One Life to Live Tribute Thread

[Cheap21]

I thoguht KW did a great job at playing a more mature Tina. No one can top AE. Her Tina was more of a gold digger and social climber and she was over the top and loved money and the lavish lifestyle that came with it. She was a fighter and worked hard to get all that and maintain it. By the time KW came aboard, that part of Tina funamentally had changed bc she was well accepted into the Lord/Buchanan clan and didnt need to fight for money or her status. Her motivations had changed and that was the point where they did need to have her grow up a bit and KW did a fine job with that. When she first joined her Tina was more bitchy and selfish but without the comedic flair that AE had. She eventually mellowed out once she got Cord and while I didnt like her with Cain, she had gotten very comfortable in the role by this point and the writers played up her strengths and didnt merely try to write her as they would AE.

I didnt mind KT as much as many did during her original run but thanks to YT and the ability to see and compare all actresses and what was done with them, she was by far the weakest of these 3 main Tinas. She was the ditzy Tina and she was written quite stupid and easily manipulated at times. She would fall for antics that she herself should have been smarter about. Putting her with David was almost like exagerating what a joke she was by this point. Plus I hated her hair.

Heres a clip of Jean dissecting her

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and speaking of Tina, here's a rare clip of Kelli Marony as Tina. She was awful. Thank god they got AE back in 1985 instead of sticking with any one of the string of bad recasts

Edited May 14, 2011 by Cheap21

[DRW50]

There's a good chance Kelli might have stayed if she'd wanted to - supposedly she quit because of issues with Paul Rauch. She had played a similar character on Ryan's Hope.

In some ways it was a risk to bring Andrea back, as she had only ever played Tina as an ingenue, but she was so wonderful at capturing all sides of Tina - most of all that vulnerability that made you care about Tina even as she kept making stupid decisions.

She's such an underrated actress and Tina is such a poorly treated character. It's sad that she probably won't even be back for the end.

Edited May 14, 2011 by CarlD2

[Llantano Incorporated]

Andrea is brilliant. I love her super natural line readings too. You have to watch her to understand. She really took over the top dialogue and made it sound so perfect. I believe that Andrea WILL be back for the end.

[Chris B]

That episode isn't a good representation of what Tina was about,but I think Kelli Maroney probably was a good Tina. I base that on the type of character she played on Ryan's Hope and her acting continued to improve, as that episode shows. I'd certainly be curious to see more of her. And I also found her more in line with Tina compared to Karen Witter or the last recast.

[DRW50]

There's another clip of KM's Tina I posted in the recast thread a while back.

[Cheap21]

Her hair was awful. Physically I just didnt think she had the right look for Tina as she didnt exude the sexual appeal that was characteristic of the femme fatale that AE so famously played. When AE came back, she played Tina completely different from how KM was. The writing was also different. Tina as up and coming business woman working for Buchanan? That was KM's Tina. Greedy social climbing gold digger was what they morphed her into when AE took over and that was for the better. KM just wasnt nearly as exciting or entertaiining in the role as AE was when she came back

Edited May 14, 2011 by Cheap21

[DeeeDee]

Indeed.

[Michael]

While you guys are on the subject of Tina...

I only half-pay attention to OLTL, but I just went over to Wikipedia and read a recap of Tina's 2008 return. The story actually sounds like it was pretty fun, tying in Mendorra, her trip over the waterfall, her histories with Cain and Cord, her relationship with Sarah, etc. I've mostly seen that whole return panned around here. Is the general consensus that it was a flop? Is that because she wasn't really in story with Viki, or because the actual material was crap, or what? It really reads pretty well, in isolation, but I know that's often very different from the viewing experience.

[DRW50]

The story was bad camp (an RC specialty) and Tina had little to do with anyone who mattered to her, besides boring Sarah. She spent her last few months in scenes with Bree Williamson at her all time worst. Just awful. And her exit was a cheap shot, damaging the character of Viki significantly.

[Cheap21]

HUGE Tina fan here (favorite character in all of daytime history) and I loved it. I loved the nod to history. I looked at the Mendorra stuff for what it was; a throwback to history for the show's anniversary celebration. The Mendorra stuff, Waterfall, relationship with Cord and Cain were all classic moments in OLTL's vault. I thought RC did a good job with them. It was very Tina and it was fun. I think overall her return wasnt well received bc she didnt get to interact with the vets that she had worked with before. Almost as soon as Tina came back to town, Viki left. It took her months before she spoke to Bo or any of the other Buchanans. I dont think she ever interacted with Dorian and definetly not Blair (AE never worked with her but she was a rival for the later Tinas). She didnt interact with her brother Todd till the very end either. She spent most of her time babysitting Viki's kids, Natalie and Jessica and the writers used Tess to troll and blackmail her. Tina barely even got to get out of the house as most of her scenes were spent in Llanfair, further isolating her. She was extremely wasted. People wanted to see her with the characters I mentioned, not Tess, Natalie and Jared, 3 characters she didnt even know.

[Llantano Incorporated]

The first 3/4 of her return was a freaking disaster putting her in a storyline with the godawful Kamar, Bethann, et al. It was ludicrous and rumored to be this way due to Frons's insistence that she be put in a younger storyline. (He was rumored to think that she was too old and also rumored to be behind her abrupt departure. And don't believe Andrea's quote about the role always being short term. She gave an interview a mere few weeks before saying how she saw her family more working bicoastal than she did working on Passions thanks to ABC scheduling her so well. She was having a great time.

Anyway, moving her back into Llanfair was pure brilliance but then she was gone weeks later. The writers wrote an obvious We're sorry/love letter to her in her final episode that made clear how disappointed they were in her botched return. I think it is on Youtube.

"You have not seen the last of Tina Lord Roberts."

I hope this is true as time is running out.

[Michael]

Thanks for sharing your perspectives.

I can definitely see how it played differently onscreen than it does in written summary, which is a shame. It sounds like there was a real, Tina-appropriate story in there somewhere -- it's a shame it was so centered on the idiotic younger characters. I really do hope we get to see her again before the end, at least to reunite her and Viki and just let us know that Tina gets some sort of happy ending.

[DRW50]

The worst part is that Viki disowned Tina for her crimes (many of which she had to do at threat of death to her family) and she barely batted an eye at Todd raping one of her close friends, lying about her daughter's mental illness, and being complicit in her two daughters almost dying and one of her daughters having a stillbirth. Only a few months later she was trying to get her brother a girlfriend, and singing his praises. It was just awful

[DRW50]

December 25, 1990 Soap Opera Weekly. Interview with Maggie DePriest. I'm not writing the actor names because you already know those, but this Karen Witter Tina, Nick Walker Max, and Matthew Vipond Kevin and Chris McKenna Joey.

Also mentioned is that Neith Hunter (Laura), Anna Gardino (Gloria) and Audrey Landers (Charlotte) were leaving, although Charlotte was always short-term. Linda Thorson (Julia) was on recurring.

Who was Gloria?

[Cheap21]

she was involved in the Badderly Island story. I beleive she was a native who ended up helping the gang