Y&R: Old Articles

[SoapDope]

I did a little research and found out why John Considine was released from Y&R as the original Phillip Chancellor. I found out he had written an autobiography of his life and looked at the preview sample on amazon.

He said when Jeanne was cast (who he referred to as the fabulous Jeanne Cooper and the anchor that has kept Y&R going), they thought he looked way too young to be her husband and started applying heavy makeup to him look older. He said within weeks they gave him his walking papers. He said he had never been fired from a job and it hurt him to lose Y&R.

He then tells an amusing story of being cast on Bright Promise. He said another actor who he refused to name on the show convinced him to smoke pot before taping in his dressing room. They were taping live and he had a scene in the lab where he was telling another character the latin names of the rodents. He said when he got to the last name he couldn't remember and started to mentally freak out. He said he almost said cunnilingus as the name because the word kept popping in his head. He said he made up name and got through the scene some how....LOL After that he said he never use any mind altering substance again before a performance. He did mention Tony Geary was on the show with him ( I wonder if he was the pot pusher hmmmm).

[DRW50]

Thank you for those stories from Considine. I always enjoy hearing about live days on soaps. I didn't think he looked too young for Jeanne, but then I wasn't in charge.

Can't wait to see the 1990 episodes.

I don't want to post it here but - and this may already be known anyway - someone, up to a few months back, put up a fair amount of late 1995 complete episodes.

Promo.

[YRfan23]

Thanks, I'm thinking maybe i could upload the episode as unlisted like Alphaguy has been doing with those 70's episodes and just post the links here!

[YRBB]

That was so wonderfully vicious of Lauren. This is the Lauren that I love, not the pathetic prop housewife she's been since 2005. It is so magnetically psychologically damaged of her to want to fill the void her baby's death left by getting Paul so drunk he sleeps with her. Dark, horrifying and gripping.

Please do! Those are treasures. You could have them as unlisted or private and that should help protect you.

[Paul Raven]

So Considine was cast before Cooper. Way back in this thread,there was mention(I think) that Phillip appeared before Katherine though I can't see how that would play. Phillip being younger than Katherine could have been worked into the story and made her seem more desperate. I can't think of anyone else who was recast on Y&R until Espy,Houghton and Lynde left.

[SoapDope]

That's how Considine words it in his book. I know Kay was said to of first appeared in November 73, I just wonder who the Chancellors interacted with prior to Jill. Did they just appear in sole scenes together as a couple with their marriage on the rocks or did they have dealings with other characters like the Brooks ? In the January 1974 filmed episode Jill talks about having done Kay's hair after the other girl had problems with her, but I doubt 2 or more months had elapsed sine they first met.

[Paul Raven]

Reading an old interview with Jerry Douglas and he states that he thinks the John/Mamie romance should never have been done as he couldn't see how John could suddenly see Mamie as a love interest after so many years as an employee and trusted friend.

He also states that Bill Bell wishes he hadn't made Ashley Brent's daughter rather than John's.He says that Brenda Dickson was Jill in real life and no comparison with Jess.

[cassadine1991]

The link??

[will81]

Yeah Jeanne also said John Considine was there when she was hired and gone shortly after. I assume he was introduced as Liz's boss, maybe shown at the factory and probably had very few scenes before Jeanne arrived. Bell was good at introducing a character slowly, so Jeanne may have started in Nov 73 but maybe was only on a couple times a week and many of her scenes may have been her sitting in her living room lamenting her life or with Theresa and of course Phillip.

Remember the Chris Brooks rape story was wrapping up, then Chris and Snapper were engaged and Sally discovered she was pregnant and tried to commit suicide about the time Kay started to appear. Shortly after she turned up on screen Laurie Brooks returned home, so there was plenty of other stuff going on.

[alphanguy74]

This comment from Considine makes sense as to why we see Donnely Rhodes with a moustache and gray temples. Donnely Rhodes was only 2 years younger than Considine, but Rhodes was only 37 years old When he debuted, a full 10 years younger than Jeanne. Michael Muhney right now is a YEAR OLDER than Donnelly Rhodes was at the time, mull THAT around for a minute.

Edited December 9, 2013 by alphanguy74

[alphanguy74]

I agree on all counts, except that Ashley/Brent Davis SL was VERY dramatic and made for amazing drama. I don't think it was a bad move at all. And he's not the first person to say that Brenda was playing herself. In the second run, she certainly was, but in her first run, as you could see, she certainly wasn't. It's too bad, and seeing how she now bleats about how hard the part was to play in the 70's, that tells me that she just got lazy and started playing herself. And the performances weren't nearly as good. Things are always better when you have to WORK at it.

[Sapounopera]

Thank you so much for these amazing 70s episodes, such an early Christmas soap present! There is something so stylish, dramatic and sophisticated about this Y&R era. Knowing how the Jill/Kay story (and the characters themselves) would turn, out these scenes were

There is so much we find out about these women in one episode.

A soap can't buy this kind of history.

[SoapDope]

I know it's kind of freaky. People looked so much older back then. Most of the cast at that time were in their 20's and they looked so much older and sophisticated than what 20 somethings do now. Robert Colbert who played Stuart was 42 when the show started. Dorothy Green who played Jennifer was 11 years older than Bob.

Speaking of Donnelly Rhodes, I remember seeing the scene where Kay was drunk and signed the divorce papers and noticed he has this Kennedy accent thing going on. I remember he had a line that went " Kay, I told you when I telephoned you".....and I could picture one of the Kennedy's saying something like that.

[DramatistDreamer]

Seeing these clips of Lauren reminds me why I snicker every time I used to read a post (I don't go to those sites anymore) complaining about how Lauren sleeping with Carmine was supposedly so OOC. The Lauren I remember was a vixen who had a sex drive that rivaled any of the male characters and she wasn't about to apologize for it.

Even in a case like this where sex really wasn't the issue, often times it was the solution where Lauren was concerned. It wasn't all there was to Lauren but sensuality and sexuality was a big part of who she was and she was a vixen to boot.

At the risk of raising the ire of some Phyllis fans, I can only guess that perhaps the Phyllis character sort of supplanted the Lauren character in some ways. Although Lauren at her worst was never as diabolical as Phyllis at her worst, that image of the red headed vamp was taken over by Phyllis and Lauren was transitioned to supportive stable, married friend.

Whereas before, even in her previous marriages to Paul and Scott, she couldn't be tamed, after marrying Michael she was turned into this earth mother and wife. Even her business ambitions had become somewhat dulled.

[YRfan23]

She sort of seemed like she became comic relief too for a while when Phyllis first came to town. I say this because I got a couple of 1995 episodes recently and Lauren was on one of them (Y&R 1995 episodes with Lauren are very rare.....I promise I will get this up eventually, The entire episode was fantastic for being a year people consider one of the weakest of Bell's storytelling,I enjoyed this one!.) and she had this scene with Paul where she spends most of the time talking about his "sex drive" since he was FINALLY fully regaining it since the hit and run (I have to laugh it took so long because this episode aired August 21 1995, and the hit and run was from Dec/Jan before) and she has all these one liners and zingers about it......hard to believe it was the same Lauren that had been terrorized by Sheila only a few years/months before......It's funny cause I think they tried to make her character more dramatic when they moved her to B&B but the same thing ended up happening where she seemed like she was there just have a few good zingers.