Y&R: Old Articles

[Broderick]

I always felt that the most defining characteristic of Terry Lester's Jack was his "devil-may-care" attitude.   Never made any difference to me how handsome he was or how charming he was.  

That all went out the window with Peter Bergman, who always seemed too methodical, poised, practiced & meticulous to be Jack Abbott.  

[YRfan23]

I just think that if Lester stayed, it would have been a more equal rivalry with Victor and Jack. 

[Broderick]

 

Yep.  Even when Victor TROUNCED Terry Lester's Jack, it was always a hollow victory, because Terry Lester shrugged and said, "Aw shucks", went back to chasing women, badgering Jill, giving John Abbott and Ashley fits, and didn't seem to give Victor much thought at all until their next confrontation.  Peter Bergman's Jack always appears to be stewing and pouting about Victor.  

[YRfan23]

Even after Victor takes Jabot, Terry's Jack during those last few months, doesn't even seem all that phased. He treats it all like a minor annoyance, and doesn't seem too worried about whatever else Victor had in store (namely hiring Brad as his right hand) 

 

[asafi]

https://www.ynet.co.il/laisha/article/rksk110UPO?utm_source=ynet.co.il&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email&utm_term=rksk110UPO&utm_content=Article

 

An interview with MTH resurfaced in an Israeli news website 

 

42 years in "Restless Young People": "If one day I start acting like Nicki, please slap me" Melody Thomas Scott has been playing Nicki Newman in the immortal series for four decades. With the rise of the series again in Israel, she explains how she is still not tired of the character, how love scenes are filmed in the Corona era, and why Aretha Franklin was angry with her (30 years!)

[AlexGrimaldi]

 

I started to watch YR in 1991. Peter Bergman played Jack. I thought he was perfect for the role: handsome, introspective, elegant and charming, competent in business, smart, narcisistic and self indulgent, cold and sarcastic when he disliked someone, caring with people he loved. A person who was proud to be an Abbott and wanted so badly to be considered worthy of John's love and respect, after disappointing his beloved father so many times. His resentment against Victor was a driving force: Newman stole Jabot and Nikki's heart even when he was married to her. Hating Victor and scheming against him showed all of his devilish colours (he still had ethic conflicts and sense of guilt when everybody around him blamed him for his reckless choices). 

 

I managed to watch TL's Jack (thanks YT and the vault). He was fantastic: restless, bold, magnetic, seductive and strongly sensual, edgy, raw, sarcastic and playful . He was somewhat guided by his instinct, a softer version of JR Ewing. A younger and less mature Jack, with less nuances and more impudence. 

 

 

 

 

I red her biography (very very interesting and surprising). 

Aretha never forgot their first awkard casual meeting in early 1980s.

[kalbir]

 

 

Bill Bell introduced Victor, John, Jack in 1980 and their introductions overlapped with Dallas at the height of its popularity. I figured Victor (billionaire businessman that owns and lives on a horse ranch and has a long suffering younger wife) was modelled after JR, John (cosmetics company owner) was modelled after Jock, and Jack (playboy son of cosmetics company owner) was modelled as a Gary/Bobby hybrid.  

 

A big part of Jack's character when TL was in the role was the lost little boy with abandonment issues (from his mother leaving the family) that was always looking for his father's love and approval. That element of Jack seemed to be lessened when PB took over.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by kalbir

[FrenchBug82]

It could very well be that the Dallas popularity inspired Bell some but I have to really be skeptical of the specific character parallels here.

JR as a ruthless businessman certainly works with Victor but that was hardly specific to JR. It had been done plenty. And even if we grant that comparison, which is plausible enough, one of JR's very few human traits was his obvious longing for his father's pride which, as you correctly point out, was more one of the thoroughlines of Jack's character. Victor's toughness was not driven at the outset that I remember by a sense of family - on the contrary, his identity as a self-made man is what made him feel tough and ruthless.
Otoh I don't really see anything of Gary in Jack. At all. As for Bobby maybe the pre-Pamela playboy aspect (which was never shown on Dallas but was a big part of Jack) but Bobby was a good guy - to the point of milquetoast - which Jack emphatically was not. He was a carefree hedonist more than ruthless, true, but he had none of the moral principles that were driving Bobby.
So I think we are doing a disfavor to Bell by trying to shoehorn the comparison. Jack in particular was a complex character who didn't resemble anything else that was done on Dallas or anywhere else in my humble opinion.
And the archetypes of John, the business patriarch, and Victor, the ruthless businessman, represented were hardly original to Dallas or to Y&R.

Were there any other maybe better examples of Bell and/or Y&R being directly inspired by primetime for characters they ever introduced?
I know other soaps tried the Alexis-style "b*tch" in the late 80s but I don't recall Y&R really going that route - I don't think Jill's upmarketisation fits the bill. What else?

[kalbir]

@FrenchBug82 Dina was clearly Alexis. Mother that abandons her husband and children to live a jet set life, remarries a wealthy man, becomes widowed, inherits late husband's business that rivals ex-husbands business. Even Dina's introduction as Madame Mergeron where she's dressed in a black suit with a matching hat and veil and then revealed to be Dina Abbott was a copy of Alexis introduction.

 

As for 1980s Jill, she was more Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing, single mother from a working class background that married up and became a businesswoman. The closest to Angela Channing that Bill Bell might have created was Stephanie, but by 1987 primetime soaps were past their peak. 

Edited May 10, 2021 by kalbir

[FrenchBug82]

 

To me it takes more than a biographical pitch to feel a character is inspired by another one. Sure, you can isolate some elements that are the same but that's quite a way away from saying this character is an attempt to reproduce another character.

So Dina started off Alexis-ish although was softened later on, I feel, but the "absentee mother" plot point certainly feels directly lifted and the way she was initially written certainly was Alexis-like so I will give you that one. Definitely agree there was inspiration there at the outset. 

But Jill really had nothing to do with Abby. "Social climber" certainly is not an original story that would need to originate in Abby and their personalities and the way they went about their climb were completely different. I don't find them alike at all, let alone assume one came from the other.
As for Stephanie, again, the "tough matriarch" is an archetype as old as literature, movies and TV. There was no need to look at Angela - who was not even that similar to Stephanie in her motives and personality - for inspiration in that way. I don't buy that at all.

I think Dina is the most convincing of all the examples given in this thread. Victor too to an extent. The rest feels like a reach to me.

[AlexGrimaldi]

 

Even after John's death in 2006, Jack had crises of conscience thinking of his late father and the role model he has been for him (John's ghost embodied Jack's dirty conscience, his moral struggle)

About the abandonment issues, Dina came back in 1983 and their relantioship has partially healed since then, though she proved to be a not always reliable mother figure. 

 

I wonder if Bill Bell - aside My fair lady - was inspired by Charles and Diana when he suddenly decided to pair Victor and Nikki as a couple. In 1981 they got engaged and they married, they were the couple of the year: the world was watching them. Niktor started in late 1981. Charles/Victor: rich and sophisticated men, gothic and aloof. Diana/Nikki: pretty girls, so much younger than them, full of life, naive, different backgrounds. 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

 

Even when you knew Jack had to be in a stressful situation, TL's Jack always kept that  unbothered vibe.

 

There was that great scene where Jack knows that Katherine has the evidence that Jack and Jill had an affair but Jack wants to find out what exactly Katherine knows and whether she plans on using it. He's see desperate but is clearly determined not to show it. He doesn't want to betray how worried he is. So he has this unflappable appearance but you know, on the inside, that he must have been churning. TL's Jack really was the embodiment of the "never let 'em see you sweat" ethos.

Edited May 11, 2021 by DramatistDreamer
Could've sworn I typed "unbothered"

[kalbir]

@FrenchBug82 Angela and Stephanie both attempted to control the love lives of their children (and in Angela's case also that of her grandson), so that was a similarity. Bill Bell had wealthy matriarchs before Angela (Jennifer, Katherine, Vanessa; also Vanessa attempted to control the love lives of her sons) but none of them were as business-minded as Angela. 

 

@AlexGrimaldiI never thought of Victor and Nikki as being inspired by Charles and Diana. Then again Y&R did attempt to cash in on the Charles and Diana wedding hype with the London concert and ball in July 1981.

[FrenchBug82]

A vague one.
Angela's relationships to her children was quite different from Stephanie's. Sure, there was meddling but, again, such a soap cliche. But there was nothing equivalent to Stephanie's almost incestuous affection for Ridge with Angela. 
The one plot that somewhat resembles would be Stephanie's Angela to what Emma initially was - the hiding the slightly "off" daughter etc. But not enough to think one came from the other - especially since Emma had since become a full-fledged character by the time BB started.
Also, Stephanie having Eric makes all the difference as it was a focal point of a lot of her run. Angela didn't have a man for most of her run and didn't seem to care very much. Eric drove a lot of story for Stephanie and was a thoroughline.
Falcon Crest WAS Angela's life, more than her children or anything else. Stephanie's interest in Forrester's was mainly a function of her defending her family. I never read it as "business-oriented"; indeed her meddling in the business was more about protecting it from outsiders while her family worked there than actually working at it herself. Angela ran Falcon Crest directly herself. 

I just don't agree with that comparison beyond the obvious: fierce scheming matriarch but that's not THAT original that it would require "being inspired by".

[rlj]

Maybe Sable Colby re Stephanie