Daily TV Serials - The Return of The Best & The Worst

[TC]

What kind of character was Brooke?

When she first arrived she was sort of a hippie, for lack of a better word but even that word was outdated by then. Back then, where I live, we would have called her GRANOLA or FREAK, and that was in French. A rich girl who didn't care about fashion, the polar opposite of Erica.

ETA: Now I realize you meant Brooke from Days. I didn't know who she was until she was recast came back with a different identity.

[jam6242]

Great stuff!

I would have been nine years old in 1977 but I do remember Peggy. For me she sort of appeared out of nowhere, one of those soap children who was never mentioned until she "returned from boarding school" or some such thing. I am probably wrong, but it felt as if she was a retcon and the Brooks family went from three daughters to four in order to bring a younger woman, a girl really, into the Brooks fray. Really annoying voice that someone in casting must have thought was distinctive.

Was Nancy an older woman about 35 or more, hair usually pulled back? Blonde?

I'm pretty sure all four Brooks girls were around from the beginning. Peggy probably didn't have much of a story because she was the youngest. But I could be wrong, since Leslie and Lori were my favorites so I paid more attention to them.

Nancy had brown (maybe with a hint of auburn) hair, I remember it being kind of stringy. She had huge brown eyes.

[jam6242]

What kind of character was Brooke?

Brooke was a very bad girl! She came to Salem with the SORASed David Banning (Julie's son) and was his girlfriend. I'm pretty sure she had an abortion when she became pregnant with David's baby. Brooke caused all kinds of trouble between David and Julie, and was somewhat responsible for Julie falling down some stairs when she was pregnant with Bob Anderson's baby, causing the baby to be stillborn. Previously, she had spread false rumors that Doug & Julie had an affair while Addie was ill with leukemia (Alice even believed her) and that Doug was the father of the baby Julie lost. Brooke turned out to be the illegitimate daughter of Bob Anderson. She also caused all kinds of trouble at Anderson Manufacturing. She was driven out of town and got in a car crash (she either had picked up a hitch-hiker, or someone had picked her up). Of course, a while later, a character named Stephanie Woodruff showed up in town and she turned out to be Brooke. This was the character who placed her hands on a hot frying pan to erase her fingerprints! Don't know if you're currently watching Days, but the actress who played Stephanie/Brooke, Eileen Barnett, played the nun who was assisting Carly with Chloe's paternity test.

[DRW50]

Thanks. That sounds like really good stuff! Llaemle killed off Brooke, didn't she? Perhaps they should have just had Barnett return as Brooke and say she hadn't really died. No one in Salem does anyway.

[~bl~]

Deformed is now an extremely politically incorrect way of saying the term birth defect like the children of women who used thalidomide, who were born without limbs. Back then the term was not seen as objectionable in the slightest.

Thanks for sharing this article, very interesting opinions though other than being able to watch RH on SoapNet, I don't know enough to agree or disagree.

[jam6242]

Thanks. That sounds like really good stuff! Llaemle killed off Brooke, didn't she? Perhaps they should have just had Barnett return as Brooke and say she hadn't really died. No one in Salem does anyway.

Yes, she was killed in another car accident, around the time so many other characters were let go. I kept hoping they would say Sister Anne was really Stephanie/Brooke and she had switched the paternity results for Chloe's baby for some reason!

[soapfan770]

Wow, this was so long before I was even born so I don't have much to say. I've always been curious to see Judith McConnell as Valerie on ATWT who was supposedly to be the show's new wild character there 1976/77. Charles Paul even wrote her own theme to play for the character. He praises Laurie Heineman on AW, who of course is the long lost Emmy winning actress from her tenure as the first Sharlene Frame. Nice shout out to the briefly lived L&F, both Christine Jones and Rod Arrants became reputable daytime stars after the show ended (Jones on AW, Arrants on SFT, Days, and Y&R)

[SFK]

"Someone ought to have given that spoiled brat a good swift kick in his asthma." Loved that.

We caught some of a Behind the Music/Biography-type show years ago and my mom immediately brought up Heather from GH when they interviewed Cher's sister. Soap fans will always "remember you when".

Yeah, people were still saying "deformed" when I was growing up in the '80s, as well as the equally un-PC "retarded" but they were mutually exclusive terms. I always thought Ann's baby had Down's like Holly's baby. BTW, did they ever show baby Beth or was she always wrapped in swaddling, sound effects and all? Robin Strasser said that she didn't like Christina Karras from the jump because one of the first things her character had to say was telling Ann that her baby would be born retarded and should be institutionalized for the rest of her life. Nice meeting you too Christina.

Is it any surprise that Another World is praised as practically the Masterpiece Theatre of Daytime? As soapfan770 touched upon, Laurie Heineman has a pretty significant place in AW history having taken home Emmy gold when neither Victoria Wymdham nor Beverlee McKinsey did. I do remember reading someone say that her win was a "fluke" though, that she got a flashy, topical s/l that year, not unlike the belief why Susan Lucci so often lost to another nominee.

[DRW50]

Laurie said that she had a hard time even finding a reel, as she'd already left the show and I think you had to buy any reels you needed or something. I think she said, I can't remember, her reels were a therapy session for Sharlene and one where she said goodbye to a friend or relative. She also had to borrow a dress from AW. The whole thing was a shock to her and everyone else.

[DRW50]

Something else I was going to ask and had forgotten - this article talks about what a tough time EON had writing out Maeve Maguire and how much time was spent on whether she would actually go or not. At first I thought they meant her first exit, the one where she was presumed dead. Is that the one they meant? This article was before Maeve was fired and replaced with a younger actress, right? Was that firing just one of those here today, gone tomorrow type of character exits or did Nicole leave before the recast?

[DeeeDee]

I am probably wrong, but it felt as if she was a retcon

Nope.

Stuart & Jennifer always had 4 children.

[MichaelGL]

This is an interesting read indeed, considering that many look back upon this era-the 70s, as the golden age for most soaps. From this article, even back then, soaps still had issues, and some of those very issues soaps suffer from today; i.e. sacrificing old familiar characters for new ones.

Actually, while I do see that this article does portray AW as the "Masterpiece Theatre" of Daytime, it also praises Ryan's Hope quite a bit as well. The fact that a new soap like Ryan's Hope was able to hit the ground running, straight after its premiere is quite the feat itself.

[DeeeDee]

The fact that a new soap like Ryan's Hope was able to hit the ground running, straight after its premiere is quite the feat itself.

It just shows how much a talented cast can do with awesome writing.

[soapfan770]

As soapfan770 touched upon, Laurie Heineman has a pretty significant place in AW history having taken home Emmy gold when neither Victoria Wymdham nor Beverlee McKinsey did. I do remember reading someone say that her win was a "fluke" though, that she got a flashy, topical s/l that year, not unlike the belief why Susan Lucci so often lost to another nominee.

Laurie said that she had a hard time even finding a reel, as she'd already left the show and I think you had to buy any reels you needed or something. I think she said, I can't remember, her reels were a therapy session for Sharlene and one where she said goodbye to a friend or relative. She also had to borrow a dress from AW. The whole thing was a shock to her and everyone else.

Thanks for the info, I remember reading about Heineman's win being a fluke on the old WOST site, she beat out a number of daytime legends that year, not just McKinsey and Wyndham but both Susan Lucci and Susan Seaforth Hayes as well. I think there was not a supporting category yet. Ironically a couple years later though when there was a supporting actress when Irene Dailey won many have also said that her win was a fluke as well for leading actress, as many felt she should have been in the supporting category too.

[DRW50]

I think Heineman joked that they created the supporting category because of her.