That's definitely true (although unfortunately Robin's Dorian has also been treated that way for most of the last decade). I do think that when Elaine got the chance for more, she did an incredible job. It was the work of Mia Korf/PPW/Elaine that helped establish the new Cramer dynamics (along with Laura Bonnarigo), and the last time they were interesting as a family.

Totally, I think with the dark Addie/Blair stuff, she ushered in a new wave of depth for the character beyond being the pest from the Intruder, Robin got to really ride the wave with Lord of the Banner/DID... Canton (!), but yes, she's been relegated to the stock diva silliness (even worse than Elaine was) since her last return. On YouTube, there's some stuff with the end of her and Jason's relationship (Elaine and Robin) but I'd like to see some of the beginning.

Looking at that pic above, I am now positive that I saw Linda Gottlieb that day I talked about in an earlier thread. Kicking myself for not saying hello.

Look at Jessica's jeans going for her throat!

The whole thing is sad because you know Robin can do so much more than what they give her. It's so half-assed. I still can't believe she's been mayor of Llanview for over a year now. In the old days at least this would have caused a reaction in Llanview, even if it was tongue-clucking. I feel like this type of story is something more suited to Elaine's Dorian, as is teaming up with Viki against Echo, but even then she would still have no role. They put a dervish like Dorian in this role and they do nothing with it. At least have her embezzle money for a hat collection.

Not that this has anything to do with that, but it's one of the only traces I can find of the apparently bad story about Pat's crazy cousin who impersonated Pat. It's a photo from the January 8, 1980 Digest.

Edited March 5, 201114 yr by CarlD2

I have to hand it to Linda Gottlieb: at least she was willing to admit they wouldn't go as far w/ Billy's storyline as they might've wanted to. If it had been Christopher Goutman, let's say, or Julie Hanan Carruthers, they would've hemmed and hawed some flimsy excuse ("Well ... we're not averse to exploring a gay relationship, per se ... ") and then change the subject entirely.

I have to hand it to Linda Gottlieb: at least she was willing to admit they wouldn't go as far w/ Billy's storyline as they might've wanted to. If it had been Christopher Goutman, let's say, or Julie Hanan Carruthers, they would've hemmed and hawed some flimsy excuse ("Well ... we're not averse to exploring a gay relationship, per se ... ") and then change the subject entirely.

Witness Brad Bell's recent quote about the lack of gays on B&B.

Yeah, that (Bradley Bell's quote) just annoyed the heck outta me. A gay character on B&B? That'll be the day!

And he's just so obviously not comitting in his statement. Like "Umm you're right there are gays in the industry, its's umm something we continually look into for umm ideal story umm purposes".

I was reading an interview with Todd Davis (Brian, GH) and it said that when he was Josh Hall on OLTL, they were going to put him in an interracial relationship, but backed off in fear of negative reaction.

Does anyone know who that would have been with? Sam? Tina?

From the September 1969 Afternoon TV.

I found that I can be happier in other fields."

That's understandable, particularly in an age where freedom is foremost in importance, and people are no longer trapped into one way of life, forced into one occupation. But why anthropology (an-thro-pol-o-gy: Science that deals with the origin, development, races, customs and beliefs of mankind), which is roughly 1,000,000 years away from the immediate world of a daily television show?

"I've always been interested in anthropology. It started through a study of witchcraft - I was always interested in witchcraft - I began studying that. That lead into archeology, and I really thought I would study archeology, but then I got tired of the people's arts and crafts and got more interested in the people themselves - why did this group of people do that and that led into anthropology. It took about three years, but I finally hit what I want to do."

Gillian had already said she did not want to teach, so I wondered what use her studies would have outside of their value to her own life and mind. She's not sure either, but she does believe that "In the next 15 years there's going to be a much greater need - particularly in Africa and countries like that - for anthropologists, and many more areas are opening up than are used right now."

It doesn't bother her at all that, as a night-school student, she is beginning to study her subject seriously at a somewhat older age than the usual 18-year-old college student. "I have to start from the beginning, but when you really decide to do something - somehow you do it. I find that people who go into the service right after high school, or do something else first and then go to college, are usually more successful in what they pick. There are so many people in business now who just don't dig it, and yet they don't know anything else and they're too afraid to make the step out. I think everybody should just back out for a while. You have to find out where you're at, and then you can never be afraid again, because you'll know what it is to have nothing, and you've got nothing to lose. You can always go back to that, and it makes you much more open.

"Once you've done your own thing for a while - whatever it is, whether you choose to pull out and go to school, or whatever - you just can't be terrified any more of the 'the people upstairs.'"

Irresponsible? "Hippie" philosophy. No, Gillian Spencer is too aware of life for that (although she does say "I think the hippies had something.") But she sees "responsibility" in her own way. "I realize that people have children; I have tow children myself - Mark is four and Chris is two. But people get into that whole bag of saying 'well, now I have to build a structure for my children' - but that's impossible to do, except financially. Children are going to build their own structure...if the unit is there, you with your children, the rest doesn't matter - everybody's got to be free to do their own thing - both they and you.

"For instance, people used to tell me not to go to California, because I was working here in New York, and I should stay here], but I thought 'No, this is not the kind of life I want,' so I picked up and left. I wasn't worried about it until people started giving me advice, and then I got terrified. But I went anyway."

Gillian came back partially because the anthropology professors in California advised her that she would be better off studying in New York, partially - possibly even moreso, because the actress still lives strongly within the anthropologist - because Walter Gorman, the original director of One Life to Live, urged her to join the show.

"I was living in California at the time," she remembers, "and I came back to New York to pack up my furniture and move it. I had decided California was where I was going to be so I closed up my apartment here, and while I was in town I called Dorothy Purser - she's on The Guiding Light - and Walter Gorman - he was directing that show at the time - said 'I want to meet her', and he offered me the part. It didn't work out at first, and I decided I would stay in California, but then I talked to him later and I said 'Okay' and he said 'Can you be here tomorrow?' and I came back from California."

That pesky furniture - which probably deserves credit for bringing her to One Life in the first place - was still with her when we talked.

"I've just moved all my furniture back from California, now", she said, "and I'm gonna sell it - get rid of it all! I've got those great blow-up chairs that look like marshmallows now, and cardboard furniture, and that's what I'm going to stay with - forever and ever. I can move in a suitcase."

(Ed. Note: Gillian has remarried since this interview, so her household furnishings - and her wanderlust - may be somewhat tempered by that fact. We have learned that this independent lady allows no one to pry in her private life - a feeling we always respect - and have not asked. She is so openly honest about things that we are more than willing to stay out of the parts of her life that she considers nobody's business but her own.)

Her acting career started, oddly enough, in the bathtub in her home in Seattle, Washington, when she was a child. "I was lying there reading Helen Hayes' biography when I was about eight years old, and there was a story about her making up stories in the bathtub, so I thought, 'Oh-ho - somebody else did that besides me!', so I got interested."

Gillian's parents managed to convince her to wait until she got out of the bathtub - and out of high school - before making up her mind, so she did - even going off to England to study - and then she began to do what she knew she was going to do when she was eight years old.

She came to New York, as every young actress should, and did a Broadway show (Love in E-Flat) and a movie (What's So Bad About Feeling God, which stared Mary Tyler Moore) and two other daytime shows (The Guiding Light and Edge of Night).

"The Guiding Light gave me my first nice, sweet part - and I hated it. Before that I always used to play, like, The First Witch on the Right, or the neighborhood trollop, and I loved it. That's the nice thing about One Life; I'm much happier now that Victoria Lord has a split personality - she's just a plain drag, but her other side is the exact opposite."

(The network that broadcasts the show was very surprised recently to learn from a survey that audiences are also split about the two sides of Victoria - there are as many who like the trampy Nicki as like the conventional Vicki! Any votes from our readers?)

Gillian's two sons seem to agree with Mama - they're not very interested in the nice, conservative Victoria, but they love the show when she plays Nicole. (They are also Dark Shadows fans. "They sit at home and hypnotize each other.")

The fact that Gillian Spencer's intellectual restlessness has made her dissatisfied with acting does not mean she is dissatisfied with One Life to Live. Quite the contrary; out of her own experience she prefers it to other daytime shows.

"The action is different every day," she said, "not like some, where everybody sits around a table for umpteen million years. There's not one character that doesn't have a full life story; everybody is a fully-realized person with their own conflicts. The doctors have their story, the lawyers have their story - everything is told through relationships, and that makes it doubly interesting."

What she means is...everyone does his own thing.

it's cool to see the Gillian Spencer article. It's so rare to see anything that has to do with Gillian Spencer and OLTL because it was so long ago. Too bad everyone else in that photo is dead now. I don't know if the man who played Him Craig is dead but i beleive so. I think they killed his character off back in the 80's so maybe he died then. John Barendino died in 1995. and Lee Patterson died a few years ago. But Gillian is still alive and well.

Thank you for reading. I didn't know if it would get any interest in this thread but I didn't want to put it in its own thread because those get lost and after a while you can't find them in search.

I did post this because it had some rare photos (I'd never seen the one of her in the glasses - was that a rehearsal shot or one from the show?) so I really appreciate you reading it. I do still plan to post some Erika articles in the appreciation thread, if I can find them again.

Nat Polen died in 1981, I think. Jim Craig just sort of disappeared from OLTL, although if you said he was killed off then I guess he was. I've seen little of that time.

Carl, for classic and rare pictures of OLTL you can look at the Pictorical book from Ma Perkins to Mary Noble....it's about all the soaps full of B&W and rare pictures!!! And it has a very rare picture of the wedding of Jim and Anna Craig with all the guests!!!!

Thank you for reading. I didn't know if it would get any interest in this thread but I didn't want to put it in its own thread because those get lost and after a while you can't find them in search.

I did post this because it had some rare photos (I'd never seen the one of her in the glasses - was that a rehearsal shot or one from the show?) so I really appreciate you reading it. I do still plan to post some Erika articles in the appreciation thread, if I can find them again.

Nat Polen died in 1981, I think. Jim Craig just sort of disappeared from OLTL, although if you said he was killed off then I guess he was. I've seen little of that time.

I love that book for its photos, less for its text.

Great article Carl!