All My Children Tribute Thread

[Khan]

Allegedly, Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer wanted Tara #2, Stephanie Braxton, to succeed Kate Mulgrew as Mary Ryan Fenelli on RYAN'S HOPE, but Agnes deliberately kept her on AMC longer than she had planned to out of spite. Allegedly.

(I mean, between this and the rumors suggesting AN goaded ABC into swapping RH's timeslot for LOVING's, you'd think this woman had a vendetta against Labine/Mayer or something.)

[EricMontreal22]

Yet, she praises Ryan's Hope and Labine to the high heaven's in that 1986 Paley Center symposium on her website... As for the timeslot change, what Agnes really wanted--and ABC shoulda done, was to sandwich Loving between her two other soaps, but I get in a way why they moved it with RH--Loving was a new product that had uge hopes tied to it--RH had always somewhat struggled, for the 8-9 years it had been on there. Of course the change in the end was probably stupid, and I'm not defending it, but, I get the thinking...

[Khan]

I get the thinking, too. It's like when former RH actors, or fans, complain about how the show was undone by ABC's micromanagement tactics. Yeah, they have a point, but it wasn't as if RH was this monstrous, out-of-the-box hit that got messed with for no reason. RH was destined to be a "little" show, and while it's unfortunate the network couldn't (or wouldn't) accept that, I could understand why they felt the need to make adjustments to it.

But back to AMC: I never understood why Agnes and her producer, Bud Kloss, felt the need to recast Tara as much as they did, unless the idea was to keep the Tara/Phil/Chuck triangle going. (IMO, Karen Lynn Gorney wasn't a great actress, but I think her Tara, when paired with Richard Hatch's Phil, might have been too indelible to allow Tara to continue w/o Hatch and/or Gorney, either as a central heroine or even supporting character.) The only problem with that logic, though, is that I think the tide eventually turned against the three, viewer-wise, to the point where Chuck and Donna were a much bigger couple than Phil and Tara; and unless I'm mistaken, too, there seems to be a very strong corollation between the end of the original triangle and AMC's ascendancy to number-one in the ratings during the late '70's.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Khan

[EricMontreal22]

Gorney isn't a brilliant actress, but she does have this *different* quality, that I think was very hard to replace. I do think it's a role that probably shouldn't have been recast... But I guess they felt like they managed to successfully recast Chuck and (to a lesser degree) Phil, so... I do think the triiangle was a big selling point for the show in its first three years--but after that, I think it probably should have been dropped. Not sure I agree about the show climbing in the ratings when it finished though--I think that more had to do with AMC improving their production values, being more sure in their mix of serious and near-caricature characters, etc.

[Paul Raven]

Gwynn Gillis as Ann. Should she have been killed off?

[DRW50]

I think Stephanie was already off AMC by the time Kate Mulgrew was leaving RH. Wasn't Karen Gorney already back by then? I thought Karen left for good at the end of 1977.

[DRW50]

It's not that I object to adjustments, it's that I think the adjustments made the show unwatchable, although that's just me - I know there are a lot more Joe Novak/Kim Harris fans out there. But when you get to things like ABC firing Sarah Felder because they thought she was ugly, it does seem like very bad meddling, especially considering the Barbie recast.

[EricMontreal22]

Wsn't Ilene fired due to weight issues? it does seem like ABC's meddling with different writers and trying to make the show BIGGER (and increasingly mob related) missed the point of RH, but...

[DRW50]

Yes. Ilene was backburnered and then fired due to her weight.

ABC meddled again and again. Sometimes this lucked out for them (like firing the perfectly capable but quirky Andrew Robinson and ending up with the superb Daniel Hugh Kelly), but many other times it was a disaster.

If we're talking about anything Agnes did to RH, I would talk more about poaching Julia Barr, although Reenie was probably a short-term character anyway.

[Khan]

In theory? No. On the other hand, I think it was clear to TPTB that Judith Barcroft 1) was virtually irreplaceable as Ann; and 2) was not interested in returning (at that time).

[DRW50]

I don't think she should have been killed but it seemed like the show lost interest in the Tylers around that time, whether they were alive or not. Look at Linc, and Chuck a few years later.

I just don't know why they wrote Paul out. He seems great to me.

[Pine Charles]

How did Ann die?

[All My Shadows]

Paul was running for office, and his opponents wired his car to explode. Ann decided to use his car to run some errands, and well...you can guess what happened.

Basically, Ann is to Paul's car as Jenny is to Greg's jetski.

Edited September 30, 2011 by All My Shadows

[Pine Charles]

Now that you've mentioned it, I do recall a car bomb. Thanks!

[Pine Charles]

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