One Life to Live Tribute Thread

[slick jones]

Marilyn Chris (Wanda) has a new show in the theater coming up...

 

Marilyn Chris

 

 

Just a big hi to one & all & to tell you that zi am doing a solo show at Theatre for the New City in

NYC called Giggling Granny until January 26. Do check out website. Good thoughts.

 

 

Here's a link:

 

https://www.tdf.org/shows/22216/the-giggling-granny#:~:text=Drama%20Desk%20and%20Obie%20award,are%20ever%20going%20to%20meet!

 

[janea4old]

More on Marilyn Chris' new show here:
https://auntiemwrites.com/2024/12/24/true-crime-with-marilyn-chris/

[Khan]

There's a lot that I miss about OLTL, but one of the things I miss the most is Wanda.  

[Contessa Donatella]

A poster in my soap group on Facebook just saw this show. He described it in very interesting terms. He remembered this actress as Wanda Wolek on OLTL but also as Edie Hoffman on AMC. He talked to her after the show & got an autographed headshot. It was a delightful fan review. It made me wish I were close to the city because I would surely go & see this one woman show.

[Vee]

@Darn @DRW50 @Khan @titan1978 @janea4old @slick jones

@chrisml @Franko @reallyhateskateonlost @NothinButAttitude @Paul Raven @dc11786 @BetterForgotten @DramatistDreamer @SFK

We got a live one here. I'm surprised I'm the first on this. Appears to be video featuring Nancy Pinkerton's Dorian and her cohort Matt McAllister (Vance Jeffries). Apologies to anyone I haven't tagged (or anyone tagged who isn't into OLTL).

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This is why I keep saying there is always more to be found. Because there is.

More, complete with slate:

 

Edited January 28 by Vee

[Franko]

Yowza! Thanks for the tag!

[janea4old]

Thanks, @Vee
Nancy Pinkerton was my Dorian!
I watched OLTL mostly up until late August 1975, when I left home for college.

I have no memory of that Vance Jeffries character. None whatsoever.

So I was a freshman in college when those Nov. 1975 scenes aired. 

The only thing I remember of Autumn 1975 on television was watching the debut of Saturday Night Live on the dormitory common room TV.

Edited January 28 by janea4old

[DRW50]

@Vee Thank you! What a wonder. The uploader mentioned that he got them from Matt McAllister himself. I remember reading some articles about him and maybe asking @vetsoapfan about him before but had never seen him. This is amazing. We've all talked about how many soap actors may have had some of their footage saved. Some, like Jacquie Courtney or Laurie Heineman, we may never know, but I'm glad some like Matt are making this stuff available while they can. 

[Franko]

All this, and early Karen!

[Vee]

I really hope that some point someone in the family or estate of some of these actors can access the stuff we know certain folks (Ellen Holly, JC, etc.) or affiliates had. That's why I never give up hope on that stuff these days, for any soap. After the treasure trove from the mid '70s a few years ago I figured anything is possible. The holiest grail, of course, is 1968-69.

I've never seen McAllister before either. I knew he was an early perennial ne'er do well figure and cohort of Dorian's but that's it.

Classic Llanfair too. Is that Dorian's painting, or is it Meredith (recently deceased) or Eugenia?

Vance Jeffries is the actor - I believe he is playing Matt McAllister, Dorian's partner in crime.

Edited January 28 by Vee

[Khan]

The more I see of Kathryn Breech as Karen, the more I'm convinced she wouldn't have been up to the challenges that playing the prostitution storyline posed.  She would've done okay with the story - she wasn't the WORST actor - but the audience wouldn't have been as sympathetic toward her as they were toward Judith Light, whose performances even after the storyline was over always emphasized how much Karen was truly haunted by a lifetime of poor decisions and a struggle to be the kind of person whom Larry, Jenny and others needed.

Chances are, if Breech had played out the prostitution story, it would've ended with Karen either going to jail, getting killed by a violent john or simply leaving Llanview in disgrace, never to be seen or mentioned again.

Meanwhile, that might be the most I've ever seen of Nancy Pinkerton's Dorian...and I enjoyed watching every cold and calculating moment of it, too, lol.  Don't get me wrong, Robin Strasser will remain "my Dorian" until the day I shake off this mortal coil, but I think if I had been alive and watching OLTL back then, I would've loved watching Pinkerton just as much.  In fact, I think I see how her Dorian really informed Strasser's take, in terms of her cunning; while Claire Malis' Dorian seems to have informed the layers of softness and vulnerability that Strasser would later bring to the role as well.  In the end, Strasser's Dorian really was a merging of Pinkerton's and Malis' Dorians, but shot through with her own panache and sense of humor.

And boy, was Jennifer Harmon chilling in her scenes with Lee Patterson, as you could see her Cathy starting to come unglued over the loss of their daughter.  I've watched enough DARK SHADOWS to know that Sam Hall and Gordon Russell knew how to write those kind of moments when a character is so unbalanced emotionally that they could send shivers down your spine.

Conversely, I know Katherine Glass had her fans, but I gotta be honest: I don't know whether I could've taken her Jenny for very long, lol.  I realize she's supposed to come across as young and innocent - she certainly doesn't know at that point what she's getting herself into with Brad Vernon! - but...I dunno...there's just something that's a little TOO sweetly earnest about her.  (Even her voice began to get on my nerves after awhile).  Brynn Thayer, IMO, was better at making Jenny kind-hearted and sympathetic, but not making it seem as if cartoon birds were going to land on her shoulders at any moment.

Thanks, @Vee, so much for sharing these videos - and for tagging me.  2025 is already shaping up to be quite the year for soap finds!

[Vee]

It's probably the most many of us have ever seen of her, me included. It's nice to see her in full Dorian Lord flow, finally.

The '70s eps posted a couple years ago (and still on YT I believe, with Kathy Glass, Tom Berenger, Ellen Holly, etc.) also have quite a bit of Harmon as Cathy, as well as the one from '75(?) having George Reinholt's Tony and his early sexist 'meet cute' with Dorrie Kavanaugh's Cathy just before her recast. All this, of course, after Robin Strasser turned the Cathy recast down when Agnes offered it to her (in order to replay the triangle with GR and Jacquie Courtney from AW) - she didn't want to play a recast at the time.

I remember having a sneaking suspicion decades later about Cathy Craig, when they introduced the Colsons in Malone II in 2003. Daniel Colson (Mark Dobies) made a point of randomly saying his son Riley was named for Joe Riley because his ex-wife had been a journalist at the Banner who had idolized Joe. AFAIK Cathy was not a journalist, but she was a writer who had a working relationship with Joe before they slept together. I always wondered if there was a link there, if Daniel's wife could've been her.

Edited January 29 by Vee

[Khan]

I think Cathy would've been too old at the point (although, that doesn't stop them from having a May/December relationship, lol).

[Vee]

Probably, although Cathy was supposed to be a bit younger than Jennifer Harmon projects IMO. And Riley was early '20s tops.

[Khan]

Frankly, the story that I always wanted OLTL to tell was the discovery that Cathy Craig actually switched Kevin when she had kidnapped him, that she literally forgot she did it when she developed amnesia later, and that the son Viki has raised all that time was, in fact, not her real son.

("Yes," a certain someone who shall remain nameless told me, "and as soon as you begin telling that story, Erika Slezak will kill you.")

Edited January 29 by Khan