I spoke too soon! I'm glad it's here.

The dish about Paul Tulley, Trish Van Devere, etc. is good stuff. Her mention at the end almost makes me wonder if they invented Karen #2 (Karen Wolek) when she declined to return.

Edited Wednesday at 09:19 PM3 days by Vee

Great interview from Niki Flacks. Thanks. So many actors still out there that could and should be interviewed. Everyone has their own memories/perspectives. Trish Van Devere also had a very short run as Patti on SFT. She didn't seem suited for soaps. It seems like her attitude rather than her acting was the problem.

In regards to writer credits, I was looking at those 1976-77 episodes that we got not too long ago. Most don't have full credits but the August 7, 1976 one says this:

Story By:

Gordon Russell

and
Sam Hall

Written By
Gordon Russell
Ted Dazan
Don Wallace
Enid Rudd

IIRC Van Devere once said she only did OLTL to make money for her downtown theater company or something.

She has a very colorful history both as Mrs. George C. Scott (who usually insisted on her being cast in his projects, like The Changeling) and in more recent years, but she was brilliant in the long-lost '80s indie Vengeance is Mine with Brooke Adams, which was rediscovered not long ago.

Enid Rudd was an actress turned playwright.

Enid (Pulver) Rudd 86 years old, passed away on August 7, 2015 in Jensen Beach, Florida, her second home for over 40 years. Enid (Pulver) Rudd was an accomplished actress and playwright as well as a writer for television. As a young actress, she starred in the movies So Young So Bad (with Anne Jackson, Rita Moreno, and Paul Henried), and in Crowded Paradise (with Hume Cronyn). She also starred as Ophelia in Hamlet at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York and performed on numerous television shows, including the Kraft Television Theater.

After turning down a contract with Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, Enid became a noted playwright. Peterpat, which starred Dick Shawn and Joan Hackett, was performed on Broadway in 1964 with subsequent productions in several European countries. The play toured the United States under the title, The Marriage Gambol, starring Patty Duke and John Astin.

Enid's other plays included The Other Side of Newark, Does Anybody Here Do The Peabody?, Rumours in the Palace, A Step Out of Line, and Dearest Cousin. The Ashes of Mrs. Reasoner was produced on Hollywood Television Theater and starred Charles Durning.

Enid was also a staff writer for the television soap opera, One Life to Live.

Enid was born in Newark, New Jersey to Pauline and Meyer Silverman. She lived most of her life in West Orange, New Jersey with her beloved husband of over 60 years, Honorable Bernard Rudd. Enid and Bernie always had a home filled with family and friends. They had a wonderful life together and loved to entertain and travel.

Enid was predeceased by her husband, Bernard and by her son, Charles. She is survived by her son, Matthew, his wife, Jann and her grandchildren, Maxwell and Ivan.

@EricMontreal22 Peggy O'Shea speaks! Judging by what followed, Rauch and the network were probably pushing for more out there plots and O'Shea resisted. $700, 000 a year! That's about 2 million today.

In a 1973 article-David Opatoshu of the Yiddish Theater's 'Yoshe Kalb " at the Eden Theater is living his own Abie' s Irish Rose role : his wife is TV writer Peggy O'Shea

Wikipedia- David Opatoshu was survived by his wife, Lillian Weinberg, a psychiatric social worker, whom he married on June 10, 1941.

Confusing.. edit did more checking and found he was married 3 times, Lillian, Peggy and Nancy Rigler.

THE JOURNAL-NEWS, THURSDAV, JUNE 2, I987

Soap writer throws in the towel

Peggy O'Shea left her job as the headwriter for the soap “One Life to Live” last month. After 12 grueling years in the business, she says she’ll never go back “I’ll never headwrite again,” says O’Shea, who was earning $13,500 a week devising plots for ABC’s popular afternoon drama. “They can't pay me enough to keep doing it, How can I say it more dramatically?”

Her point, she adds, is not that she feels underpaid, but that she won’t put up with increasing network interference — even for $702,000 a year. Other headwriters share her complaint, and voice it as quickly. With the competition heating up for a share of the daytime airwaves, they say, network executives have taken to second guessing the writers who once had total control over the turns and twists of the steamy daytime plots. “The joke in the industry is that the networks discovered that writing the soaps was too important a job to be left in the hands of the writers! says O’Shea. The headwriters devise the intricate plots on the shows, and direct breakdown and dialogue writers, who turn the action into scenes and words. Ten or fifteen years ago, the headwriter was the dictator of the daytime drama, choosing the writers and giving the final word on the plots, O’Shea says. And the soaps were snugly in the favor of the networks. Daytime television, which attracts fanatically dedicated audience, was a staple in the networks’ programming, providing profits as surely as soap opera characters had affairs.

But those golden days are gone. Cable television, independent networks and videocassette recorders are stealing away a good-size chunk of the audience the major networks once held captive. And network executives are rushing in frantically to save them. “Ten or fifteen years ago the. three major networks had 80 to 95 percent of the audience,” says Michael Brockman, the vice-president of daytime programming for CBS "Now that’s closer to 70 or 75 Please see Writers on page 20

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Paul Raven

Thanks for this! What did they say on Writers on page 20! ;) But that all makes a lot of sense--and good for her, though it was the show's loss. (If I weren't such a Broadway freak, the reference to Abbie's Irish Rose would have been completely lost on me :P )

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by EricMontreal22

On 6/17/2026 at 5:12 PM, Vee said:

IIRC Van Devere once said she only did OLTL to make money for her downtown theater company or something.

She has a very colorful history both as Mrs. George C. Scott (who usually insisted on her being cast in his projects, like The Changeling) and in more recent years, but she was brilliant in the long-lost '80s indie Vengeance is Mine with Brooke Adams, which was rediscovered not long ago.

Wow! Thanks for this info. I actually saw Vengeance is Mine just last year! A trip to see Roseanna Cox (and actually a pretty good 80s TV movie.)

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by EricMontreal22

1 minute ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Wow! Thanks for this info. I actually saw Vengeance is Mine just last year!

It's so good! Some of both Brooke Adams' and certainly Van Devere's best work. (I hope the even more forgotten '80s indie A Flash of Green with Ed Harris and Blair Brown, exiled to free Plex with ads, gets rediscovered next.)

17 minutes ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Thanks for this! What did they say on Writers on page 20! ;) But that all makes a lot of sense--and good for her, though it was the show's loss. (If I weren't such a Broadway freak, the reference to Abbie's Irish Rose would have been completely lost on me :P )

Abie's Irish Rose was turned into a radio series in the 40's. Mercedes McCambridge was involved at one point. There were 2 movies and of course it was the inspiration for the sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie.

5 minutes ago, Vee said:

It's so good! Some of both Brooke Adams' and certainly Van Devere's best work. (I hope the even more forgotten '80s indie A Flash of Green with Ed Harris and Blair Brown, exiled to free Plex with ads, gets rediscovered next.)

Wow--I don't think I can access Plex in Canada (I tried for Knots Landing but that was last year) but will try to check it out--you had me at Blair Brown.

9 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Abie's Irish Rose was turned into a radio series in the 40's. Mercedes McCambridge was involved at one point. There were 2 movies and of course it was the inspiration for the sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie.

THAT I didn't know--just that it had a record run on Broadway and it's overall plot. (And that when they were creating West Side Story, it was someone's idea that it shouldn't be about Jews/Catholics because that had been done--with far less tragedy and dancing--already with Abie's Irish Rose ;) )

14 minutes ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Wow--I don't think I can access Plex in Canada (I tried for Knots Landing but that was last year) but will try to check it out--you had me at Blair Brown.

It's floating around in various poor qualities online, but the only really decent quality version I know is on Plex. It's only done a few rounds of repertory houses in the US in the last decade-plus but has yet to have the major rediscovery Vengeance did for Michael Roemer before his death. Both turned up on PBS' American Playhouse in the '80s, but only Flash got a brief theatrical release. Anyway, we're way OT!

OT from posters like you, @Vee is one reason I keep coming back to this forum <3

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by EricMontreal22