Jump to content

Y&R: Old Articles


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 13.6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members

No sir, there wasn't ever any real chemistry between Stuart Brooks and Vanessa Prentiss.   The main obstacle was probably the (fairly obvious) generation gap.   Jeanne Cooper (Kay Thurston), Julianna McCarthy (Liz Foster) and Robert Colbert (Stuart Brooks) were all about 50 years-old in real life, having been born in 1928, 1929, and 1931 respectively.   Y&R, from the very beginning,  had been "graying" Julianna McCarthy and Robert Colbert, so the two of them wouldn't appear so glaringly YOUNG as the parents of twenty-something year-old children.  (Jeanne Cooper didn't require any "graying", of course, because her cigarette-smoking had given her plenty of wrinkles, and Jeanne's character was built entirely around the concept of "beauty that's faded".)  But any rate, KT Stevens was WAY older than those other three actors --- she'd been born in 1917 or 1919 --- and while she'd been an absolutely stunning young starlet in the 1940s, she was clearly 60+ years by the time she started her little "flirtation" with Stuart Brooks.   She was just honestly WAY too old for him.  Stuart still possessed wholesome, matinee-idol good looks and a little gray around his temples, but scarcely a wrinkle on his face.   KT Stevens, who was twelve or fifteen years older than Robert Colbert,  looked practically an entire generation older than he did.   And besides, Stuart Brooks had already been maniplulated all during 1978 and 1979 by Brenda Dickson, with her big, jiggling breasts and her sexy negligees.   Who'd want to see him immediately after divorcing Jill be manipulated by a wicked old crone like Mrs. Prentiss??   Nobody, probably, and that idea was ditched.   (But then the concept was resurrected yet AGAIN when Eve Howard joined the show, and it appeared that Eve would be working as Stuart's "administrative assistant" and manipulating him.   That idea, mercifully, seemed to die on the vine before it ever really took flight.)      

Edited by Broderick
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Your welcome!

Please register in order to view this content

  I'm glad more of the late 90's early 2000's are surfacing...it's not really my favorite era, but it's always nice to see considering how most of the soaps took a dive by the mid 90's.....Y&R was in good shape and watchable till the mid 2000's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I never thought about it in those terms. I agree. What exactly about Vanessa would make him leave Liz. Not her looks or body, even the much younger and more voluptous Jill couldn't keep him interested for long, and she only got him down the aisle due to faking a pregnancy, not exactly something Vanessa could do, also not her wealth, as he had plenty of his own, and if there was no chemistry between the pair, what was the point, meaning Bell really couldn't convincingly have Stuart see Vanessa as a better match than Liz in any way.

 

I wonder if 1980 made Bell realise Vanessa just didn't work without Lance and Lorie and was no longer needed on the show. He already had Kay on canvas to fill the lonely wealthy older woman role and Vanessa had accompished her goal of splitting Lorie and Lance. There was nothing left for her to do. He took her out with a bang though.

Yeah I once read someone state that you could draw a line in the sand between Y&R up to 1994 and post 1994. I admit the show began to falter in 1995, got worse (though still pretty good) in 1996 and 1997 and began to recover in late 97. While 98 is one of my fave years, it still takes a back seat to any year prior to 1995.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Pamela Peters returned to the show in 1980 as Peggy and had that Steve pairing, the cult story, and the Jack fling. After that she just lingered till disappearing in late 1981 after a few dates with Greg. I wonder how Peters felt being an original cast member and being shafted the way she was ?

 

If Cash had not hooked up with Kay, what if Peggy had went to see Cash's show at the Bayou and hooked up with him to Stuart's disapproval ? That would have been funny.

 

Towards the end of the Foster/Brooks era things got kind of incestuous. Chris was married to Snapper, Liz married Stuart, Stuart had married Jill, Peggy became interested in Greg, Greg was secretly in love with Chris etc...not to mention Liz's brother Bruce fathered Lorie with Jennifer Brooks. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Pamela left the show and they were originally going to recast, so I assume she wasn't happy with being there by 1981 and it might explain why Peggy never got a proper send off, or did she? I can't remember now. Below is the aricle from October 04, 1981

Please register in order to view this content

Also does anyone know who played Eve's accomplice Max, when they were planning to kill Victor? I have never been able to find any information on him anywhere

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

While a lot of us probably have some fond memories of KT Stevens, she'd more or less "run her course" as Vanessa Prentiss once she successfully sabatoged Lance and Lorie.   Vanessa hadn't ever served any purpose on the show other than the Overprotective Mother Of Lance.   She obviously went out with a BANG, but again that storyline struck me (at the time) as showcasing how shallow and stupid the Prentiss boys were.   Both boys had been involved with Lorie for years and knew her INSIDE and out (no pun intended, lol.)  They also knew what a conniving old shrew Vanessa could be.   Why on earth would it ever even cross their MINDS that Lorie had really pushed Vanessa off the balcony?  I know that Lucas was in the apartment and heard Vanessa screaming, "What are you doing, Lauralee?!  Oh my God!  Why are doing this, Lorie?!  Get away from me!  I'm going to fall!  HELLLLPP"  But there wasn't a PEEP out of Lorie.  Looks like it would've occurred to Lucas that Vanessa was just being her usual god-awful vindictive self and blaming Lorie for some bizarre plot that she hatched herself.   She'd already followed that same modus operandi about 535 times between 1976 and 1981.  lol.   If I'd been Lucas, I would've said, "Well, Lorie, looks like Mother jumped off the balcony and blamed it on you.  As usual."   Lance, of course, had his doubts about Lorie's innocence as well, despite the fact that Vanessa had already popped a cap in him while trying to shoot Lorie several years earlier.  Made no sense to me that either boy disbelieved Lorie's version of events. 

 

Based on the news article above, I guess the "casting folks at Y&R" didn't "search TOO hard for a new Peg" when Pam Peters left the show.  lol.  To me, Peggy had about run her course after the Jack Curtis storyline ended in 1975 or 1976.   I can certainly see why Bill Bell brought the Peggy character back during the expansion to an hour.   She was a familiar character to the audience, and a younger one at that, and her scenes with Jack Abbott, which were fairly cute, helped to solidify Terry Lester as the show's new "younger leading man".   I don't remember a big good-bye scene for Peggy when she left the show.   Seems to me like she just vanished into the woodwork.  I remember she had a few dates with Greg Foster, and then she gave this big passionate speech to Stuart about a new series of articles that she planned to write for the Chronicle.   She'd gotten interested in the plight of poor people who were living in substandard housing, and she planned to expose some 'prominent business people' in Genoa City who were slumlords.   "These people who provide these vermin-infested housing units for the poor are the scum of the earth, and they deserve to be exposed for the slime that they truly are," she pouted to her father.  Meanwhile, Greg Foster decided that he wanted to get rich quick, and he started setting-up dummy corporations for a wealthy man named Mr. Dixon, who planned to open a bunch of low-rent Section 8 apartments.   You could see the writing on the wall --- Peggy was gonna start exposing people such as Mr. Dixon, but people such as Mr. Dixon were gonna leave Greg Foster, Peggy's new beau, holding the bag.  YAWN.  Peggy did us all a favor and disappeared without a trace during that wretched mess.   Greg seemed to limp along a little bit farther without Peggy, serving as Jill's attorney when she sued Jabot for sexual harrassment after Jack Abbott banged her, ditched her for Patty, and then fired her.  But as I recall, Greg sorta disappeared without a trace as well, just as Peggy had done.   (I actually found Jill's sexual harrassment suit against Jabot to be interesting, but it didn't last long enough.)   

     

  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yeah even reading synopsis I kept thinking it made no sense for Lucas to be so against Lorie, he always seemed so weary of his mother and more so on Lorie's side up until that point. I could buy Lucas supporting her but having small doubts in his mind, after all he had no idea Vanessa was sick and it seems so over the top to kill yourself and frame someone simply as revenge. This still would have allowed some of the same story beats to play out. Instead of Lucas actively testifying against her, his in good faith testimony could be twisted and manipulated by the D.A to make Lorie look bad, and the letter Vanessa wrote (making it seem as if Lorie was the one writing to Vanessa) could have been found by anyone and given as evidence.

 

Lucas did seem to go off the deep end when Vanessa died. One of the few clips I have seen that takes place after Vanessa's death is at her funeral (if I recall K.T Stevens was in the coffin, lol and it looks like she was closed in there at one point) Lucas rages at Lorie for turning up at the funeral and then opens the casket and screams that Lorie killed his mother. He seemed absolutely bonkers. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Right!  The whole reason that Lucas Prentiss even lived in Genoa City at the time of Vanessa's death was that LORIE went and found him in Asia or somewhere and brought him back home, in order to please Vanessa.  Lucas knew that.  He also knew that Lorie had bent over backwards for years to placate and pacify Vanessa, and he was fully aware that Vanessa was never truly appreciative of anything Lorie had done.  Granted, you wouldn't expect your mama to take a suicidal swan dive off a balcony, but if she did, you'd probably have a moment of quiet reflection where you said, "This is exactly something my mother would do." 

 

The story would've certainly played better on-screen if Lucas had stood-up for Lorie, but privately had his doubts, and had his testimony twisted by the DA into something negative instead of positive.   It would've really made Luke into a complex and conflicted character.  As it was written, it just made Lucas seem like a jackass.  I'd always really liked Lucas, but by the time that long trial/harangue ended, I didn't care for him much anymore.  He was WAY too brash and hot-headed and resentful, considering what all he knew about his mother's past dealings with Lorie and Lance.       

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Brolden, Will 81 - really enjoying your insights. 

 

Yes, characters were often written as dumb to service the plot even by masters like Bill Bell. However, as you pointed out there could still be drama and conflict in having characters act more logically.

 

Looking back on the 1980- stories, most of them were ill conceived and wrapped up or revamped.

 

Some questions I hope can be answered.

 

I believe that Terry Lester had stretches of time where Jack had little to do and he was barely on, while Bill Bell figured out what to do with him.Is that correct?

 

Did John McCook depart when the show went to an hour in February?  Lance is mentioned later on so did McCook return for short stints?

 

It is stated that Beau Kayzer along with BD and McCook left when the show expanded yet Brock stayed for many months after to play the Brock/Julia story. It seems Bill Bell decided to finally give Brock a chance as leading man. Did Beau have some kind of out in his contract or did Bill decide to dump Brock when he revamped the story?

 

Interesting that Bell dropped his original plan of Victor being killed as he decided EB had staying power yet he wrote the dungeon story that made Victor pretty irredeemable, especially back then when characters didn't usually get away with that level of villiany. what do others think?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Terry definitely left the show in 1985 to do a pilot for some show called Hong Kong Nights or something. it was filmed on location. They didn't recast in case the pilot wasn't picked up (which it wasn't) He was gone for several months, maybe six. I am not sure he was ever really off screen other than that time. He was featured heavily in 1986 for the Abbott Divorce story and seemed to have plent to do in 1987 and 1988 as well. Though maybe there were smaller stretches of time he wasn't featured as prominently. I started watching episodes from 1985 and Jack always seemed to be there once he returned.

 

John left the show in Feb when Lance divorced Lorie and moved to Paris. When Lucas was shot in the San Pedro story (I think it was San Pedro) with Sebastian and Jonas and Leslie, Lance returned briefly in May 1980 for about two weeks. I assume it was McCook, but Broderick might know better. I think Lance was already dating Simone at this point.

 

Not sure about Beau. I remember reading an interview with Conboy where he said he gave an out clause to any actor who joined the show prior to the expansion, as he felt they never agreed to act in an hour long show, I am not clear if there was an expiry date on that out clause or if Beau was actually let go. Brock never seemed to have much luck in the romance department, pretty much every woman he went after just wanted to be friends, lol. 

 

In terms of Victor and the Dungeon story. Bell was pretty good at washing over such things, if he made a mistake or wanted to go another direction he simply pretended it never happened. He got rid of part of the problem by having Julia and Michael leave town. Then when Julia returned I don't think the dungeon fiasco was ever mentioned and she was totally in love with him still. Nikki and even Douglas helped soften Victor up and Bell had already connected Victor to Lorie which would have helped. What seemed worse from synopsis I have read is Victor seemed to be abusing Julia, at least in the very beginning. Not sure if he was ever violent with her on screen though or if Brock just suspected he was. 

 

Also it might have been in Bell's favour that the ratings dropped between 80-82. Most likely many people who started to tune in again or for the first time in 1982 were most likely not even aware of the dungeon story or Victor's more villanous beginnings.

Edited by will81
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

@Paul Raven Just thinking about it some more. In 1987 Jack was involved with Nikki faking her illness and trying to get Megeron Inc and other things out of Victor. Once Nikki was caught out in late 87 up until he hooked up with Leanna around May 88 and started digging around in Brad's past, he might not have been featured too much or he was more a supporting player without his own story. 

 

I am trying to think in terms of his last year on the show. He had the Leanna/Ruthless story, then the Jabot take over and played a part in the Brad/Lisa story and he and Lauren were getting friendly and ended up saving Brad in early 89. After that he may not have been featured as much. I do remember Terry chewing gum in a lot of his scenes towards the end. He seemed so bored during the last year he was on.

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
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.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

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