The wonderful Novella Nelson has passed away.  I loved her Judge Fitzwater ("Fitzy", as Hank would say), such a solid recurring character, simultaneously steely and warm.

 

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Broadway-Vet-and-Acclaimed-Actress-Novella-Nelson-Dies-at-77-20170902

That's so sad. I remember her as Vera, Alex's maid on GL.

RIP.

42 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

That's so sad. I remember her as Vera, Alex's maid on GL.

 

Carl, that was Frances Foster (Gertie in the infamous dog food meatloaf episode of Good Times).  Unless of course you meant that Nelson subbed at some point.

 

In the 8th grade, we went on a class trip to NY and saw a show with Novella Nelson and Seth Gilliam at the Young Playwrights Festival.  Nelson played an abusive alcoholic grandmother with a mouth like a sailor.  She was so poised and articulate at the talkback, my classmates could hardly wrap their brains around this whole "acting thing".

20 hours ago, SFK said:

 

Carl, that was Frances Foster (Gertie in the infamous dog food meatloaf episode of Good Times).  Unless of course you meant that Nelson subbed at some point.

 

In the 8th grade, we went on a class trip to NY and saw a show with Novella Nelson and Seth Gilliam at the Young Playwrights Festival.  Nelson played an abusive alcoholic grandmother with a mouth like a sailor.  She was so poised and articulate at the talkback, my classmates could hardly wrap their brains around this whole "acting thing".

 

Oh. I'm sorry. Maybe Foster played another judge.

 

Thanks.

 

They brought Niki back way too many times and even they seemed to see it by this point as we instead got Viki pretending to be Niki and so on, but they'd just gone to the well long past the point of saturation. 

 

I still tend to prefer any Niki pre-1995 though. 

In retrospect, Niki Smith was a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, her unpredictability allowed the writers to go more places with her than they could with Viki.  But, OTOH, because Niki wasn't "real," I think the writers (especially, the ones who worked on the show after Peggy O'Shea) tended to see her more as a comic-book creation, checking such things as rationale, believability and plain good taste at the proverbial door, and, in the process, trivializing both Viki's alter-ego and the reason why Viki created her in the first place.

 

I've always wondered whether it might have been a good idea to give Viki a long-lost twin sister (and ES a regular, second character to play), thereby circumventing the need to bring back Niki, or any of Viki's other alters, whenever it was clear that Viki was in a storyline rut.

Edited September 5, 20178 yr by Khan

1 hour ago, Khan said:

In retrospect, Niki Smith was a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, her unpredictability allowed the writers to go more places with her than they could with Viki.  But, OTOH, because Niki wasn't "real," I think the writers (especially, the ones who worked on the show after Peggy O'Shea) tended to see her more as a comic-book creation, checking such things as rationale, believability and plain good taste at the proverbial door, and, in the process, trivializing both Viki's alter-ego and the reason why Viki created her in the first place.

 

I've always wondered whether it might have been a good idea to give Viki a long-lost twin sister (and ES a regular, second character to play), thereby circumventing the need to bring back Niki, or any of Viki's other alters, whenever it was clear that Viki was in a storyline rut.

 

Rauch seemed to use Niki to do things Viki couldn't do psychologically. It's an interesting idea but one which increasingly felt garish and forced onscreen.

 

I think Malone's decision to make Niki nothing more than a sex-addled bimbo was short-sighted and led to some hideous, unforgivable writing choices by Dena Higley down the line.

 

Okay, this an article about the goings-on at Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review site but there is a OLTL mention.

 

Attacked by Rotten Tomatoes

2 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Okay, this an article about the goings-on at Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review site but there is a OLTL mention.

 

Attacked by Rotten Tomatoes

So Happy for Jeff Giles

 

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by victoria foxton

On 4/9/2017 at 1:34 AM, victoria foxton said:

 

I am fascinated by early 80s OLTL, there is a balance between old and new soap that seems to be lost in the Tina/Gabrielle era.