Members ellabelle Posted December 4, 2014 Members Share Posted December 4, 2014 No idea. It may be that they did offer it to her but she was working elsewhere and declined. Or maybe they wanted to take the role in another direction? From the clips I've seen of DL's Opal, it's a much harsher, tackier Opal than Jill Larson's version. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted December 4, 2014 Members Share Posted December 4, 2014 Jill's Opal was also very harsh the first year or so. I can't remember when Opal first came back, but Dorothy was on Mama's Family up to late 1989. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ghfan89 Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 Jill Larson's Opal made her debut Thanksgiving (late November) of '89. Didn't Susan Lucci host SNL once and they did a whole skit on the emmy thing? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members amybrickwallace Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 I thought Mama's Family ran until 1990, but you're right - it could have very well come down to an issue of whether or not Dorothy Lyman was available. If she had been and returned to AMC, I wonder how she would have worked with Palmer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ellabelle Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 Yes, I believe it was in 1990? She was the first daytime actor or actress to host the show. The opening skit was all about the Emmy and how EVERYONE at SNL had Emmys, and they had so many of them that they used them for free weights, door stops, etc. There was a lot of soap spoofing in that episode too. Phil Hartman played a character who I guess was supposed to be sort of Jack Montgomery in a very melodramatic skit about lost luggage. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members danfling Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 I read that a quotation from Dorothy Lyman that she was never invited back to play Opal and that the show's decision to recast the role was not known to her. She also said that she had no idea why she was not considered for the role when it returned to the show. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members robbwolff Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 According to stuff online, Mama's Family ended in February 1990. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members allmc2008 Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 Right, but what about filming. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members robbwolff Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 No clue. I'm just pointing out when the show actually ended. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 Susan hosted SNL in fall 1990, I think. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members robbwolff Posted December 5, 2014 Members Share Posted December 5, 2014 By 1983, she had only been nominated four times so it really wasn't a huge deal that she hadn't won. (Susan Seaforth Hayes had been nominated four times in the 70s and never won.) I don't recall the media paying much attention till the late 80s or early 90s. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ghfan89 Posted December 6, 2014 Members Share Posted December 6, 2014 Apparently this is from a Feburary or March 1990 issue of TVGuide. Found it in the old google groups archive. I don't know how true it is. "Late last year, ABC's All My Children hired Dorothy Lyman lookalike Jill Larson to play Opal Gardner, a part that won Lyman 2 emmys and a ticket to prime time on NBC's Mama's Family in the early 80s. But did AMC know it could have had the real McCoy? "I absolutely would have considered it, but nobody asked," says Lyman, whose series, having gone from NBC to first run syndications was ending production right around the time AMC was recasting....[Lyman quote deleted]" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members amybrickwallace Posted December 6, 2014 Members Share Posted December 6, 2014 Thanks for clarifying that - I was sure that Dorothy Lyman had not been asked back in 1989. I wonder what things would have been like had Dorothy Lyman reprised Opal instead of Jill Larson being cast. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Steve Posted December 6, 2014 Members Share Posted December 6, 2014 October 6, 1990, my 23rd birthday 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Steve Posted December 6, 2014 Members Share Posted December 6, 2014 I have to wonder if they would've paired her with Palmer; I just can't picture them together. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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