Y&R: Old Articles

[DRW50]

I wish we could see some of her work as Nikki.

[vetsoapfan]

She was pretty bad. Was it John Conboy who later snarked that she could barely walk and talk at the same time, LOL? To be fair, I thought Melody Scott was woefully miscast when she was first hired, too; she hammed up the screen. Wings Hauser's icky Greg Foster was also hard to watch. Yuck! And Pamela Peters was acceptable as Peggy Brooks, although not the greatest actress in the world, but I gained new respect for her after seeing Patricia Everly play the role. What an awkward actress. Watching Erica Hope, a newbie Melody Scott, Wings Hauser, and Patricia Everly in key roles certainly made sitting through Y&R at this time a chore.

[DRW50]

I know some have said that period of time was very strange and mostly enlivened by stuff like the Suzanne gaslighting. I wish some was around to watch so we could see. Bell seemed to always hit these patches and then come out the other side. 

[YRfan23]

I still wonder if Erica Hope never left she would have had the same "breaking star" moment MTS achieved as Nikki....

[SoapDope]

LOL.....I remember reading somewhere that Erica would blab storyline spoilers to magazines pissing Bell off. 

 

What were they thinking when they hired Wings ? He's nasty. It seems that Bill Bell fell in love with the way Melody played Nikki and began to focus writing for her and didn't know what to do with Casey. It sounds like Casey was the focus early on.

Edited February 14, 2016 by SoapDope

[YRBB]

Kristoff St. John celebrates 25 Years on Y&R. When I see the stuff pre-2005, it makes me so sad. 

Edited February 14, 2016 by YRBB

[YRfan23]

I don't get why he didn't focus more on 90's stuff...........

[vetsoapfan]

I am the first to acknowledge and celebrate Bell's genius and enormous contribution to the genre, but he did have some occasional dry patches as a writer; times when his material was hackneyed and cliche, and, well...pretty bad. The Suzanne Lynch story was not well written at all. I found it absurd, over-the-top, poorly acted (Ellen Weston was no great actress) and not well constructed. As I recall, Bell dropped the story quite suddenly, as if he had realized it was not working, and wanted to erase it from the canvas. To his credit, when a story was failing, Bell corrected course sooner rather than later.

Wings Hauser was so creepy in the role. It was as if a degenerate drug dealer and pimp had suddenly taken over Greg Foster's body...and nobody in Genoa City dared say a word, LOL! Casey was a major focus early on. I loathed her. I hated the idea of her coming between Chris and Snapper Foster, and every time she would appear on-screen, I wished the character would just disappear. The more I think about it, the more I wonder how I sat through this time on Y&R, since it was (temporarily) marred by weak writing, and had so many actors on-screen whom I literally could not stand.

[SoapDope]

In reading synopsis for the 1978-1981 period, it seemed Bells priority was the Leslie/Lorie/Lance/Lucas story. What did you think of the Chris Foster recast of Lynn Topping from Trish Stewart who originated the role ?

 

I still can't believe someone agreed to cast Wings as Greg. Even in magazine photos it looks like he's come off a bender, went through the dirty clothes to see what smelled fresh to wear to take a photo. I remember seeing a short scene of him and Melody on the show and he had on a filthy gray athletic jacket without a shirt on and it was unzipped to his navel.

[vetsoapfan]

Yes, Wings Hauser was totally wrong for the role of Greg Foster, on every level. I was aghast that they decided to bring HIM back, when the character returned for Liz Foster's death storyline. Egads! At the time he was originally cast, TPTB said that they wanted to recapture the similar look between the Foster brothers that had existed when William Gray Espy and James Houghton played the roles. I suppose the producers thought Hauser looked somewhat like David Hasselhoff. What an insult to the Hoff, LOL. Of all four Greg Fosters, Wings was by far the worst. Brian Kerwin was bland, but at least he wasn't actively repellent.

 

Chris Brooks Foster, as played by Trish Stewart, is my favorite Y&R character of all time. I adored her from the very first episode, and was very impressed with her talent during her rape storyline. I was not prepared for Stewart to be replaced by ANYONE, and I already hated the idea of seeing a "fake" Chris before Topping even appeared on-screen. That being said, Topping was an acceptable actress and a lovely women. I just never warmed up to her as Chris. When the Brooks sisters all returned for Nikki's wedding to Victor in 1984, I was pleased to see Stewart reprise the role. Had Topping been cast in another part, I'm sure I would have been quite happy with her, but Trish Stewart is the only "real" Chris Brooks to me.

 

I also never adjusted to Victoria Mallory as Leslie. Janice Lynde played Leslie Brooks as a fragile, doe-eyed heroine with deep passions raging just beneath the surface. Mallory came across as very charming, very self-possessed, but aloof, and without the depth or vulnerability that had made Leslie such a sympathetic character to begin with. Again, had she been cast in another role, I'm sure i would have found Mallory perfectly fine. She had charm to spare, and she sang like an angel. She was also gorgeous. But her interpretation of Leslie was so strikingly different than Lynde's, that I couldn't adjust to it. The editors of Rona Barret's Daytimers magazine wrote at the time that, "due to (Mallory's) colorless portrayal of the part", Leslie's importance in the story had dwindled, and the principle focus was now on Jaime Lyn Bauer's fiery Lorie.

 

I enjoyed the Lucas/Leslie/Lance/Lorie story for the most part, although again, when Dennis Cole replaced John McCook as Lance, I hated it. Tom Ligon as Lucas was sexy as hell, and his character was such a good, supportive guy, I always thought Leslie was a moron for pining over Lance when she could have had his hunky brother. I'll bet Janice Lynde's Leslie would have been bright enough to choose Lucas, LOL!

[cassadine1991]

I do have a question: When did Brenda Dickson debut as Jill

[vetsoapfan]

Brenda Dickson was part of the original cast, when the show began on March 26, 1973. When she started, she was actually much more subdued and restrained in her acting than she would be later on, when she camped out in the 1980s.

[ltm1997]

My favorite Brenda Dickson era has to be from around '75-'80. Granted I'm only 18, yet to me from the footage I have and what I've seen, she was (to me) at her most constant state of deviousness, concerning Stuart Brooks, Kay, Suzanne, and Derek. Also, her pattern of speech was perfect then. In the beginning it was too quiet and shy, yet in her 2nd tenure (84-87), it was clear that she was having problems with the cast and the directors/writers because it was almost as if she was saying all those insults to the actors themselves instead of the characters they were playing, therefore it was so overly done that it almost hurt to watch. That's' just my take on it.

[cassadine1991]

so she was on the first episode?

[YRfan23]

No Brenda wasn't on the first episode, and it's never been said when her first airdate was...