Jacqueline Courtney Passed Away!

[DRW50]

You mean differences between the characters, or the actresses? I don't know how the actresses got on, but the main difference between Pat and Alice seemed to be that Alice was a more straightforward heroine while Pat was more troubled, with a long history of mental illness. She was also put into more complex stories, like alcoholism, and killing her daughter's boyfriend because he reminded her of the man who'd had her get an abortion years ago.

[Vee]

Wait, Pat's daughter?

[DRW50]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply Alice was Pat's daughter.

You probably already know this, but just to clear up what I meant - when Pat was a teenage girl she dated a young man (who later went on to be Victor on Port Charles) and he convinced her to have sex with him. She got pregnant. He told her if she had an (illegal at the time) abortion, they'd get married. She did, and got sick and was told she couldn't have children. When the guy taunted her and said he'd never marry her, she killed him, and got off on insanity. She married her defense attorney, John Randolph, and several years later found a miracle operation which meant she could have twins, Michael and Marianne. She and John then divorced because of his adultery.

When Marianne became a teenager, her boyfriend was attracted to Pat. He made a pass at her. She turned him down. He turned Marianne against her and he said a lot of nasty things to Pat. Finally she snapped and confusing him with her old boyfriend, she killed him. She went through a lengthy trial, and Marianne testified against her. The family was only reunited when John's psycho wife Olive tried to kill Wesley Ann Pfenning Alice, and John died saving her from a burning house.

[SFK]

I think he means the difference between Alice and Pat Ashley, i.e., JC's two roles.

[DRW50]

Oh. I totally forgot about that. I had AW on the brain.

I guess the main difference would be that unlike Alice, whom viewers saw grow up from kid sister to lead ingenue, Pat was supposed to be a more cosmopolitan woman. Her innocent years were over long before she moved to Llanview, spent, I guess, with the doomed love affair with Tony. Pat also had no real support system in family, as she just had her son, whom she lied to for his entire life, was then killed when he found out the truth, she had the crazy cousin. Alice had a big family.

[SFK]

So Maggie came after Pat died? Like, after those Daytime to Remember clips?

[SFK]

I've seen footage of Robin Strasser and Jacqueline Courtney as Rachel and Alice but I've never seen them at the acrimonious point of their relationship. Would love to. Seen Wyndham being a real bitch to Alice, but I'd like to see how Strasser played it. I know there's audio out there if not video.

[DRW50]

Maggie was on the show sometime around 1979 or early 1980, when Pat was dating Clint. Pat's son Brian had been dead for a year or so by then I think. I guess this was before the DTR clips with Gretel/Dorian/Pat, if those are the ones you mean. Schemering didn't go into details about the story but he said it was awful, and that the story with Adam Brewster also fell apart. He seemed dissatisfied with most of her material at OLTL, but he did love her work when Brian was killed.

I have one magazine which has a photo of Maggie - although that might be everywhere, I don't know. I'd like to see the story just to see how bizarre it must have been. I wonder if Jacquie ever watched Kate Collins on TV and fumed...

[SFK]

Ah, okay, thanks. Yeah, I wondered if it was maybe in between the ep where Kevin was born and the later one at Llanfair.

[DRW50]

The first clip with Kevin was what 1976 and...actually, if the DTR is when Dorian and Clint first met, then the Maggie/Pat story happened after the DTR clip.

[SFK]

Ohhh, okay. Gosh, for some reason I always think that she was only on the show for like three years.

[DRW50]

I think it's because we see so little of her and hear so little about her run. She was on the show for like 7 years.

For all of Rauch's hostility towards her, I do wonder if deep down he knew how important her type of actress and look was to soaps - one of the reasons I have a fondness for Brenda Brock, who was sort of a Rauch find, is because she reminds me so much of Jacquie Courtney. That weird mix of toughness and fragility. She could punch you out but might cry about it later on.

[teplin]

I think it was still Susan Harney Alice at that point.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I mostly remember some bad and unintentionally hilarious acting in those scenes, and I thought Harney was supposed to be a good actress. Then again what can you do with that stuff.

There were so many Alices...

[Cheap21]

This got the front page to SOD, which is quite a shock