Nick Benedict was shocked to be dropped as Phil.Soon after he was cast on Y&R, along with Meg Bennett.It was unusual for Y&R to cast'name' actors at that time but they were going to an hour and obviously wanted familiar faces to draw in an audience to new characters.

The killing off of Phil seemed to be a part of a conscious decision by AMC to move into a new era. Tara was quickly married to Jim and written out.Ann Tyler Martin was killed off.Linc and Kelly were written and Paul wasn't given a lot to do over the next few years.

The decision was made to rewrite Jeff Martin as Cliff Warner and the focus moved to Cliff/Palmer/Nina/Sybil etc and move away from the Martins and Tylers as the prime characters.

Interesting. Thank you Paul and Dan for sharing all of that! In looking back at recaps of the show from the late 70s through the early 80s, it definitely feels like a shift in direction was made, and I assume this perhaps correlated with the move to an hour-long show?

Amy, Tara was recast several times, but yes, Tara and Erica had a lot of scenes together in the early years. Interestingly, Karen Lynn Gorney, the original Tara, was quoted in an unauthorized bio of Susan Lucci, written in the mid to late 80s, as saying that she didn't think Susan was much of an actress, that what Susan and Ruth Warrick did was "pure camp" but it wasn't serious acting. So I'm guessing they didn't particularly get along behind the scenes either.

I wonder what Karen Gorney thinks of Susan Lucci now!!!

I thought that it was terrible when Kelly and Lincoln were dropped from the show. It was said that there was nothing in the writers' minds for them to do, but I think that there were many ways that these characters could have been used.

I wonder what Karen Gorney thinks of Susan Lucci now!!!

I Googled. http://lifeafter50.com/news/2014/sep/14/karen-lynn-gorney-stayin-alive-and-active-after-50/?page=2

That's from this fall, and in it she's quite positive about Susan: "Amongst her fondest memories of her work on the daytime drama was having the opportunity to work with Lucci, who played the ingénue-turned-super-bitch, Erica Kane. “When we started doing ‘All My Children,’ Susan and I were just kids,” says Gorney. “We got to do fabulous scenes together because our characters detested one another. Erica was always stealing one of Tara’s boyfriends or husbands. But it was totally different off-screen. We got along great. Susan is hysterically funny and was always making me laugh.”"

So I don't know if time has mellowed her opinion or if she was misquoted in the book or what.

Thanks!! It could be both, but I'm guessing probably the mellowing of years. The two ladies were barely out of their teens at the outset of AMC, and with age comes maturity (most of the time, anyway).

Regarding the Walt Willey/Susan Lucci reunion on Meridith, I wonder if this is to see how strong the demand is to bring the show back. Maybe ABC and PP settled or something? Or maybe NBC is interested? Didn't NBC show interest? I do know all about the lawsuit but maybe something happened we don't know about but I think something is about to happen.

^ I kind of doubt it. I don't think either party would use Meredith's talk show to announce a settlement. Most likely, Meredith had Susan booked to come on and someone at her show thought it would be fun to surprise SL with a former AMC colleague.

I concur - I think that ship has sailed. Great to see Susan Lucci and Walt Willey reunited, though.

Reading actress Gretchen Walther's biography on Film Reference, she appeared on AMC in the 70's. Does anyone know what character was played by Walther [ex- Faith LoL, ex- Patti SFT, ex-Katherine, HF, ex- Susan SS, and ex-Lydia TD ex-? ATWT]? I've never seen her on an AMC cast list.

Edited November 16, 201411 yr by slick jones

Imdb.com doesn't list her on AMC at all. I wonder if she had a recurring role? I Googled and didn't find much.

I looked around the web myself and couldn't find any info, either.

August 1977 Afternoon TV Stars

Thanks for sharing those, DRW! It's kind of funny to read Susan Lucci saying that she doesn't think the hours will be that bad once they get going and get used to the one hour format. My understanding is that the days on AMC really were 12 hours or longer for most of the cast.

Yeah, I wondered about that when I saw it.

Susan gave such classy, PR-esque responses even at this time.