All My Children Tribute Thread

[DRW50]

Honestly Lorraine is one of the people I was 60% sure she might have beef with. I'm glad to hear that wasn't the case. 

Sad to say some of her comments about certain ABC execs ring a little too true. 

[Khan]

Wait, that happened during McTavish?  I thought the original story (Janet assumes Brooke's identity) was Broderick's.

To this day, I don't know why they didn't just have the Dillons leave town.

Remember, though, that Julie Hanan Carruthers is BTG's EP/Showrunner. 

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Wisner Washam, on the other hand....

(Oh, you just know there's a story between those two, lol!)

[Vee]

This would absolutely fit with the author of this memoir, lol. She's not big on empathy, so of course she would see this all through the lens of 'Robin just wants to stay employed.'

Well, BTG has like 3-4 EPs. Ducksworth is a major force. I believe MVJ and Guza also have EP credits.

Edited March 16 by Vee

[DRW50]

Sorry - I just meant Robin might have been able to get out of that story the way she did the wedding story. Lorraine did the story but I always assumed it was a directive from up high because it didn't match anything else she wrote for Janet, and when the news came out about Robin staying, it was said that Lorraine had gone to the network with other story projections to keep Robin's Janet around.

Nearly finished the book now and I just got to the stuff about Kiberd. No idea what to believe there (although the story with Kiberd and Kate has been around for a long time), but it helps explain why Laurel and Trevor were such a dreadful pairing (I don't think she was great with Jack either but IIRC Felicity was better with Michael Levin on RH). 

It also makes me understand Trevor's final fate a little more, although that's a lousy way for a headwriter to behave, and she should question herself about treating Cady and Jean Carol the same way for very different circumstances (I read that Jean Carol blurb - it was one of the first soap magazines I ever read - and other than being a bit presumptuous it wasn't anything worth being slaughtered over).

Oh dear, I'd genuinely forgotten that. I hope she's better in that spot than she was at AMC. Admittedly, she had a poisoned chalice at AMC by that point. 

Not to change topics so quickly, but it's weird to read what she says about Leven and Aiden and so on right not long after it was talked about in here. 

I'd forgotten Aidan was recast for two months. 

Did we already know that JHC tried to get Megan back involved in 2009 (or use her ideas, anyway)? She truly must have been desperate by that stage. 

I will say Megan does a better job of running down why soaps lost most of their viewers than many outlet (which often just say OJ or working women).

Edited March 16 by DRW50

[Khan]

Weren't there rumors at that time that Rachel Miner was being considered for Risa?

You have to remember, though, that Roscoe Born suffered from bipolar disorder IRL, which might explain his actions (that is, if Megan McTavish is telling the truth, lol).

Yep.  Another lightbulb moment: why Laurel, as played by Felicity LaFortune, whom McTavish presents as a friend, started off strong with the con-artist background, Lily's autism storyline, Denny's murder, marriages to Jack and Trevor, before eventually fading into the wallpaper at the Dillon homestead and then getting shot to death on the set of "The Cutting Edge" at the climax of the Michael Delaney storyline.  I see now that there might've been two reasons for that: 1) as with Kate Collins, LaFortune had reached a point where she just didn't want to work with James Kiberd anymore; and 2) being a friend of Megan's might've made her a target (pun intended).

If it's true that Susan Lucci didn't want to work with younger women, then why in Black Agnes' name did we have to endure all those ridiculous feuds with the likes of Annie and Greenlee?

Did anyone else catch Megan McTavish's not-so-subtle digs at Felicia Minei Behr's weight?  Personally, I thought it was ironic for McTavish to call her fat, considering she's not svelte herself.

[DRW50]

I didn't know that about Rachel. Sounds like a good role for her. She was very good at playing nice-nasty on Supernatural. 

You're right - this would explain why Laurel was whittled away and dumped (I think she only survives McTavish by six months). I guess this is also why Felicity temped as Nora on OLTL.

By that point I often got the sense we were supposed to see Erica as contemporaries to these other women, so maybe that's why Susan was more comfortable interacting with them. 

[Vee]

Felicity (who only I and Megan liked!) also did a temp stint as Nora on OLTL in - you guessed it - 2000, under Megan McTavish.

I think Susan's feelings about young women on the show are more complex than Megan claims.

[VelekaCarruthers]

On McTavish: we have Pamela K. Long to thank for unleashing her on soap writing rooms. Pam hired her on GL where she wrote both breakdowns and outlines from Dec 84-Dec 86 (fired or quit during Sheri Anderson's stint). Then, Wisner Washam/Lorraine Broderick hired her in early 87 as outline writer on AMC. The rest is history.

[Vee]

Most of what she says about 2000s AMC backs up Leven Rambin and Sabine Singh's own stories, though Megan also puts a lot of blame on LR herself as a wild young girl. I think all of the above can be true without shaming the underage girl for reckless, immature choices. I guess those of us who thought Jeff Branson might have been tangled up in this too could be right.

Megan is not wrong that Cady heavily sold Dixie with Zach and David and not with Tad in the early and mid-2000s. As I told DRW the other day I am one of the few who enjoyed the goth cosmopolitan take on Dixie they brought her back with post-ATWT, almost as a response to her amazing turn as Rosanna Cabot, but I won't deny the story was a huge mess. Ultimately that's on Megan though, not Cady looking for a pairing and take on the character she wasn't bored with. (Because I'm sorry, Dixie Martin in the late '90s up to her exit in '01/'02? was terminally boring except for when she was fúcking David.)

Megan seems to consider the typical soap opera/industry behavior of actors looking out for their airtime and interests, however self-serving, to be cardinal sin.

Edited March 16 by Vee

[Chris B]

I just started this Megan McTavish book and I am stunned that she begins by defending how awful the show was around the time of the unabortion and Josh Madden story. Blaming "fanatic" soap fans for the unabortion not working is insane. She had multiple periods of time on AMC that were good so it's insane that she would start vehemently defending such an awful time for the show. It definitely will cause me to side-eye what she has to say later on.

[Vee]

Buckle up!

[Paul Raven]

I think JHC role at BTG is just to have an experienced EP there to get the show done efficiently and mentor/ instruct others on producing a 60 min  daily soap.

Maybe she is only going to br around a year at the most, before younger(cheaper) staff take over.

[Vee]

That was the impression given by the specials. Sheila Ducksworth also seems heavily involved, along with ofc Val Jean who has the same co-EP credit Guza got at GH years ago from Frons, to ensure JFP could not control him.

[Khan]

I'd never suggest that Susan Victoria Lucci of Garden City, NY, was as pure as the un-driven snow - the time she threw expensive china at Helmut during an argument proves the poor dear is a little cuckoo - but I just don't buy that she is as neurotic as Megan McTavish makes her out to be (or that Agnes said she could only hope that Susan would get hit by a truck).

Oh, and I liked Felicity LaFortune - but as Leigh Kirkland, not as Laurel Dillon.

Edited March 16 by Khan

[Vee]

Did I miss the full version of the Risa long-form story document? What I saw cuts out partway through. I had no idea people knew so much about these mooted story plans years ago, I've never heard of any of this before.