All My Children Tribute Thread

[titan1978]

I know Cliff and Nina were popular.  I find PB absolutely insufferable on Y&R, and have felt that way since the very early 1990’s.  Was he as annoying on AMC?

[victoria foxton]

I found Cliff bland. And Nina & Cliff played out. I did like him with Angie.

[SFK]

My grandparents watched every day for decades and my grandfather could not STAND him.  A favorite family anecdote is when Grandaddy accidentally turned to channel 9 instead of 7, saw PB on Y&R and blurted, “Ohhh SH!T.”

[DemetriKane]

I enjoyed that McKinsey interview immensely, and the stories about Ruth are hilarious. Was she like the original Lucci? 

[titan1978]

Outside of SMG, I have never heard anyone speak badly about Lucci.  Maybe you meant Erica Kane the character?

 

I have heard plenty about Ruth though.

[DemetriKane]

that didn’t come out right. I was asking was beverlee the original Lucci? Being the highest paid, wanting to do a TV movie every year. 

[titan1978]

And maybe I jumped to conclusions, so apologies for assuming!

 

Lucci certainly had a good agent, and really put the Emmy controversy to good use for her personal brand, making her way more famous in popular culture than she ever was before that time.  Unlike a lot of her peers that had similar deals, Lucci had the work ethic and ambition to take advantage of those opportunities.

[FrenchBug82]

I don't think their careers quite track.With all due respect to Lucci who was great in her own way, McKinsey was a spectacular  - read: better - actress. But while she had some mainstream fame on Another World, I don't think many people would ever know her name - unlike Lucci who had the drive and smarts to make herself known in many ways. 
McK was huge within the industry - probably proportionally bigger in her time than Lucci ever was, if only because the industry was different when she peaked - but Lucci is more traditionally famous.

[All My Shadows]

Cliff and Nina were absolutely played tf out by 1986-1987 for SURE. They're a great example of overdoing the make up/break up storylines for a supercouple and having no idea what to do with them as happily married.

I'd kill to see their beginnings to see how the magic began, because based solely on all I've seen from 1983-1989, I've never been crazy about them.

[Jonathan]

 

They became popular thanks to the great character of Palmer Cortlandt who was so against their pairing. 

[Forever8]

I wonder if Cliff and Nina should've left a few years earlier perhaps it would've saved them for the typical third party story that they have dealt with too many during their tenure on the show. 

[Soaplovers]

I think Nina could have carried on as a character separate from Cliff.  

 

Anytime I watched her in scenes in 1986 to 1989 with others..she was so likable and contributed a lot.  Plus, with all the dramas with the Corlandt's in the 90s..she would have had a reason to visit more often.

 

Vintage AMC has been good with uploading episodes from the late 80s...and by 1987..the cast was pretty bloated..yet it fit with the show because AMC was always about community.  

 

 

[gimmetoo]

So much of Cliff and Nina's original popularity was because of the rich characters and talented actors in their orbit:  the disapproving and scheming Palmer; the mysterious mother-figure Monique née Daisy: the gothic grandmotherly housekeeper Myra; and the wicked other woman Sybil.  And I do think Taylor Miller was perfectly cast as the fairy-tale heroine.  The start of Cliff and Nina's romance was some of Agnes Nixon's best work IMO.  

[All My Shadows]

It's funny, because when I say I want to see more of early Cliff/Nina, I guess what I really mean is I want to see more of Sybil. The stuff with her in the C/N wedding ep is great, IMO, to the point of being way more interesting than the actual wedding. AMC was great at humanizing those supercouple spoilers.

[FrenchBug82]

I wish soaps would learn indeed that it is a more compelling story to see a real layered likeable human falling in love and competing for half of supercouple than whatever caricatures of evil vs supercouple-we-are-supposed-to-root-for writers go for 90% of the time.
I hate that they think the audience is so simple-minded that we can't deal with anything other than the spoilers being evil, crazy or unlikeable (including turning established characters into this when needed) and would not accept "It is complicated" as a story.