All My Children Tribute Thread

[victoria foxton]

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AMC's 20th anniversary episode.

[DRW50]

This is such a rare, rare promo - it was on Rick Thomas' channel, in a longer package. He said you could clip as long as you post a link to his original video, so I did. I hope you guys enjoy it.

 

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[vetsoapfan]

 

Wow! I love this!

[DRW50]

I'm glad you got to see it. I know you probably saw her work on AW (I wish I could see more of it outside of that one episode). She always seems like such an intelligent actress to me. And this is such a classy promo, without trying to be cute, the way the '80s crossover actor promos were. You can see how much respect they had for the intelligence of viewers back then. 

 

The material around this seems to be August or early September 1971 - I'm not sure when she joined AMC. 

Edited May 27, 2018 by DRW50

[vetsoapfan]

 

Yes, I watched her throughout her run on AW. Susan Sullivan was very good as Lenore too, but the actresses brought different qualities to the role. JB was more vulnerable and charming, while SS appeared more poised and self-assured.

 

Compare this promo to the one Kin Shriner did when he left GH for Texas, "I'm leaving General Hospital for a MAN-SIZED piece of the action of Texas!" (Or however he put it.) At the time, I thought he was trying waaaay too hard. But JB's promo here is tasteful and classy.

[DRW50]

 

That sounds so embarrassing, especially since Texas didn't even given him anything to do.

 

Judith's stories on AMC always sound a bit draining to me, but I do wish they were available, especially the story about Ann's baby. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

It was so cheesy and desperate. He was wearing a vest without any shirt, I believe, and obviously directed to sound aggressive. Back then, I adored Scotty Baldwin and thought Kin was a hunk, but the promo pained me. And it did not make me want to tune in to Texas.

 

Paul Martin was in the living room when we heard Ann's (JB) blood-curdling scream from the nursery, after finding their baby dead. UGH. I will never forget that. It was horrific that SFT killed off Jo's son Duncan Eric (particularly since they had used Mary Stuart's own baby as the child). On Days, it was harrowing to see Susan Martin walk into her baby's hospital room with Tom Horton, to discover that the child had died. Nobody screamed and sobbed like Denise Alexander. Meta's son  Chuckie dying on TGL, thanks to his abusive, homophobic father, was ghastly as well. If I had been Meta, I would have killed him too.

 

I hate dead-baby stories

[Khan]

Yeah, I read once that Bill Bell fought for a long time against killing off Lauren's supposed baby boy, Dylan, on Y&R, because putting Susan Martin through a similar ordeal was too gut-wrenching for him as a writer.  In the end, though, he went ahead with the story, because he felt the impact and fallout from Dylan's death was just too important to Lauren, Scott and Sheila.

[Soaplovers]

My mom recalls the Ann story with her blaming Paul for their babies death and her eventual nervous breakdown.  From what I heard, Marlena and Don Craig's baby DJ dying was surprising and heart wrenching (according to my mom who watched back then).

 

I know that once Judith Barcroft left the show, Ann wasn't shown at all really for the next two years till she was recast.  Was the character killed off in the early 80s because the recast wasn't accepted.. or was the show deciding to shed reminders of the 70s that wouldn't make the transition into the 80s?

[Khan]

 

I believe it was the former.

[amybrickwallace]

 

What a treasure!! Thanks for posting it. 😊

[danfling]

I think that this promotion for All My Children aired in the early part of the summer of 1971 around the time that A World Apart was cancelled.  I think that she replaced Joanna Miles as Anne around June or July.

 

I think that Ms. Barcroft's husband was already on the show's writing staff.  (He had worked with Agnes Nixon on Another World.)  And, later, their son Ian would join the cast as "Little Phillip" Tyler.  (Ms. Barcroft and Grayson Hall both appeared on ABC soap operas that were written by their husband, only Ms. Hall was cast on Dark Shadows prior to the time the show hired her husband as a writer.)

 

I cannot remember if Paul Martin had been shown yet (prior to the recast of Anne).   I do know that Paul Rabat was playing Paul at the time of Joe and Ruth's wedding.  Paul was soon recast with William Mooney as the new Paul.

[DRW50]

 

Didn't they also kind of have Ann as quasi-psycho and causing problems for Paul and Ellen?

[Khan]

 

No, he hadn't.  Wisner Washam wrote a spec script for ANOTHER WORLD, but Robert Cenedella was HW at that point; and according to Washam himself, Cenedella didn't hire him, because he had enough writers.  That's when his wife suggested showing his script to Nixon.

[danfling]

I stand corrected about Mr. Washam's involvement with Another World.

By the way, before becoming a writer, Mr. Washam was a stage manager in the theatre.   I think that he and Ms. Bancroft may have met in the theatre when she was the stand-by for Claudette Nivens in Plaza Suite by Neil Simon.

Edited May 28, 2018 by danfling