OLTL Tribute Thread

[danfling]

I think that he left the show three different times.

 

[Vee]

He did!

[Vee]

Stumbled across a April 2000 episode of OLTL and woo, Herve Clermont is as bad as I remember as ADA Jared Hall, Ed and Carla's alleged full-grown grandson. He had a pointless plotline about some sort of college drug scandal and failing his bar exam - something Téa knew about, and I believe was originally supposed to lead to her being killed off, since JFP blamed Florencia Lozano for the failure of the pairing with John Bolger's Sykes. When Roger Howarth agreed to return to usher FL out as part of a trial run for his later return Téa was spared, but Jared remained and he was awful. They tested him with Ellen Bethea's Rachel, who returned and recurred in Llanview in the spring/summer months while Nora was "dead", but he disappeared because the actor sucked and sadly Rachel vanished not long after.

 

Unfortunately, the April episode in which Al Freeman returns as Ed to testify on his too-old grandson's behalf doesn't appear to be on YT. I vaguely remember it.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Vee

[John]

Vee

If I remember Correctly

Jared was before the judge

The doors opened and Ed walked in buut stayed by the doors &  spoke about his Grandson

The Judge ruled in Jared's favor with a smile from ED in the back of the court room

scene ends

end of Ed's cameo

Edited September 19, 2018 by John

[Vee]

Yes, I remember that.

[SFK]

 

That would be amazing!

 

I think I read there was another actress after the wonderful Norma Donaldson passed. Would have loved to see EH with VR, would have been much less interested in seeing her in scene after scene with CK. 😋

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Wow, you're good for remembering all this!

 

So it was what I thought it was.  Thanks for clarifying that.

 

 

[EricMontreal22]

 

 

Although Agnes Nixon kept ownership of LOV so she would have had final say--unlike at OLTL, so I'd like to think she wouldn't have allowed it (even if she appears to have only returned to actually do all that much with the writing during her first two (?) year stint when Marland left and then in very late 93-94.

As for joining AMC--though ABC owned the show, of course at that time Agnes could have gotten them on it.  I hate to say this, but it might have been felt (not necessarily by Agnes but by TPTB) that AMC already had its "fair share" of major black characters at that time?

[EricMontreal22]

I've just finally watched these now.  Great (and also depressing) stuff.  I will say that as to Arley's firing, I think this is ONE instance where Ellen is projecting--I hate to say or suspect that, I can understand where she's coming from, but...   In Llanview in the Afternoon the various interviewed people make it sound like ABC never had all that much faith in Arley (remember it was Nixon who hired Stuart away to Loving--I think too since he was starting there he said he would get a bigger chunk of the profits or something) and it seems like she was kinda a place holder, and as soon as Rauch showed interest they jumped at hiring this "super producer".  For contractual reasons originally it was said Arley and Rauch would co-produce (has that ever worked?  I guess technically DAYS has done that), but that everyone there knew Rauch would never go for that and Arley was just quietly dismissed. 

As Vee said, Marilyn Chris chose to retire.  I do wonder if Malone et al. were considering doing more with the Woleks.  The 25th Anniversary episode (which wasn't a clips episode) is anchored by scenes between Larry and Wanda talking about how great Llanview is, etc, (to... one of the kids who had just been rescued... CJ?)  And then a month or two later Wanda, who was still being seen relatively regularly, left, and that was when we began to see virtually nothing of Larry except in the hospital (to be fair that started happening when his last Dan recast left in 1991).  Maybe when Chris left they just decided to give up on the Woleks?  I mean I know the Vegas became their working class family on the show, and were hispanic, etc, but...

[DRW50]

 

Thanks. I didn't know that. Did Arley ever do more daytime? It's a shame OLTL didn't keep her on in some role. 

[EricMontreal22]

I know she was a producer for the final year of Search for Tomorrow--but that's all I know

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The 1/3 black audiences must have been some private poll or something.  The Nielsens didn't take *any* demos at the time--that started sometime in the early 70s when they realized the "importance" of the 18-49 age range though I know nothing about them starting to keep track of viewers outside of gender and age.  I wouldn't doubt it, myself--where else in daytime (and barely in primetime) could black viewers see black characters in an actual storyline at that time?  But, I'm not sure how official we can take that number (and would it be 1/3 across the country or just in NYC?)  Not that it really matters.

AMC certainly did not have a "big black story" at first--in fact its original setup was very WASPish and traditional (ironic since Nixon so wanted to move out of, as she said, "WASP Valley" when she created OLTL--but of course she wrote AMC's bible--which she stuck to extremely closely--back in 1964-65).  I *believe* (Carl can you correct me?) that Frank Grant joined in 1971 as a doctor at the hospital--basically a sounding board--and Nancy Grant, his wife, first appeared in 1972.  In All Her Children, published in Jan 1976, author Dan Wakefield in his long interview with Agnes Nixon about upcoming stories tells him how she finally has found "the room" to tell their story that she's wanted to for a few years and that it should start soon--so... 1975 ish I guess?), and Dan mentions he's glad because Frank has had no life of his own so far and Nancy has barely appeared.  She goes on about how the story will not be related to race but to gender issues--and I know the major story they got involved Nancy wanting to move to Chicago (?) to be a social worker or something but Frank not willing to relocate himself, even though he had a job there he could take, just for her sake.  So she moved anyway and I believe had a non-sexual romance there, eventually Frank coming to his senses, etc.  However as far as I know their next major story came with the introduction of Jesse.  So long story short, she is mistaken there. 

Edited September 21, 2018 by EricMontreal22

[EricMontreal22]

Some of the audience seemed to catch on in general.  Austin Texas of course pulled the show due to protests when Carla kissed the black doctor.  And several sources have quoted this letter from a bigot (male) in Seattle:   I protest that white woman kissing that black ape doctor.  But I’m getting confused.  If Carla turns out to be black, I want to register a protest for her kissing the white Dr. Craig

Marcy, dressed as Nicki, was going to kill Vince and frame Vicki/Nicki.  Steve confronted her and Marcy decided to change her plan to kill Steve (Vicki's husband of course).  During the struggle Marcy dropped her purse (which had a note from "Nicki" talking about her plan) and a vagrant stole it--Steve lunged for the gun and it went off, killing Marcy.  Ed Hall was convinced Steve killed Marcy and the only evidence that it was in self defense was in that purse.  At the very last minute a stranger coming into town found the purse--it was Joe Riley.  Joe was suffering from a fatal brain aneurysm and didn't want to reveal his return, memory gain, bla bla, so he sent the evidence to Steve's lawyer and Steve got off.  And francesca James moved to Pine Valley

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The Marcy storyline always seems like one of those great, crazy-ass Agnes Nixon stories that I admit to loving, yet it rarely ever gets mentioned in soap books, etc--and yet every fan of OLTL I know who watched back then seems to remember and love it.

[Vee]

It is so good to see you back as opposed to finding ghosts of your posts at the old A.V. Club.

[All My Shadows]

Frank and Nancy were pretty busy in the late 70s. They'd gotten divorced after she moved to Chicago and both moved on to other lovers. Here's some info from the Pine Valley Bulletin's bio for Frank:

 

1977: The distance proved to be too much for Frank and Nancy. Frank filed for a divorce. He almost immediately began a relationship with nurse Caroline Murray. Caroline was a Vietnam veteran. Frank helped Caroline get over her memories of the front lines. When Nancy came back to town, Frank was willing to give her one last chance. They slept together but Nancy was harboring a secret. She was already dating another man. Frank and Caroline married.

1978: Frank was happy with Caroline, but his heart sunk at the thought of Nancy’s pain. He fiancé, Carl Blair, died in an airplane crash. When Nancy gave birth to his son, Carl Blair, jr., Frank took it upon himself to be a father figure. The more time he spent with Nancy, the more his current marriage began to unravel. His feelings for Nancy were still very much alive.

 

1979: Frank found out Nancy had been lying to him about Carl: he was in fact his son. In an argument with Nancy, she admitted Caroline had known the truth as well. He could not handle Caroline’s deception, and asked for a divorce.

1980: Nancy was making plans to marry again, this time to Frank’s colleague Dr. Russ Anderson. Frank wanted to be a part of his son’s life. But most of all, he was still in love with Nancy. He had all but given up hope the night she was to marry Russ. He was in for a surprise when Nancy arrived on his doorstep. She finally professed her love for him. The Grants remarried that Thanksgiving.

Just another reason why I'd give anything to see more episodes from this truly golden age of AMC. In the ep surrounding Tom and Erica's wedding, we see brief glimpses of Frank and Caroline at the wedding while Nancy had just given birth the same day to Carl Jr.

ETA: And yes, Eric, you have been so missed!

Edited September 21, 2018 by All My Shadows

[danfling]

Just to be thorough, All My Children did have an African-American character in its original cast.   Hilda Haynes played nurse Lois Sloan.   I never saw her, but I understand that she was Ruth's good friend and confidant during her marriage (or part of it) to Ted.    She may have also done some protesting with Amy's group.

I think that all the new ABC soap operas after the introduction of One Life to Live featured African-American characters.  (All My Children, The Best of Everyting, A World Apart, Ryan's Hope, etc.). 

 

ABC's final soap opera which was MOSTLY white was Dark Shadows, and even that show featured at least two African-American characters for brief times.