OLTL Tribute Thread

[vetsoapfan]

Having an affair on his fragile wife, killing a patient, letting Larry be suspected of the crime, and then leaving a badly-injured Dorian to die after her fall down the stairs...seems bad enough to me for TLJ to realize that his character was a villain LONG before his final week or two on the soap.

[Paul Raven]

Maybe TLJ tells it that way to p**s on soaps and give the impression that they're created on the run.

and that 2 weeks notice thing- if his contract was up then they wouldn't be waiting around with 2 weeks to go to awaiy his decision.

We've seen that narrative repeated over and over, often by actors who are embarrassed by having worked on a soap and want to appear above it all.

At the time he was happy enough to appear and obviously his performance and work ethic was enough for ABC to keep him on. 

Now I don't believe that he should have to  praise soaps to high heaven but just admit that despite not being totally suited or happy with the fast pace you did your best and learned a lot before moving on.

[vetsoapfan]

Meg Ryan once remarked in a derogatory manner about her experience on ATWT: "My character's name was Betsy Stewart Montgomery Andropolous, so that shows how many times she was married!" She said this as if Betsy's being married a "whopping" two times in her life was so absurd. Pffft. Many people in real life get married two (or more) times.

I do think TLJ was just snarking to degrade the soaps. His story about how he left OLTL doesn't ring true.

[I Am A Swede]

Being married only two times on a soap is practically the equivalent to being a virgin!  

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[Contessa Donatella]

James Lipton's book INSIDE INSIDE is about INSIDE THE ACTOR'S STUDIO but one chapter is all about soaps & soap people. (Chapter Eight) Meg Ryan talked about how her character had ALL THESE NAMES & remembering them & Lipton seemed to think she found it interesting & yes, that it tracked all of her marriages, etc. (I recall there being many!) So maybe he didn't get her meaning, LOL. When you get down to James Lipton, as a soap writer, he was a great emcee & host of THE ACTORS' STUDIO. And for that reason, it's a good book. They tell a great anecdote about him when he was HW of some show where the locale was far inland midwestern metro area & he wanted to have a hurricane on Main Street & they had a fine time explaining to him why it had better be a tornado.

[vetsoapfan]

Exactly, considering that on Ryan's former show, ATWT, we also had characters like Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Coleman McCall Mitchell Grimaldi Chedwyn, LOL!

[Contessa Donatella]

I hope it is okay to post this here. I thought there might be some people here who would be interested in this. Llanview @LlanviewPA On Monday to coincide with Halloween and celebrating #OLTL’s undeniably best villain, Mitch Laurence, I’ll also share a #MemoriamMonday to honor one of Daytime’s finest, Roscoe Born, who we lost far too soon. If you have any stories, quotes, scenes you’d like to share ...

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[j swift]

I was interested in the discussion of Henry Sleasar's run as head writer on OLTL on the EON thread.

Given that I am terrible at remembering who wrote what when, I went back to the wiki which states that Sleasar came on as co-writer with Sam Hall in July 1982, then was solo head writer from February to June 1983 until Jean Arley came on as Executive Producer and fired him.

I then went to Tumblr to read the SOD synopsis of the period.  The story highlights seem to be the Delilah/Bo/Asa/Becky quad (which doesn't seem very classic Sleasar) as well as the rewriting of Bo actually being Asa's son.  There's a mystery involving someone framing Jenny for murder which is very short term and seems more in line with his classic storytelling.  Then, Echo DiSavoy and David Rinaldi are introduced, (I would assume they were created by the Corringtons) which changes the focus of the plot from the Buchanans back to Viki and Dorian.  All in all, I would say that the scale and orientation of OLTL were poor fits for Slesar who seemed to thrive with a smaller cast and a singular, interwoven, focused plotline.

Along the way there was this interesting story in SOD about Jean Arley who was hired when Joe Stuart moved to Loving.  I am always amused by SOD interviews with new execs who want to promote ideas like new lighting or avant garde wardrobes, rather than innovations in storytelling.  It is remarkable that a six page article never mentions the change in writers, nor is there much in terms of a vision for the characters beyond where they live and how the commute.  Perhaps, Ms. Arley only lasted a year, because she seemed more interested in production design than plot?  To paraphrase what James Carville once said about politics and the economy, "it's the story, dummy."

https://www.tumblr.com/classicsodoltl/147394714780/one-life-to-live-soap-opera-digest-synopsis-june

Arley went on to be one of the eight million people who produced the final years of SFT.  But, I am interested in other's memories of her time as executive producer.  In hindsight it is easy to see how Rauch's vision for grandiose stories grew from this fallow period.

Edited October 29, 2022 by j swift

[Vee]

I was definitely under the impression the entire Echo DiSavoy murder caper was Slesar. I may be wrong.

[j swift]

 

EDIT - Echo's wiki says she was created by Slesar and introduced in March 1983.  So, perhaps he was fired before the end of her story as Giles was previewed in the SOD story on Jean Arley and in 1983 SOD was still writing synopses weeks behind what was being shown on screen at the time of publication?

Edited October 29, 2022 by j swift

[Contessa Donatella]

Jean Arley came up in a conversation, briefly, just today. I can find out more but what was said today ... Definitely considered to be a "Save the soap" person who was called in when a show was in trouble. Person was speaking of her today in terms of wishing she'd been called in at the end of, specific example we were discussing, ATWT. It was mentioned that she had "worked wonders at two soaps & I only recall that OLTL was one of them & not what the other one was. Hope this helps a bit.

Editing In: The other, second soap in yesterday's discussion of her as a soap saver was Love of Life.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Tonksadora
Jean Arley

[Vee]

I know Slesar was supposedly fired very quickly, so that would track if he created the Echo story as I suspected. But it's very difficult for us to know anything for sure unless we were there. The issue is that Wikipedia and the old OLTL hardcover book from the '90s, etc. are all often full of apocrypha and bad dating when it comes to the old days. I remember for years many of us had no idea there was what, a third or fourth Vinnie Wolek? Or the phantom Tony Lord people have mentioned in here, Jimmy Jontz or something? He's not credited anywhere. That whole period with Slesar, the Corringtons, Arley, etc. going in and out is full of swift creative turnover, so it's hard to know who did what unless you were there and eagle-eyed as a viewer, or a known journalist at the time. I know the wikipedia pages are off on a few things. 

This extends even to Jeff Giles' wonderful OLTL oral history book, where Thom Christopher and Tonja Walker give over lots of their interview time to rhapsodizing Paul Rauch for putting them together in their sexcapades as Carlo and Alex. Linda Gottlieb and Michael Malone did that; Carlo and Alex were not paired til long after Rauch was out of the building. Time and tide get us all lost sometimes.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Vee

[Sean]

The dates for Slesar's tenure on Wikipedia are off by a year. He was at The Edge of Night until May 1983. The soap press then reported that he was joining OLTL as Sam Hall's co-headwriter in August 1983, roughly three months after Kim Zimmer joined the show, so the Echo story was already underway.

The Corrringtons were announced as OLTL's new headwriters in July 1984, and by November 1984 Slesar had been signed to write Capitol.

[Vee]

So he did have a hand in it at least. This is where apocrypha and fog of war come into play, as always.

[j swift]

Further confusion on the Sleasar timeline from SOD - a time capsule from 1982 that states he was paired with Sam Hall that year - is there any possibility that he wrote more than one show at time, and then was made headwriter after he was fired from EON?

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Edited October 29, 2022 by j swift