Y&R: Old Articles

[Broderick]

Found this, from August 1980:

Beau Kayzer is ready to move on.  He says he is leaving Restless this week to look for greener acting pastures -- mainly in films.  

"It ceased to become a challenge here," he said in a telephone interview from his dressing room in CBS's Television City in Hollywood.  "There is so little latitude in daytime television."  

Kayzer says soap operas are a "good training ground" but editing procedures give an actor greater flexibility on film than on tape.  He wants to do films on location and has already completed a pilot for NBC in which he plays an undercover detective.

[It goes on and talks about the spiritual and celibate nature of his character, his character's drunken mother, and so forth.  But it doesn't really answer the question about his contract.  I still believe he agreed to stay on -- recurring -- after his contract expired in February 1980, and after six months of it, he'd just had enough.]  

[Broderick]

Here's another one that indicates they really just didn't know what they were doing. 

• Nick Benedict has been signed to appear on Y&R in an as-yet-undecided role, although the studio informs us two new core families will be added to the show, one of which will include Nick Benedict.  [That obviously didn't happen as the "studio" indicated.]
• Come February, Meg Bennett will portray a potential romantic interest for Brock Reynolds, when she debuts as "Julie".  [lol]
• Other newcomers to Y&R include Janet Wood as unwed mother "April", David Wynn as "Steve Williams", and Michael Evans as the safecracker "Douglas".  
• Still not cast is a replacement for the exiting Brenda Dickson in the role of Jill Brooks.
• John McCook will be taking a short leave of absence to film a starring role in a TV miniseries.  

[will81]

This definitely makes it sound more like he re-signed but a much shorter contract and Bell and Co went with it. I mean David Hasselhoff was basically a guest star through 1980, he was not on a normal contract. So makes sense they might have done this for Beau too. Possibly Brock and Julia were to be a couple after Victor was killed off and go on to other stories. Then when Bell decided to keep Eric he kept it going as a triangle, maybe hoping the front burner story would entice Beau to stay. Sounds like he didn't like the story much at all and left.

And I believe this is just January 1980. It was a bit of a mess that year.  

[Contessa Donatella]

 

About the 70s expansion from half hour to hour, I found some discussion in the thread, "When Did Each Soap Become a Hit" & added there. Enjoy!

[allmc2008]

That I doubt. Bill did love Sally. Sally wrote some kind of projection to him, when she was only a fan, and he liked it. I think it was the Dina story. But she did create the Fenmore family.

[kalbir]

Victor was a blank canvas of a character. All we knew about Victor was that he was a wealthy businessman that lived on a horse ranch and was married to the long suffering much younger Julia. He had no family ties or other connection to anyone in Genoa City. I believe it was rewritten years later that Katherine brought Victor to Genoa City to run Chancellor Industries but I don't think Victor and Katherine met onscreen until sometime in 1981.

[Paul Raven]

[Broderick]

I don't know where the "retcon" originated that "Kay brought Victor Newman to Genoa City to run Chancellor Industries".  

In about 1987, Santa Claus left a pack of Y&R Trivia Cards in my stocking.  They're not some fan-made product, but rather are official SONY merchandise.  One of the cards says, "Who brought Victor Newman to Genoa City?", and when you turn the card over, the answer is, "Kay Chancellor -- to run Chancellor Industries".  So the retcon has been around at least since the late 1980s. 

But obviously that's not what happened on-screen.  Just a few years ago, Bond Gideon's husband posted a Summer 1980 episode, in which Kay Chancellor is introducing Derek Thurston to George Packard, and Kay explains to Derek that George Packard has been "running Chancellor Industries since Phillip's death".  Victor had been a character on the show for several months by that point, had never met Kay, and Kay herself admitted someone else had been running the company since 1975.   

 

[soapfan770]

LOL these? I’ll look later today for that particular card but I do remember picking these and an ATWT set as well at a flea market back in the summer of 2006 lol:

 

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[will81]

They were in each others orbits by the summer of 1980. When Douglas and Victor were suddenly old friends and Douglas and Derek were fighting over Katherine. Douglas challenged Derek to a duel and Victor was his second. Later, when Derek got Kay hooked on booze again and planned to take her on a cruise, Kay had a sense of forboding and asked Victor to step in to run Chancellor in her absence which was around September 1980. I think this scene often gets mistaken for his introduction

[Broderick]

Yes, those: 

For whom did Kay develop an unnatural attachment?  Joann Curtis

Who was Earl Bancroft's wife?  Allison

Who was spiking Kay's medicine with liquor?  Jill

Why did Bill Foster return to his family?  Dying of lung cancer.  

Who pushed Kay off the wagon in revenge for Phillip's death?  Jill

What serious health problem did Traci's preoccupation with weight lead to?  Bulimia -- I'll also accept heart problems caused by diet pill addiction. 

 

lol.   

[Paul Raven]

Thursday 29th January, 1981

Beverly Garland made her first appearance on the show in the role of Kay Thurston.

[yrfan1983]

What…? Don’t remember ever hearing about this.

If JC disappeared from the show for weeks shortly after this, perhaps this was when JC went to rehab.

[lucaslesann23]

Maybe a weird question, when did the show stop using the nickname Kay? When I started everyone just called her by her fullname.

[Paul Raven]

This has been discussed before. To my mind once Brenda left that was the last character that called her Kay. Maybe Mitchell Sherman continued after that?

Did Victor call her Kay in early days?

I only remember Nikki calling her Katherine.

I seem to recall Dina calling her Kay ? We'd have to check some 80's eps to see what John and others called her.