Y&R: Old Articles

[yrfan1983]

Beth Maitland is immediately BRINGING IT in these ‘82 clips. My heart aches for Traci and I am instantly invested in her journey. What a talent.

[FrenchFan]

 

I agree ! I so much want to take Traci in my arms and comfort her. Eileen Davidson and Beth Maitland were 23 and 24 when they joined the show and they were immediately great talent.

Today, we have to suffer through Sasha Calle, Melissa Ordway or Cait Fairbanks. Oh God...

[kalbir]

Aww, it warms my heart that TB and BM became friends IRL and have stayed friends all these years. It says alot about both of them as people.

 

No wonder BM was Y&R's first acting Emmy winner. BM is a treasure and Traci really should be cemented as the heart of the Abbott family.

 

[OzFrog]

 

Yes! I said this in a reply a couple of days back. Traci in 1982 was just WOW. It’s a shame the later clips didn’t capture more of the story, but OMG how completely withdrawn was she. Like you, I just felt so sorry for her.

[OzFrog]

 

It’s funny because the past couple of days I have been thinking about what I would do if I were in the writer’s box seat, so to speak, and mapping out Y&R’s future direction. In fact, Traci would feature quite a lot as a major supporting character, if not front burner. Basically it would go as follows...

 

“One day Paul & Christine get a knock on the door at their place. They open it to a surprisingly lucid and happy Patty, who had finally been getting treatment for her long standing mental issues, and wants to have another chance at starting afresh. But Patty had a shocking surprise for both Paul & Chris - a new husband. Even more shocking is the identity of Patty’s new man...

 

Danny Romalotti.

 

It seems that while Patty was being treated for her issues, Danny happened to be on a break from one of his tours. Obviously he had not been so much in the loop with what had been happening in Genoa City over the last number of years, and his mind wandered to his high school sweetheart. At the same time, Patty flashed back to the support that Danny had given her all the way back during her ill-fated romance with Jack Abbott. She also relived in her mind the drama and heartache she had caused with Traci’s miscarriage, and felt that she had to truly make peace with Danny. So she made contact with him and they met once again for the first time in decades.

 

Danny and Patty were both very lonely and nostalgic for happier, younger times. So after a brief courtship, they became married. However, Danny was not fully aware of what had happened with Patty when she had returned to Genoa City in the late 2000s, and Patty wasn’t exactly willing to divulge that information.

 

Paul and Chris both tried to talk to Danny about Patty, but Danny wouldn’t have any of it. He insisted that he was happy with Patty and wanted to really make it work this time. Patty was overjoyed to hear this, as it meant a genuine new beginning for her.

 

Danny and Patty both decided to stay in Genoa City permanently to be closer to their loved ones, and moved into their own apartment. Word eventually reached Jack Abbott that Patty was back in town (again), and married to Danny as well.

 

So one day Jack paid Danny a visit. Danny was surprised to see Jack, especially as they had not had any contact with each other for a couple of decades. And Danny didn’t exactly feel sentimental either when it came to Jack Abbott, particularly considering what he had cause Patty many years earlier.”

 

 

I could literally go on and on spawning story from this. Danny has numerous historical organic ties to characters currently on canvas - Christine, Paul, Lauren, Michael, Traci, Jack, Phyllis. I’m not saying that it should become the Danny show, but his return (if written correctly) would be potential dynamite, particularly in combination with a Patty return. And you wouldn’t even have to create too much backstory, because most of it is already there. You could even have the Patty and Danny relationship develop on screen if necessary.

 

But again, this is just me with my crayons trying to map out a decent story.

[Soaplovers]

It's a shame that the Williams family was phased out in the mid 80s because all soaps need a middle class family...which I don't think we've seen seen on soaps since the 80s.

 

Nikki and Victor were toxic even in 1982.

 

Refreshing seeing Jill and Katherine not interacting.  It.was a mistake putting them back in one another's orbit

[kalbir]

The Williams family was the replacement for the Foster family and the Abbott family was the replacement for the Brooks family. By the early 1990s, the Williams family was almost all gone and the Abbott family was almost all recasts, yet Bill Bell didn't eliminate the Williams and Abbott families entirely and start over with two new families. 

[trainman]

 

Further complicating the Williams family is that Brett Hadley (Carl) had another job as well, with FEMA, and it was sometimes hard to bring him back for stories as often as they would have liked, which is partly the reason why he kept disappearing for long periods of time.

[BoldRestless]

 

Really? It's so interesting when the soap stars have "real" jobs on the side like Kate Linder being a flight attendant and Beth Ehlers working for the state of New Jersey (although not while she was acting). I wonder what he did there and if people recognized him. It would have been a fairly new agency at the time. I haven't seen a lot from that era but I assume Carl's job made it easy for the writers to just say he was away on an assignment or undercover, and then, I guess they just eventually stopped bothering to mention him at all, same as they did when Carolyn Cromwell got sick and they didn't even give Mary an onscreen funeral or anything.

[trainman]

 

I always felt they should have brought him back at least one more time to do better justice to the amnesia storyline, rather than just dropping it the way they did and have him go back to "Ruthie" in Norfolk.  He's done a few little acting jobs here and there in other productions post-Y&R amnesia storyline.  Currently at 89, I don't have high hopes we'll ever see him again, like we did with Liz for a few final scenes when they killed off her character, but who knows.

[Chris B]

I think the difference is that with the Abbott’s you didn’t have a breakout like Lorie to overshadow everybody. Each character worked and when they recast Ashley it was seamless. Then with Peter Bergman a year later it was well received so it was easy to keep them going. With the Williams, Paul was the breakout star of that family so I think with him around they were okay with that. I do think it would’ve benefited him in the 90s to have another sibling around though. 

[BoldRestless]

 

If ever they were to bring closure to the Williams parents they would have done it during the Patty storyline or when Paul killed Ricky. Another missed opportunity.

Edited August 2, 2020 by BoldRestless

[YRBB]

 

They didn't drop it. The decision to stay with Ruthie was arrived to after months of agonizing and was a lovely, if heartbreaking, end to the storyline.

[Paul Raven]

I guess if he had have been on contract there would be no need for him to find another job.

[SoapDope]

Another thing that killed the Williams family was the loss of Lilibet Stern as Patty (Bell was upset at her leaving). Andrea Evans was a bust in the role and the character was quickly written out after a year. I say if Lilibet had stayed, Patty could have driven story for years. Bell never brought Todd on canvas and quickly wrote Steve out after about a year. I guess the Andy character filled the void as he and Paul were close like brothers.