OLTL Tribute Thread

[BetterForgotten]

I think it was said that both Holly and Hayman took it as an insult that they would be asked to join a low-rated soap like Loving that had basically fizzled soon after launch (though it hung around for a over a decade despite this). 

 

Though Holly did recur on GL for a few years here and there. I guess she may have done that to keep her health insurance and what not. 

Edited September 8, 2018 by BetterForgotten

[Vee]

I think LOV would've potentially been a good safe harbor for the characters - much like how it was for the admittedly much bigger draws of the Hubbards in the 1990s. It kept them in the ABC daytime universe and consciousness, and I think that was Agnes' intent for Carla and Sadie.

Edited September 8, 2018 by Vee

[BetterForgotten]

I guess Holly and Hayman could have rightfully wondered why Agnes couldn't find room for them on her much higher-rated and higher-profile soap (AMC). But I do respect them for not wanting scraps after they were fired from OLTL - LOV changed its identity a million times during its run, who is to say they wouldn't have eventually be treated the same way there? 

 

Holly definitely didn't see playing Carla as just another job, so I guess that was part of it. It was personal to her in a way. 

Edited September 8, 2018 by BetterForgotten

[SoapDope]

Didn't Paul Rauch have his assistant to tell Lillian Hayman that she had just worked her last day while she was on her way to her car in the parking lot ?

[BetterForgotten]

And god bless Jackie Courtney who certainly put up with a lot of crap on her own over the years, but wasn't she having an affair with Joe Stuart for much of his time producing OLTL?

 

One has to look no further than Karen's infamous courtroom episodes to see the moment where Pat was shoehorned in to give Courtney a big (and less effective) moment of her own. "YOU KILLED MY SON!!!!!!"

[Khan]

I'm of both minds.  There would have been advantages to EH and LH joining the cast of LOVING -- as Vee said, joining would have kept Carla and Sadie "alive" in the ABCD universe; and because Agnes Nixon still owned the show through Creative Horizons, Inc., they might have enjoyed more "protection" from the network as well -- and there would have been advantages to their coming aboard AMC, too.  (As BF says, AMC was higher-rated and higher-profiled; and although their own history w/ African-American characters and cast members wasn't altogether sterling, they seemed to treat their AA cast members far better than OL treated theirs.)

 

But one thing's for certain: either soap -- or any other soap, for that matter -- would have been BLESSED to have EH and/or LH join their cast after leaving OL.

 

Yep.  Then, to add further insult, she wasn't allowed to reclaim her belongings from her dressing room until two security guards arranged for her to come on a Saturday, when the show would not be in production, and clear out her things.

 

Okay, maybe you wanted her gone like yesterday, that's your business.  But the LEAST you could do is let the woman come back and clear out her dressing room.  It shouldn't be left up to sympathetic security guards (who basically have to sneak her in) to give her that right.

 

That's the scuttlebutt.

 

It's been so long since I read EH's autobiography, but didn't she describe an incident where one of the actresses came up to her and told her, "Don't think the ratings are up because of you!," or words to that effect?  IIRC, too, we pretty much guessed that the actress in question was Katherine Glass (ex-Jenny).  Which could explain how, years later, long after she had left the business, she wound up teaching prison inmates how to read, or something.

[SoapDope]

 

That was horrible. She had been on the show close to 20 years by that point. I have never heard good things about Rauch. He has been trouble on every show he's worked on. 

[Soaplovers]

 

Oh I think Carla and Sadie would have fit in wonderfully at AMC.  Sadie could have filled the void left by Kate Martin, and worked at the hospital where she could have been the warm and wise presence at the hospital.. while Carla could have been the District Attorney while mixing it up with Adam, Palmer, and Erica Kane.  

 

However, I think both of them would have been better served going to Loving because it was still owned by Agnes Nixon, and with the show being lower rated... Carla/Sadie could have infused the show with ratings and also a purpose/direction long needed for the show.  Plus, I think Ellen Holly's ideas would have been listened to since with a lower rated show, the writers/producers/owners are willing to take more risks and not play it safe (since you can't go anywhere but up when on a lower rated show).

[vetsoapfan]

 

I can understand why Nixon would want Carla and Sadie in Corinth. LOV was not a ratings' success, and having two beloved actresses/characters join the show might have helped improve draw viewers in. Then Holly REALLY could have trumpeted her worth, pointing out thather presence helped a second show rise in prominence. I did not stick with LOV after the first few months, it just did not grab me, but if Carla and Sadie had joined the cast, I would have become a regular viewer, just for them.

 

 

 

Yes, Jacquie Courtney had to endure Rauch at AW and then getting unceremoniously dumped by ABC in bizarre circumstances in 1983. Soon after Stuart took over as producer on OLTL, she gave an interview for Afternoon TV magazine (I think it was), and in one of the accompanying pictures, we saw JC in her bedroom with a framed portrait of Joe Stuart beside her bed. Columnist Marlena de LaCroix later acknowledged that the truth about the Courtney/Stuart relationship was exposed at that time, and Courtney was very upset about it. One thing that galled me was that at the show's tenth anniversary party, Stuart asked JC to cut the cake with him. I adored the actress and the character she played on the show, but really! Aside from Stuart's relationship with her, did Courtney really deserve to be cutting the anniversary cake when there were other actors in the cast (Hayman and Holly) who had been there from the beginning and deserved the honor more? If I had been Hayman, Holly, or even Slezak, I would have been insulted. The fact that Courtney had been hired in 1975 with a HUGE salary compared to theirs, the actresses would not have been human if they did not feel some resentment over her special treatment.

 

Since Karen Wolek was the only person in Llanview to know that Talbot Huddleston had killed Pat Kendall's son Brian, it made perfect dramatic sense to me that the truth would be exposed during her testimony in court. The show had to have Pat react to the news, but compared to Karen's breakdown on the witness stand, the Huddleston reveal certainly paled in comparison. (I must say, however, speaking of Courtney, that right after Brian Kendall died, she had a scene at his grave where she grieved over him, and it was one of the best performances JC ever gave, IMHO.)

 

Rauch was vile to many people over the years. When he fired Holly, he callously told her that she just wasn't worth keeping on the show. (An excellent actress and original cast member, who had been the center of the story that had originally put OLTL on the map!)  Later, after dumping Hayman without warning, Nixon tried to intervene and save the actress' job. Rauch snarkily replied that he would only keep her for $500.00 a month.  What a piece of work. UGH.

[SoapDope]

Holly said she knew when she met Rauch for the first time that he was out to get rid of her. He complained about her voice and told her to get a voice coach. She called the voice coach and they said they didn't know what the problem was. They told her to out and ask him. He replied " I can't put my finger on it, but there's just something"......he just wanted rid of her ASAP. 

 

If you google pics of Rauch he always had that pompous smart @$$ look on his face. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

He just seemed so arbitrary, controlling and unpleasant. Not to mention, full of BS.

 

Afternoon TV printed a copy of George Reinholt's dismissal letter when Rauch fired him from AW, and in it, Rauch refers to Reinholt's possible return to the show at a later date. But was there REALLY any plans to bring the actor back, after all the supposed backstage drama that had led to his termination? I doubt it. Rauch also sang a different tune about Jacquie Courtney when he fired her from AW and then years later when she passed away. After she died, Rauch told Soap Opera Weekly (or was it Digest?) that she was a "great gal" who could always be counted on to give great performances. Excuse me? Then why had he fired her from AW in the first place?

 

The only story I have ever heard about Rauch doing something nice was after he axed Courtney from AW, he gave her Alice's wardrobe as a gift. A weird gesture, but one I have always remembered since Courtney mentioned it in an article in Daily TV Serials.

Edited September 9, 2018 by vetsoapfan

[YRfan23]

Didn't Rauch also pull a stunt where he thought two actors during a love scene  (on OLTL) weren't "doing it" right, so he came down and to the actress's horror actually plopped himself on the bed grabbed her and said to the actor: "That's how it's done".....
,
what a creep....

[SoapDope]

I remember someone posting that one actress was forced to watch Rauch receive a BJ from another actress he was boinking as punishment for something she had done on set. Is that true ? He also sexually harassed Maeve Kinkead at AW and she was moved to GL to avoid a lawsuit. Years later he arrived at GL and made her life hell. 

[Vee]

The crap they gave Maeve Kinkead in the late '90s was vile.

[Khan]

The worst, of course, was Beth making her feel like she was too old and dried-up for Matt.