" storyline hinged on a scene straight out of "The Snake Pit"--one character's visit to the sanitarium where her sister grew up.

"I had hoped by the end of my stint that I would be able to do for the world of daytime what Steven Bochco did for nighttime TV," says Gottlieb, referring to the writer-producer whose "Hill Street Blues" revolutionized the hour police drama. "He took a form that was mired in its own preconceptions and brought it into the modern world. He showed things that were rough and uneven, and that characters aren't gorgeous all the time. And that's what makes his shows seem alive. Look, I've hired a guy with a scar on his face (Mark Brettschneider, who plays teen rebel Jason Webb)."

That's just one of her changes. Gottlieb, who admits she had never watched a daytime soap before agreeing to take the helm of "One Life to Live," says, "It's rare to have a chance to come in to something that you don't know anything about. Either it means you are going to fall on your face or you're free to rethink it."

[DRW50]

Those are great photos of Ellen Holly. Love the necklace. Was she asked about Y&R because of her history as a trailblazer on daytime or because of the nasty way Rauch treated her and Lillian Hayman?

Dale, thanks for all the pages on the Buchanans.

I'm sure they'd be complaining all the time, and if I had been watching then I might have been the same way - going from the last years of the Woleks and Joe Riley to these cowboys must have been jarring. But they fit into Llanview easily, especially Bo and Clint, they were all charismatic, talented actors, and they opened up a new life for the show.

When the Rappaports first started, people used to say that they were no different than the Buchanans, and that the Buchanans were sexist, that this was a new OLTL era, etc.

Well, all I have to say to that, is compare how women were written in the Rappaport era - or in today's Ford era - with how they were written with the Buchanan men. Something which is basically lost today is that the Buchanan men thrived on women who stood up to them and stood up for themselves.

[DRW50]

From the July 1970 Afternoon TV.

[EricMontreal22]

FANTASTIC. (But I'm sure you'd think I'd say that).

[DRW50]

Actually I thought you'd say you'd seen it before. You know so much about Agnes. I'm glad you hadn't. I haven't seen as much where she is just talking about OLTL so I wanted to post this.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah it's hard to find, I guess cuz she moved to AMC so soon after really--I've read the NYTimes articles from her on OLTL which said similar things (I think the main one was that "What do we have to do to get respect" one), but never this

[Dale]

Wow, Carl, thanks for posting that OLTL article! That one goes wayyyyy back! I love the little blurb at the end...."Watch Agnes Nixon's new show, All My Children".

Actually, it's always kind of bothered me - I have always perceived that Nixon "abandoned" OLTL in favor of her "baby", AMC.

[EricMontreal22]

Dale, trust me you are not alone in that thought--especially on this forum. And in a way she did, but AMC was the one she created first and seemed to have the most connection to, and she did personally make sure OLTL had a good foundation and writing team before she fully left it...

Interesting they credit her as sole creator of Search on there... I'd love to know the story with Search, it seems like her and Roy didn't get along--in that youtube video interview it's one of the subjects she seems to not wanna talk about (why she left Search after doing the first 13 weeks).

[DRW50]

Not to change the subject but I was reading some Daytimers and they talked about fans being upset that Kathryn Breech (Karen Wolek #1) was fired, but that supposedly she would show up late or do things like leave after lunch.

I wonder if Judith Light was on the phone with her, like, "Hi Kathy...I'm sure they don't mind, you're a big star, what are they gonna do, fire you?"

[SFK]

Here I go losing my Agnes Nixon fan card, but I didn't know that she created SFT.

I almost thought that was a misprint as that is most certainly Thalmus Rasulala, but I looked it up and Jack Crowder was his birth name. All these years I probably skimmed right over that name not realizing the dad from What's Happening!! had been on OLTL.

And for everyone's FYI, that's a "Niki" picture (red wig) of Gillian Spencer.

[EricMontreal22]

She didn't technically it was Roy Winsor. According to Agnes herself, she was hired to headwrite the first 13 weeks of SFT though (so I guess in a sense she helped create it)--I believe this was when she was briefly writing primetime live dramas for television and is what got her back into soaps from the radio days but am nto sure (it's all in that super long youtube interview). But the implication seems to be that her nad Roy didnt' see eye to eye and she was let go and she prefers, in her somewhat annoying way to never speak ill of someone, not to go into more details on that. But the created by credits on soaps are often weird--older books always list ATWT as co created between her and Irna though I believe basically when ti started Irna handed over GL to Aggie... (Similarly many older books list AW as co created by Irna and Bill Bell, although he didn't seem to do much writing on it, I believe focusing on ATWT while Irna had her infamous disastrous first year).

What's annoying about nearly every image of Gillian as Vicki/Nicki I can find is it's like that one with Vinnie, you can barely see her face. There's one pic of her with Joe in B&W that shows her face (and I admit I find her almost unrecognisable compared to AMC's Daisy) but I'd love to see even just a minute clip of her in the role. For all the huffing and puffing fans have of Agnes abandoning poor lil' ol' OLTL, it's pretty amazing to think one of her very first storylines--the Nicki/Vicki story is STILL being played out in a sense. Can that be said of any other soap? I suppose AMC still is kinda playing out some issues from its first year in that Erica Kane still has abandonment issues, but it's not as specific. Was Kay a drunk on Y&R in its first year (I believe she came on 6 months in)? That could be another rare example of a first year soap storyline still having relevence with the current canvas to some extent (I am NOT going to include B&B in this at all, that wouldn't be fair )

[DRW50]

I was reading that George Reinholt's character was originally to be named Lucas Randolph. I wonder if they decided Lucas Lord was a bit too 1953-era Superman.

I also read that Ken Kercheval was a top contender for Pat's new love interest in 1977. While I guess it worked out for him that he didn't get the job, I would have enjoyed seeing him interact with some of the very fine actors on the show at that time.