OLTL Tribute Thread

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCyDoo-Im4A

[Vee]

To my knowledge (and it's vague on this little storyline) they never fully pulled the trigger on Marty and Andrew, though Malone desperately wanted to with their quasi-affair around that time. He later revisited it in a lame way with Joey and Jen Rappaport, who even got freaky in the pews at St. James.

I remember Andrew and the amnesiac Marty had some great scenes at the church in late 2008, as she tried to rediscover her life. That was one of Bob Krimmer's last appearances. I always wanted them to actually go there, or to at least reunite him with Cassie, even offscreen.

Ellen Bethea was almost certainly replaced shortly after this - I mostly remember Mari Morrow with Peter Parros. I don't understand why they ended Kevin and Rachel.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Vee

[John]

Ellen Bethea Quit

[Dale]

Mary Ward

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8UJL2QZjqY

[cassadine1991]

18 years ago today this opening debuted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5ggoBtlNkM

[greens_dupres]

Awwww Cristian#1!!! My 10 year old self was too mad when he was replaced with David fumero.

[BKuzak]

you had a right to be. I think he's an OK actor now but back then i beleive they only hired him for his body. He was not the best actor in the world (Boy what a list we could make of actors who were only hired for their bodies...just on OLTL alone! No to mention every other soap!)

[VirginiaHamilton]

Same here. While I eventually got used to DF, I thought that YM & ET had a sweetness that couldn't be duplicated when Cristian had gotten recast.

[allmc2008]

I think if they played there cards right this opening could be just as iconic as the AMC "Falling Pictures" opening.

[EricMontreal22]

My twin sister had a brief period there where she really got into OLTL (after i had been watching it a few years.) It was the only soap she took to, and though she had largely stopped watching by the time they replaced Christian, she was horrified by the fact that her big crush had been replaced by a typical soap male model stud who (at the time) could barely deliver lines.

It was a good compromise--I'm not a huge fan but I could accept it, using elements of the 80s opening, but updated (sorry Peobo fans, that beloved song with nonsensical lyrics simply can not work on a show post 1980s )

[MissLlanviewPA]

James DePaiva's shot here was SO HOT.

Sigh. He was the best.

[DRW50]

This has a second part.

[BKuzak]

I will always wish for a new year of "Christmas in Llanview." I thought for sure this year we would get it.

All those happy Christmas memories at Llanfair where everyone came over and Viki or Clint gave a toast with a fire in the fireplace. Everything was so warm and cozy whenever everyone came to Llanfair. I've seen on Youtube...even going back to the early 80's, everyone would come to Llanfair on Christmas Eve. I think a couple of times they went to Asa's. even after Viki and Clint divorced, they seemed to always be together to welcome family and friends for Christmas (When Clint was in town.) and there were a couple of great Christmases with Sloan and Ben...and even Charlie (my least favorite of Viki's husbands).

I also liked the crazyness at Labolie. Like when Addie came back all sane after being instutionlized for decades. or when Echo Desavoy fell down the chimmney in the santa suit. or the one where Dorian was all alone but Rex was able to get Adrianne to come over at the very last minute. or even an early one when she and David Vickers found out that Todd was Viki's brother...it happend on Christmas Eve.

[Paul Raven]

Transcript of Yahoo! Chat with One Life to Live's Tonja Walker Davidson (Alex) June 13, 2001

Tonja: This is Tonja. I'm really really happy that I got to make this date with you guys. I'm looking forward to hearing what everybody has to say and I'm ready to go.

Marty2634: Hello Tonja, Describe what it was like appearing on One Life to Live as Alex recently?
Tonja: I had a great time. The best part about it was seeing old friends which was special to me. I thought I did a pretty good job, it's been three years since I worked so I wondered how it would go. Everything turned out great and everybody was really happy. I really wanted to do a good job and hoped that they'd bring me back and I hope the ratings went up. Erin Torpey, she was the best thing about being back. She has turned out to be a beautiful person and a wonderful young adult. I'd heard she was dating someone she was working with and I worried, because when you break up on TV you do on real life, but she's fine. She recommended a sushi bar in NYC and I called the place and mentioned her name and it was like I knew the President! They said if I was a friend of hers I'd get right in. She's turned out not only to be a good person but a good person to know. I've known her since she was 8 or 9 years old!

sonya_vidal: Hi Tonya, I loved you on OLTL, is there any chance you might reprise your role?
Tonja: The reason I'm so happy to get a chance to talk with the fans today, I wrote the executive producer and mentioned that I'd had two babies in three years but now was ready to stick my foot in the water. He said that they'd bring me back for sweeps along with a short term contract. So he told me to tell everyone I interviewed with that I was coming back to the show. And I did this business with Gabrielle and everything, she's a marvelous actress and I'm a huge fans of hers. My character's last words were 'I'll be back.' But I have no idea when that we'll be. I checked the ratings in Soap Opera Digest and looked at the week of May 7th, when I'd come back, and OLTL went from #7 to #4 which is a big jump. Digest said that OLTL hadn't been that high since the beginning of that year. So I called my agent and asked him to ask the show when I would come back! But he said he didn't know when. But if people write in and make a big stink then hopefully I'll be back sooner or else I'll have to go to a different show.

lovergirl_19_200041260: Are you married?
WNNZelda: Do you have any kids?
Tonja: I left OLTL to pursue movies and primetime, I moved to LA and met a handsome know-it-all in a health class and I'd sneak out during the breaks to get a cup of coffee, which is funny because you're there to get away from sugars and fats and things like caffeine... Anyhow, my sister had suggested I go to this place and get in touch with God and myself but I hate rules and when anyone tells me what I cannot do, so I'd sneak out to get coffee and he thought that was funny and asked me out to dinner. He was just wonderful. He lived in Cleveland, Ohio, he said if I worked in New York but LA was too far, so we got an apt. in New York and got married and about five minutes later I got pregnant and had a baby.Then about five minutes later I got pregnant again and had another baby. Other than that I moved furniture three times in the last five years. I've been in this show called City of Angels and just finished that run on Sunday.

oh_elizabeth_jade: How do you feel about your fans? You have a whole group of fans on Yahoo called the Alex Olanov club!
Tonja: No way! You're kidding! I didn't know that! There was this girl named Christine Tobias who I've met a few times who started a website for me called Tonja's Club. We went forward and told her that I was going back to work. She set up a new one for me but it's sort of under construction. I bouth tonjawalker.com - she set it up in northern California and I can see it but I can't answer anyonne back. She needs to take it down and go through my husbands MIS division and set it up. I would love to keep in touch with the people on Yahoo! I'm thrilled to death! You never know after you leave a soap if anyone is going to give a damn. I don't know when they're going to ask me back, there are so many blondes on that show already now! I go back to the show and there are like 10 blondes. Half the time people think Lindsay is me.

alex_olanov: Hi Tonja, I'm like your biggest fan in the whole wide world I have like two sites dedicated to you.. Umm my favorite moment was when you were trying to kill Cassie, my question to you was what was your favorite Alex moment?
Tonja: I loved that moment. I thought that was wonderful. I loved when we got married in Central Park, the Cleopatra thing. There were a hundred scenes with Carlo that I adored. He's definitely up there with one of my favorite people to work with and one of my favorite people period.

oh_elizabeth_jade: We all know you're a great actor - do you have other talents that would surprise your fans?
Tonja: I sing! I started out as a singer and the music I had to sing was what they had for me to sing, so I didn't get to choose my stuff. Alex was a torch singer in a nightclub. I like to sing Broadway musicals, country, pop. Last week was the wrap party for my play and we had the karoake machine going and my daughter, my husband and myself sang and my daughter stayed up until everyone left, she loved it. This was the first musical I've ever done and it's got great music in it, and it's intelligent complicated and sexy, it's very adult, based on the kind of Maltese Falcon/film noir stuff. I also decorate. I've done a lot since I got married. I live in this massive 16,000 square foot house. I didn't want this house I wanted a farm and a farm house. It's a modern house and I wanted something older. We were going to sell but now I've put so much work into this house that I don't want to work anymore. I love to garden, I love to cook and I cook a lot. I have files and files of recipes. I like boating, swimming. I love my kids. I love riding horses.

rosellen: What would you consider your dream role?
Tonja: Wow! I don't think there's just one. I'd like to play or be in The Sound of Music, I'd like to do Hello Dolly or Annie Get Your Gun. Virginia Woolf. Victor/Victoria. Im actually looking at producing some plays and being in them. I'm going out to a beautiful theater on Friday and see if I want to do Annie Get Your Gun there. Whenever I see anything that's got all the aspects of humanity in it then there's my part. I loved Alex because she had no limits. When they took her to a bit too campy I didn't like that as much. I liked it better when she was on the edge and you didn't know if she was going to kiss you or kill you. Instead of being the villian/comedienne on the show I was mostly just the comedienne. I sort of developed Alex with every slew of writers that we had. The same thing happened when I was Olivia on GH. After three years she'd been everything, full circle to being a good person.

ghettocheerleader911: Who do you most admire?
Tonja: Jessica Tandy. Ann Margaret is a big, big, big favorite of mine. She works so hard, happily married, philanthropic. I've always admired Cher although she's a little whacky! Cher has paid for surgery for thousands of kids who had the mask disease like in the movie of the same name so I've always admired her. Barbara Eden, Bernadette Peters, a lot. Susan Lucci is amazing to, the fact that she's stayed so popular for so long and has done so many other things, that's what a star is. Billy Joel, Elton John - I saw a Billy Joel concert and there were 12 year olds and 60 year olds there, that's great!

wildheart99_2000: Which leading man on OLTL did you like the best performing with?
Tonja: Carlo! But there's a lot of them, RJ, Timothy, Phil, do you remember Nicholas Walker, I don't know what he's done since he left the show. Jim DePaiva. The chemistry between Carlo and Alex was pretty sensational. I thought it was great when Caspar went on to be a movie star. I'm always happy when people aren't necessarily getting treated the best by a show and go on to bigger/better things.

swimmerboi24: you seemed to have great chemistry with everyone on the show. What kind of storyline would you like to come back to?
Tonja: I couldn't believe that Alex turned out to be a stripper. So I decided that I had to write this back story; she bought an island with Carlo, castle, house, farm, yachts servants. But Carlo got very possessive after that, but he could fly off wherever he wanted. So this was the story; he went off and gambled/philandered and she was stuck at the house. She would stay really busy at home, tennis, exercise, befriend islanders - and an island woman got pregnant and she thought she could stay on the island and continue to be miserable or run away. So she gets the trainer to hijack the boat and she takes the woman who is pregnant with her, so she has these two and takes them back to the US, under an assumed name. Because of the money she took from Asa. So she was as incognito as she could be to take care of these two. So that's where I would like to take it. The trainer, maybe a young stud muffin or sweetheart. Or maybe she could have a theater or a bar and perform. I like the human interest. She learned her big lesson with Carlo and realises that she never got any children so she wants to take care of this woman and this woman's baby. That gives her a lot more colors and that's what I like.

tyshanescott: Tonja what are your favorite TV shows? I could see you on a guest role on Sex and the City.
Tonja: Yeah I love that show. I love The Sopranos, and Sex and the City, NYPD Blue, sometimes I like The Practice. First and foremost The Sopranos, Tony never gets too bad or too nice. Just when you think he gets to be too nice he gets bad again. That's what's so great. The problem sometimes with daytime, that kind of writing is hard. That's why there are so few shows, they do so few Sopranos a year. Y&R has had the same cast for a really long time. On ABC soaps sometimes you turn it on and you don't really recognize anyone. I'd pay to work with Michael Malone again. He really brought my character to be with Carlo and do all of these crazy wonderful things. He brought Hilary on. He did a lot of wonderful things. The show was outrageously fabulous at that time. I loved Claire Labine.

wildheart99_2000: If your children would like to be performers when they are older, would you let them? Some parents in showbiz say they would not allow their children to be actors.
Tonja: Well I think the first way to make sure that your kids do exactly the opposite of what you don't want them to do is to forbid them to do it. I understand what you have to sacrifice to be in show biz. It's really hard to live all the time knowing you have no control over anything at all. Nothing's linear in show biz. In a law firm if you win x-number of cases and do x-hours of work you become a partner. I show biz you can be popular, award winning, whatever - it doesn't mean anything is secure. You do it because you love it. And you hope people will treat you well. That's a tough way to live your life! OLTL has had so many producers, even in that regard. The best thing about it is, that it is all about the audience.

purenoir: I really liked you on GH as Olivia Jerome! Have you ever thought about one day doing a West Coast soap again, or are your feet firmly planted in the East Coast? Maybe Alex could visit GH!
Tonja: If I don't get back on OLTL soon, then there's no reason I couldn't do a west coast soap or any soap. I like the idea of being in NY because it's an hour flight away from my house. There's nothing out of the realm of possiblity. I would enjoy producing plays or movies. We invested in Annie Get Your Gun and we got our money back and made money on our money, which is great and that turned out to be a really good show. There's a series of books done by a writer from here and we're looking at producing those. There's nothing as powerful as an audience. Because that gives me a shot at doing whatever's next and being successful.

alex_olanov: Do you have any plans of making a album?
Tonja: Yeah, I've planned it a lot but I just haven't done it yet. I like to sing my sister's country songs but I think there are people who would pay her a lot more to do them than me. My sister has a song out called "Angel Eyes," the title song of the Jennifer Lopez film! The other song is "Didn't We Love" which was on theCoyote Ugly soundtrack and was double platinum. She wrote it and it's wonderful and you can actually go buy it. She's got a song on the Stallone Driven soundtrack as well! I asked her if she was going to become the sountrack babe! I'm really proud of her.

noah_bastian2000: How did you first get discovered?
Tonja: I was Miss Maryland USA and a finalist in Miss USA 1980. Richard Kline who played Larry on Three's Company was one of the judges. Miss South Carolina won. We were all stuck in Biloxi, MS after because of a huge storm. We were all waiting in the lobby and Richard came over to talk to me and my family and wanted me to see his paperwork and see how great he thought I was and I said wonderful. Daddy invited him to have lunch with us and he asked me if I ever wanted to come to CA and meet his manager someday. When I got home I had been contacted already and called them and flew out for a meeting and auditioned for a couple things and got everything I'd auditioned for. I was up against Heather Locklear for everything when nobody knew who either one of us was. I got a job on Liar's Moon with Matt Dillon, then Gangster Chronicles then a pilot... but the pilot didn't sell so I did Capitol cause I wanted to do a soap then Heather became an enormous star and I always wondered if I'd made a big mistake. When I leftCapitol I was ready to rock because I'd studied but Heather'd established herself. So right when I was about to quit the business I got GH, then OLTL. If you can keep yourself interesting (character) then you're successful on daytime.

Tonja: I love my daytime fans! If I return to OLTL that's great if not then I'll continue to work. Now I know where my fans are I'll be checking in! I just want everybody to know how much I love and appreciate them and that I'll continue to work and will keep them posted. I appreciate your support in the past and now and the future. God Bless! Thanks for chatting tonight! Good night everybody!