All My Children Tribute Thread

[amybrickwallace]

I can't picture them together, either. Had Dorothy Lyman come back to AMC, who would you guys have paired Opal with?

[DRW50]

I think they probably still would have done the Opal/Palmer story. Lyman wasn't a clown. She could play serious characters with some comedy, as she did in the first few years of Mama's Family before they destroyed her character.

I think Opal/Palmer was a very bad idea long-term, as James Mitchell apparently did as well, so I would have never gone there.

I would have paired her with someone like Chuck Tyler, which would have infuriated Phoebe to no end and caused some angst for Donna.

Either that or something random like Jeremy or Stuart. Opal at war with Adam, with Stuart in the middle and Erica putting her two cents in, would have been amusing. And anything had to be better than what Jeremy had by this time.

Edited December 7, 2014 by DRW50

[amybrickwallace]

A Phoebe/Opal feud would have been classic, especially with the onset of the 90s as it would have given Ruth Warrick some meaty story.

[ghfan89]

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[ghfan89]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15RK8sUBZ0g

[DRW50]

Thanks so much for finding these. And the 1981 episode is during the strike, right? I've always wanted to see more of that period. I wonder if this has any of when Sean and Nina were trapped in the bank vault.

[allmc2008]

It has faux brooke!

[amybrickwallace]

Speaking of Sybil, I still think it's a shame that Linda Gibboney never found a soap role that provided her with longevity. It is interesting that a former and then a future AMC actress each put her own stamp on a complex vixen on SB (the other actress, of course, being Robin Mattson).

[DRW50]

Great episode. I like how we see the class differences throughout the episode (Agnes Nixon was great at making those such a central part of her soaps). Langley, who never had servants, pouting over not getting that type of treatment. Langley reverting to his huckster voice and persona while on the phone with that guy who was going to obviously bilk him. And Opal scamming poor Kate, who doesn't know any better. Imagine how confused AW viewers must have felt, as Dorothy Lyman had played the very dour Gwen Frame a year before this. Opal saying she doesn't know how Jenny would live without her made me feel a little sad. I didn't ever realize that Jenny and Opal had arrived just as Tad had run off to be recast. How long was he gone?

Pretty sure that's the first time I've ever seen Carla Dragoni, AKA Sylvia from Intervention. I can see why the Kenicotts weren't overly popular with fans (aside from Mary I guess) - the character is just a little too twee. Dragoni has some presence. I wish they'd gone another route with the role.

I love how Palmer cuts his eyes in the presence of Nina's happy home life. It's just perfect. His plan is sloppy (I was shocked he was even calling Sybil at work), but I guess that's to set up Sybil's murder. I wish they'd held onto Linda Gibboney, as she has a good edge to her. She's so much like some of the mob moll types of '30s and '40s films. She was born in the wrong era.

It's just so horribly perfect that the first phone call to Nina is Sybil dropping the bomb.

Nina should be cloying, but Taylor Miller cuts through that, somehow.

Harriet Hall is OK, but she's not very Brooke-ish. She's very polished and perky, like wife on a TV commercial. She doesn't have Julia Barr's more wry qualities.

[SFK]

I know we've talked about it off and on for a few years now, but I don't think that's our Sylvia. Doesn't sound or look like her, particularly the headshots of her at that time which they showed on Intervention. I dunno...

I agree that they'd probably had the Opal/Palmer pairing in the cards, regardless. They got good comedic mileage out of Opal/Langley in the eighties, and I can picture their vision of putting her with another stuffy, effete man, this one authentically rich and resisting HER advances.

I don't know where they got this idea of Jill being a Dorothy lookalike. I doubt there was any bad blood i.e., not reaching out to her. I presume they assumed they couldn't get her/that ship had sailed, and maybe even Jill's turn as Ursula had some sort of chicken/egg involvement in her being cast and the show bringing back Opal. One should ask Jill.

Dorothy made quite an impression on me and my cousin when we were little. We both referred to her as Opal when Mama's Family debuted and both Opal and Naomi (my cousin used to stretch her shirts down her shoulders like her) were the kind of vivid OTT characters you don't forget. Especially on a show like MF with those accents, wigs, costumes... Watching Jill dithering around playing Erica's sensible bff was like watching an altogether new character.

[DRW50]

I never saw it in the photos, but to me, facewise, she looked like Sylvia, 25 years earlier.

[amybrickwallace]

Speaking of which, I have heard of the song Louis Edmonds wrote to protest his lack of storyline back in the mid-80s or so called "Nobody Cares About Langley" but have never actually heard it. Then the show used it in a fantasy sequence? I've looked on YT all over and cannot find it. Could any of you help me out? Thanks in advance.

[SFK]

When Louis Edmunds appeared on E!'s Pure Soap with Shelley Taylor Morgan, they talked about the album and may have played a clip or the tune I'm hearing in my head right now is something that I made up. Maybe search eBay.

[amybrickwallace]

I'll have to check. Thanks.

[ghfan89]

For anyone who watched the show around 1980-1981, is there any truth to this?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/AMC$20Bobby$20sean$20nina$20sybil/rec.arts.tv.soaps/88NPz-8Ny1k/lX9-9trK7M8J