Soap Opera Feuds

[SFK]

Yes and that's the FOJ phenomenon ("Well she's always been good to *ME-eee*!"). From what I've read btw the lines the JFP thing also hurt Robin's friendship with Linda Dano (that's since patched I think).

[SFK]

I wasn't there so what do I know but it seems unfair to me that LG gets somewhat of a bum wrap b/c not only was what she brought to the screen good stuff but I find it hard to believe that she could have been any more of a difficult hardass bts than Paul Rauch.

I'm wondering if the folks who had a problem with her were Rauch's stars and LG came in fresh with no respective persons.

[John]

Well LG Was More About Editing Than Anything & ES said she wasnt very good for the show but she wasnt around that long

[John]

I Think ES was talking Look Of The show and Not Stories

MM and JG wrote OLTL Then

LG was there to make the show look good. I remember the sets were darker than

[Carolyn1980]

Umm...Linda Gottlieb was hired to completely gut OLTL, and was told to do whatever the hell she wanted. SHE is the one who hired Michael Malone, specifically because she wanted to look for someone outside of daytime...and she hired Josh Griffith to be partnered with him. She also set the story direction for the show, and it's clear from Malone and Griffith's later tenure that they were lost without her.

[Llantano Incorporated]

BINGO. And her production values/aesthetic sense still resonate on OLTL today. Asa's mansion is a Linda Gottlieb set. This must be the last time an executive producer ever gutted a daytime show. It was a complete renovation from A to Z. I still highly prefer Paul Rauch's tenure (minus the horrific treatment/lack of stories for minorities). When I watch most of Gottlieb's run, I respect and admire it, but do not enjoy it much. Paul's shows? Highly enjoyable and they hold up in a very strange way.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Gottlieb apparently didn't have very good people skills.

Meaning, a lot of the cast commented at the time that she wasn't around for them to talk with whenever they had problems with their material, or needed to talk to her for other matters.

No doubt she worked hard at revamping the show, but she probably didn't interact with the cast the way Rauch did. Meaning, being more "hands on" with them.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Who was the actor that said, "Linda says her door is always open, but when you go though it, she's never there!"?

I know James Depaiva, Clint Ritchie, and Phil Carey all had a heated hatred for her.

[Carolyn1980]

I watched both eras, and while I loved the Paul Rauch years at the time, I found the Gottlieb years even better. I think her era is the most literate, exceptional time of any daytime drama. Too good to be called "soap opera." When I think of how I don't watch soaps today, but instead prefer the writing of shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Justified, The Good Wife, Shameless, Game of Thrones, etc, I remember that that era of OLTL is the only one I could compare with the great primetime dramas I watch today.

And ITA with you that this may have been the last time an EP was given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to a soap opera. (The only other time I can think of this happening in history is Gloria Monty at GH). Ironically, it was TPTB starting to overrule her casting decisions (which led to some dreadful Kevin recasts, for example) that led Gottlieb to quit.

Yes, actors need to be coddled, as they are usually a weird combination of narcissism and insecurity.

[Carolyn1980]

Ritchie actually came around, especially when she stood behind him after his tractor accident. It was the other two, along with Robert S. Woods who really hated her. DePaiva and Woods felt Malone's writing emasculated their characters....they both wanted hotter women, lol, than Luna and Nora, ultimately. Woods in particular wasn't used to having his female partner overshadow him. And Carey never liked working for a woman EP, going back to when he even admitted so in print about Jean Arley, OLTL's producer from 83-84.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Didn't Phil, like Erika Slezak, also like Jill Farren Phelps?

[Khan]

God forgive me for speaking ill of the dead, but I always thought Phil Carey was a jackass whose talent, or serious lack thereof, never merited the enormous ego.

[Llantano Incorporated]

I believe it was Clint Ritchie who said the door is open but she's never there comment. It was in that interview Clint, RSW, and Phil did in SOD.

OLTL was so literate. It was definitely the intellectual soap during the Gottlieb era. The humor was NOT campy but was totally present and all came from character. Alex was hilarious and SCARY all at the same time. In fact Alex and Carlo were my favorite aspect of Gottlieb's tenure. I also loved Marty, and the gang rape storyline was brilliant. But SO MANY of the characters were DUDS. Suede? vomits in mouth a little. Luna's brothers?? vomits in mouth. (okay drools a little just for whats-his name's sheer hotness. NOT the guy from Starship Troopers, but the one who ended up on Y&R. Luna was alright but that character is annoying( based on recent Youtube viewings). I LOVED Cain Rogan.

[DRW50]

I think it was intellectual to a point, but there was also a fair amount of pretentiousness which came along with this (I think that shows up most in the Sloan/Viki story). I also thought they lost Alex's identity after Carlo was killed off. She had some great moments but there was also a lot of "laugh here because the wacky music is telling you to laugh," and ultimately the story with Asa just cemented this. She became irrelevant.

I don't know what RSW objected to with Bo and Nora, especially since he was no longer at an age where he could support stories with sweet young things, but I can see where JDP might have had issues with the Luna story, mostly because, where do you go from there? Any story for Max after he found true love with Luna seemed to fail.

I think they did well at the side of OLTL which increased social issues, diversity, outsider characters, but not the other side of OLTL, which was more of the romance, adventure, and cheesy heart.

The biggest mistake IMO was in overusing Todd at the expense of building up strong characters elsewhere.

[SFK]

I think the pretentiousness is what drew me in. I'm not a big romance person but I do enjoy watching wealthy people who speak and dress well with some pop psychology and perpetually 5pm dark moodiness mixed in. I very much enjoyed the initial unraveling and ultimate reveal of Todd's true paternity but I agree that by time he was firmly front burner with his own paper and parrot the tide had turned.