Jump to content

Y&R: Old Articles


DRW50

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 14.3k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members

I think it was a mix. There seems to be cast members who are still friendly or have defended Brenda and others who loathe her. Ed has always seemed a little bit dodgy to me for some reason. If you have encountered Brenda online at all, she can be really nice one minute and then turn on you out of nowhere, not mean, just suddenly unreasonable.

 

My belief is that Brenda has always had emotional issues, but mostly kept them in check. I think Ed Scott probably very gladly and knowingly pushed her over the edge. I do feel Brenda does have mental health issues that no one around has ever taken seriously. A few cast members have been asked about her and simply won't say anything, and I wonder if that's why. As I said there is a kernal of truth to Brenda's stories.

 

Also If you watch Sep 1986 - Jun 1987 it is a mixed bag. Some episodes it is like 1984 Brenda, a little camp but mostly subtle and present, then other episodes she is like a parody of a soap actor, literally she would be right at home in the movie Soapdish. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Yes, one of the soap mags made a comment circa 1986 that "if you'd like to watch a parody of Brenda Dickson, just tune into Y&R weekdays on CBS to see Brenda Dickson doing a parody of Brenda Dickson!"  lol.   I think there's a lot of truth in that statement.  

 

She definitely appeared to have some (untreated) problems with emotional stability, and I'm sure there were those on the set who exploited that particular vulnerability of hers, for their own benefit.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Speaking of parodies of Brenda Dickson, the first time I ever saw any footage of her was when Deven Green (of Mrs Betty Bowers fame) came out with the Welcome To My Home dub-over in the mid-2000s, and I was in awe (not to mention insane laughter) at how utterly bizarre it was. And then when I watched the original Welcome To My Home, I was just as weirded out.

 

Anyhoo, here’s the Deven Green dub-over...

 

Please register in order to view this content

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'm wondering if BD made a bad acting choice because pre Jill's divorce settlement...BD played Jill as cold, a little campy, but also with a bit of vulnerability (when she called Phillip at Christmas 1984 and he didn't want to come home..you felt for her).

 

However, once Jill divorced John and was at Jabot, her acting changed.  Wasn't it said that she was getting conflicting notes from Bell and producers on how to play Jill? Bell wanted her to play Jill one way while producers there wanted her to be OTT?  Maybe she was trying to play Jill in a way that would satisfy both sides..and it came off badly? 

 

Also, I'm wondering had BD kept playing Jill...I have a feeling she would have been exactly like Kay...a lonely woman with all the money in the world?  I know that she instantly didn't like Nina because she saw herself in her (i.em buttering her up, ulterior motive,etc).  I truly think the Jill/ Nina story would have been different had she remained...imho

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members


Thanks! As much as I love Jess there’s always something dynamic I love about Brenda. Actually, I love all the actresses who played Jill from what I’ve seen and was glad to finally see Bond Gideon as Jill a couple years back as well I was surprised that Gideon actually didn’t last longer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

That is what I have always admired about Eileen. She is a very deliberate and focused performer who knows where she's going in every scene she's in.

 

 

That may be so, but ES and MTS were very visibly supportive of Jess Walton, even as she ascended in success as Jill, winning her first Emmy in 1991 (in fact, it looks like the whole show was thrilled for her). The Scotts are seated directly beside Jess and her husband and look thrilled for her. I think ES would know that MTS, with the Nikki and Victor pairing, was secure as the leading lady of Y&R, even if she didn't always have the critical plaudits to prove it. 

 

Please register in order to view this content

 

 

Jess's Jill transitioned the character into an empowered woman of the 90s and beyond. I firmly believe that had BD stayed int he role, by the mid 1990s, she'd have been written out. Her acting style and what they were doing with the character was not sustainable. Jess's Jill is far more earthy and real. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Nailed it on the both accounts! I’m glad Jess took over when she did as well. That said I always found it fascinating the show allowed Jill’s victory lap at Jabot to happen after the divorce settlement. On any other soap we would have see Jill fail miserably as a comeuppance yet Bell allowed Jill to flourish at Jabot and later Newman as a surprisingly successful businesswoman. Plus rewatching the 1990-1994 Jill/Katherine stuff is so much fun as the two kind of care about each other yet hate each other’s guts at the same time I don’t think BD could have pulled it off as well.

Edited by soapfan770
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • Not too shabby, making her mark in only six episodes. There's a project for the soap historians -- characters with the least episodes/most impact.
    • Which could make sense , except that we have seen Mariah function for years w/o any real residue pain from her upbringing. Josh decides to randomly make it a thing, when a good writer might foreshadow that for months. It's not like he's just arrived at the show. He's been there for years . Everything seems to be thought out only a few weeks ahead. It's like Phyllis all freaky from being kidnapped when she has done a million other things that didn't seem to bother her at all.
    • Unrelated, sort of, but he looks absolutely nothing like Amanda Setton or Dominic Zamprogna so it's kind of hilarious they decided to make Gio their kid.  It's very clear this was not the original origin story for Gio when they cast him. He is a very handsome guy though. 
    • I tend to agree, although going back to OLTL, Frank has so often cast guys who are meant to be attractive yet come across as cold and dead, I'm surprised he managed to get one who has a bit of a pulse.
    • For all I care, the boy can parade around in a g-string.  It won't make this show suck any less.
    • AMC was about a decade later so things may have changed by then, although maybe they never approached her anyway. She joined Santa Barbara in 1985, when they didn't seem interested in bringing back Hope. SB ended in late 1992, so JFP could have asked her back, but I doubt she did. For as much as JFP clearly had some use for Rick Hearst given that she hired him on GH and kept him around as often as she could, I don't think she ever used Alan-Michael well. I can't see Elvera as Delia, but she could have worked well as Faith - she had a glimpse of a strong personality alongside warmth, which only one Faith ever managed (Catherine Hicks).
    • IIRC, FC reruns aired for awhile on Lifetime, way before the network became the Women in Peril Channel, lol.
    • PAM!! YES!!! You have jogged my memory. She worked at Cedars. She's mentioned in a write-up of Tim's history in the show. It says she was a nurse, but I seem to remember she was a secretary at Cedars, working for either Ed or Sarah. (It's almost 50 years ago, so I definitely could be wrong). I'm certain she was an unwed mother. I recall reading an interview with the actress, Maureen Silliman (I looked it up, that's her correct name, LOL). She started on the show just before the Dobsons started writing it. She was shocked to get a script that said her character had been pregnant since she hit town. I remember a scene where she told Tim she was going to leave SF for a better job for her daughter's sake (really, I think she was upset he was serious about Rita). I don't remember them getting married and leaving town, but according to "Who's Who in Springfield" that's how the characters were written out. Mattson did All My Children for several years, so she might have been persuadable. Here's an interesting factoid I recently learned on these message boards: Elvera Roussel was in the running to play Delia on RH when the show first hit the air. How wild is it that Mattson played Delia for a while? (Though from what I saw of her performance, she was miscast). It's hard to know if Roussel would have been a good Delia. You'd think she would have been better suited to playing Faith Coleridge, but who knows? She didn't get to show a whole lot of range as Hope.
    • If I were to do an EON reboot, I think I would start at the beginning, with Mike Karr leaving the police force in order to begin a new career as an attorney, and dealing with his wife, Sara's, crooked family.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy