Y&R: Old Articles

[yrfan1983]

Weren't there some recent '75 recaps covering Lorie and Phillip spending time together... so maybe Lorie visited the mansion?

[Broderick]

Those are some pretty strange choices for the front row -- but I guess maybe in 1975 the actors weren't so cognizant of who was "important" and who wasn't.  You'd have thought they would've shoved Mark Henderson in the back somewhere, lol.   

[will81]

My guess would be Phillip was avoiding Kay and was at Lorie's apartment. At one point he picks up bills he promised to pay for her as he leaves her place. 

[allmc2008]

Firstly, why do you ask if it was photo shopped?

 

Secondly, who is the lady on the front row all the way to the right?

[vetsoapfan]

That is actress Jennifer Leak, who played Greg Foster's love interest/former prostitute Gwen Sherman. She later played Olive Gordon on Another World.

[SoapDope]

I remember years ago seeing a photo of Jeanne Cooper (Kay) standing/posing behind a seated Trish Stewart (Chris) in what looked like the Chancellor living room. I haven't seen it since. Did Chris and Kay have scenes when the Fosters moved into the mansion ?

I know Bell had his writing quirks, but I think Kay and Jennifer should have interacted in some capacity. Kay was isolated from the Brooks family. 

Peggy for some reason has always facinated me. She never had much storyline it seems, but Pamela Peters is so charming in the work I have seen of hers. I saw her in an old episode of Emergency recently and she was cute as an angry daughter of one of the feuding neighbors.  She shared scenes with Randolph Mantooth who would become a soap vet in the 80's. The episode aired in October 1973, so she was alread doing Y&R then.

Speaking of Mantooth, I watched his Archive Of American Television interview and he said he loved doing the soap Loving, but HATED General Hospital. He didn't name names, but said the cast was cliquish towards him. He also mentioned the female producer, but not by name ( was it Monty when he was on ?) and said he was wanting off the show and she said " We have a wonderful up coming storyline for you your going to love " and he gave her the " That's nice, but I have another obligation and it's nothing personal, just business". He severely pissed her off and he said if her eyes had been lasers, he would be cut to bits.....LOL I think he had secretly negotiated to get back on Loving to get off GH.

[will81]

Not sure Chris ever had an actual scene with Kay. Maybe she was in the same space with her, but she always seemed to be in the background of the Foster family drama. Though having not watched I can only go on synopsis, which doesn't always give you everything.

It seems the Brooks and Fosters only interacted during Chris and Snapper's wedding and Liz and Bill's re-marriage. When Stu and Jen stopped by to give them a wedding gift. Yeah it seems Bell went to great lengths to keep the Brooks women away from Kay. I would not be surprised if Lorie had no scenes with Kay until 1982 (which are in the vault) I don't even think they interacted in 1979 when Kay was plotting against Jill. Lorie only seems to have shared scenes with Brock. 

Pam got some story in 76/77 but then left. I am pretty sure Anthony Herrera (Jack) said her departure was the reason he was axed from the show. So it seems Bell had more story for Peggy coming up. I always got the feeling Pam wasn't too happy at Y&R. Though she did return in 1980 and Bell gave her a big storyline again with the New World Order Cult. Plus a love interest in Steve Williams, but again Pam decided to leave.

Honestly reading through the 1980/81 period. Many stories seemed to get lost in the shuffle. Everything was in a state of flux and rather messy in a way.

[Broderick]

I'm pretty sure Chris was present when Kay Chancellor kicked the Fosters out of her house, after Jill, thinking she'd inherited the house from Phillip, moved the whole whip-stitch tribe to Foothill Road.  Wasn't there a big scene where Kay waltzed in and tossed all of them out.   

Kay Chancellor and Lorie Brooks had a couple of scenes in 1979.  It was a complicated storyline.  Kay was "dead", having been "killed" in a fire at the sanitarium.  In reality, Kay had survived of course and was staying in the Foster home with Liz.  For several weeks, Liz was the only person who knew Kay was still alive; they had Kay's funeral and everything.  Jill was married to Stuart Brooks and was trying to bilk a divorce settlement from him.  Stuart was anxious to get rid of Jill and was willing to pay a premium to get her butt out of his house.  Brock had revealed to Lorie that, in his opinion, Jill was planning to extort a settlement from Stuart and then run away with Derek Thurston, profiting financially first from Stuart and then secondly from Derek.  Not knowing Derek Thurston, Lorie wasn't sure if this account was valid or not, but she HATED Jill and wanted to be sure Jill got $0 settlement from Mr. Brooks.  Liz babbled to Kay that Stuart was in the process of writing Jill a check for $150,000 to get rid of her .  Kay Chancellor, knowing how Lorie felt about Jill, called Lorie on the phone and said, "Lorie, this is Kay Chancellor.  No, I'm not dead.  Everyone just THINKS I am.  Now, lissssen to me, Lorie. Take the check that your father has written to Jill and rip it to shreds.  Tell Jill to just GO.  She's already made plans to swindle a fortune from my husband.  But I'll stop that as well, and she will get nothing.  Ab-so-lute-ly nothing."  Lorie snatched the check away from Jill and ripped it up.  Jill left Stuart's house with nothing at all, and then Kay herself interrupted Jill's next foray -- a wedding to Derek.  Kay and Lorie were pleased that they'd stymied both of Jill's get-rich-quick schemes. 

I don't recall Jennifer Brooks ever interacting with Kay.  It would've been superfluous, as they were the same prototype character -- the vain, wealthy, society matron who depended upon male companionship for validation of their fading beauty.  I expect Bill Bell thought it would be wise to keep them separated, as Kay was simply a more flamboyant version of Jennifer.    

[kalbir]

@Broderick How would you rank Y&R's original messy wealthy matriarchs Jennifer, Katherine, Vanessa?

[Broderick]

Gosh, I enjoyed all of them.  Vanessa Prentiss was more of a "plot devise" than a full-fledged character, created simply to add drama to Lorie's storyline with Lance.  Vanessa was always steely and grim, never smiled much, and was perpetually plotting and scheming against Lorie.  Vanessa didn't even seem to get much pleasure from her first grandson; Brooks was just another tool in her arsenal of weapons to make Lorie miserable.  Maestro flirted with Vanessa one time, and she sort of halfway smiled.  She smiled at Stuart Brooks once or twice, but she looked sorta like a cobra with a stomach ache.  She was just not very well-defined, way more bad than good.  Since Bill Bell wasn't interested in writing tender, touching moments for her to offset the vindictive scheming, he was wise to cast KT Stevens, an ingenue from the 1940s who still knew how to entertain her audience.  Whatever charisma Vanessa Prentiss possessed was all thanks to the actress, rather than to multi-dimensional writing. 

Jennifer Brooks and Kay Chancellor were obviously well-drawn characters.  Jennifer was sort of a surprise -- in one scene she could be the loving wife and mother preparing dinner for her family like Mrs. Brady, and then she'd start pining away for Bruce Henderson, vainly focusing on her appearance and her attractiveness to men, and didn't seem to give her family a second thought.  I don't think we'd seen a character like her before on daytime.  We were more accustomed to "good wives" or "bad women"; she was a combination of both.  Kay Chancellor was just that same concept taken even farther, with the smoking, the boozing, and the wanton sex with younger men. 

I'd say each of them was a unique character, but followed the same basic prototype of the "vain socialite-matriarch", with the differences being that Vanessa Prentiss had zero remorse and very little conscience, Jennifer lacked a few of the vices of the other two women but disappointed a greater number of characters (four daughters and a husband), and Kay had about every vice Bill Bell could create but still managed to be sympathetic to the audience because Jeanne Cooper knew how to look pitiful, lol.  

[Paul Raven]

Dorothy Green spoke out about the writing of Y&R women over 40. I think that was before Jen bit the dust.

Retaliation on Bill's part?

Well  they were either doormats(Liz) or neurotics desperate for validation from men.

No confident businesswomen in that group.

Was Dina, despite her conniving, the first more positive portrayal? Maybe not as it said she had to desert her family to achieve that success.

I guess Jill grew into that role and later Ashley.

[kalbir]

@Broderick Once again, I am impressed by your insights.

@Paul Raven Let's look at the 1980s messy wealthy matriarchs: Allison, Dina, JoAnna. Allison attempted to control her son Kevin's love life. Dina and JoAnna both abandoned their families and re-entered their lives years later.

[Broderick]

Really kinda difficult to understand Dorothy Green's complaints.  Her character obviously wasn't a successful business tycoon or anything, but she did embody something we hadn't seen portrayed very often.  We've all seen the clips from Episode #2 where Jennifer is happily fixing salad for dinner, asking Stuart, Peggy, Chris and Leslie about their day, and appears to be establishing herself to the audience as a chipper, upscale, socialite housewife from an upper-middle class family who places everyone else's needs above her own.  We've also seen her happily abandon the whole tribe for Bruce Henderson.  Then we saw her vainly wondering how her breast cancer scare would affect her attractiveness and her worthiness in snaring a man.  We've seen her daughters blasting her to smithereens for beings so "selfish".  Then we saw her crawl back to Stuart, who gladly took her back in.  She was an interesting and complex character, who got to play a host of different facets of a woman's life.  (And yes, I think she was axed because she became critical of Bell's somewhat chauvinistic writing.)   But in hindsight, she probably should've been proud of what she was doing from an acting standpoint.   

[Broderick]

Allison Bancroft was pretty much a wretch from start to finish.  Like Vanessa Prentiss, she was more of an insufferable plot device than a character.  She was snooty to Nikki, jealous of Kay, mean to Earle, overbearing to poor dimwitted little Kevin, manipulative to Kevin's former fiancée.  She exposed the video of "Hot Hips" to humiliate Nikki.  She kidnapped Nikki's baby.  About the only thing she DIDN'T do was take a swan dive off a balcony and send someone to trial for murder.  Not much positive to say about her.  

Dina Mergeron and JoAnna Manning were clearly more complex.  We could see good in Dina almost from the get-go.  She wanted John Abbott back, and it wasn't necessarily simply to spite Jill; she had actual regrets about giving up her family when she moved to France.  Her love for Jack was deep and real, her desire to protect Ashley from Brent Davis was partially self-serving to maintain her own reputation and partially a genuine mother's love for her daughter.  Her regrets about never being around for Traci were much discussed.  But she did everything she could to keep Marc and Danielle from cashing in on Marcel's will, although as Marcel's children, they were more than likely victimized by Dina's greed to get Mergeron Enterprises for herself.  (And I'll add that the current writer, Josh Griffith, did a decent job of KEEPING her relationships complex, right up until the end. Almost as soon as Dina was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she forgot who Traci was, as Traci was the child she'd spent the least amount of time with.  Jack, who'd always been her little sweetie-pie, insisted that Dina didn't need to be in a nursing home, while Ashley, who'd been the most wounded by Dina, had the attitude of, "Put her ass in the nursing home, Jack.  It's not as though she was ever around for US."  I believe all of that was handled pretty well.)  

JoAnna came in with an awfully sour note.  ("I wish I'd had an abortion when I was pregnant with Lauren!")  She tried to befriend Jill at Jabot, when Jill was being played at her most shrewish by Miss Dickson.  She plotted and schemed with Lauren to break-up Neil Fenmore and Gina Roma, while acting as though she'd never wanted Neil in the first place.  But her friendship with John Abbott was warm and genuine.  She was happy to provide a home for Lauren while Lauren and Paul were broken-up and acted like a real mother, but she'd turn into a shrieking vixen whenever anyone pointed out that Marc Mergeron was too young for her or simply wanted her money.  Not as complex as Dina Mergeron, I'd say, but far more complex than Allison Bancroft.    

[kalbir]

@Broderick Allison was the poor man's Vanessa. Bill Bell's best Vanessa re-creation was Stephanie, and we've already discussed the Vanessa/Stephanie parallels in the B&B From the Beginning thread.

Surprisingly JoAnna's initial run was longer than Dina's. Marla Adams arrived in 1983 and was gone in 1986, just before the EP switch from H. Wesley Kenney to Ed Scott, while Susan Seaforth Hayes arrived in 1984 and lasted until 1989. I think Susan went back to Days not long after her Y&R run.

Would we consider 1990s-now Jill and Nikki in the wealthy messy matriarch category?

Edited December 3, 2021 by kalbir