GH: Classic Thread

[vetsoapfan]

I believe so, yes.

Kathryn reminds me a bit of the Adam Brewster character from OLTL, whom TPTB vainly tried to pair with Jacqueline Courtney's Pat Kendall: a boring, unlikeable actor played by an off-putting performer whom the audience did not accept.

Throughout soaps' history, there have been countless characters who have been completely forgotten about and basically erased. I did not want Terri to be one of them, but I'd be thrilled if Sonny, Jason, Carly, Sam, Peter, and anyone ever played by Roger Howarth were to vanish forever, never to be seen or heard of again.

[amybrickwallace]

@vetsoapfan,  what did you think of Gerald Gordon as a romantic lead on GH? What was the Mark Dante character like in comparison to Nick Bellini of TD? Did they just not find the right leading lady for him? I really couldn't tell from the few grainy clips I found on YouTube. It seems for all the fanfare he had coming in to GH, he would have been there for a long time. Was it just a wrong fit?

[vetsoapfan]

I thought Mark Dante was basically a retread of Nick Bellini, but just with a different name, LOL, and less of a temper. I'm sure GH hoped/expected that he would would bring the same kind of magic to Port Charles as he had to The Doctors, but the writing on GH was so bad at the time, the character was unfocused, and the soap didn't get the right romantic pairing down for Gerald Gordon. I felt Terri Webber and Mark Dante would have caught on, given time, but TPTB didn't give that union much of a chance, and the next try-out with Kathryn Corbin was a total dud. It reminded me of when GH "stole" Denise Alexander away from Days, to great fanfare and expected she would help the ratings soar because she was a soap superstar. There again, the writing was weak, the character was unfocused (she had had a son who died of diabetes whom no one except Pat Falken Smith ever remembered or talked about), and was not paired with a romantic lead successfully for years until Rick Webber came along. Neither Alexander nor Gordon helped the ratings rise. Only good writing and dynamic romantic pairings would later do that.

[Paul Raven]

The same situation occurred when Kin Shriner left GH for Texas and Taylor Miller went to AW.

It has to be the actor and the writing for such a change to click.

[Dion]

I was very surprised to learn (I think from one of the 1973 summaries that @FrenchFan posted) that Lesley had had another child that died...it's barely mentioned anywhere. I also recall that the backstory was also that Augusta had had an affair with Lesley's husband.

 

Correction: it was a summary @will81 provided

Edited August 29, 2021 by Dion

[victoria foxton]

@vetsoapfanNever knew that Lesley had another child besides Laura.

Please register in order to view this content

[vetsoapfan]

Very few writers (particularly in recent decades) take the time to study their shows' and characters' pasts, so all sorts of important information gets dropped/lost forever. Fans remember, but TPTB don't even know, and don't seem to care that they don't know. More than ever, these days I appreciate and applaud the writers who DID thoroughly study the past when taking over a new show. 

Yes. He has been completely ignored by all TPTB of the show except the divine Pat Falken Smith, who wrote a scene between Lesley and Gail, explaining that Lesley's fierce overprotectiveness of Laura stemmed from the death of her son.

TPTB also totally ignored (or, more likely, never knew in the first place) that Gail Adamson adopted Monica. And on Search for Tomorrow, Jo and Stu both had a widowed parent who married each other, making the longtime friends actual family members/step-siblings.

All soaps should have historical consultants, whose job it is to keep track of important details.

[titan1978]

Nichols as Stefan was one of the rare times when it did work.  While I enjoyed Katherine Bell, she was not as successful as MBE was as Kayla IMO.

[vetsoapfan]

Right. If the writing is weak and the storyline poorly thought out, even the most popular actors will not be able to negate that completely, especially when they come onto a new show and are no longer playing the role that made them stars to begin with.

[Dion]

Here is a snip of the summary from September 1973 that @will81 posted that mentions Lesley's other child and first husband Bruce

 

[vetsoapfan]

Crib death? I was sure the child had had diabetes. Of course I could be wrong, memories fade after 50 years. Hmmm.

Where did that summary come from originally, does anyone know?

Edited August 30, 2021 by vetsoapfan

[Dion]

Daytime Serial Newsletter, the same source that @FrenchFan has been posting in the 1975 summaries thread. FrenchFan did not have summaries from later on in 1973 but @will81 did and posted the September 1973 summary on page 13 of that thread.

[victoria foxton]

Thanks

[vetsoapfan]

Is that the one written by Bryna Laub? She was always quite accurate, from what I've seen. I have a compilation book of her summaries around here...somewhere. If she is the one who wrote that Lesley's first child died of crib death, I'd accept that, but I swear on the soap gods that I remember Lesley saying the child had had leukemia. Now I wonder if the poor kid had been afflicted with that, but actually died of crib death.

[Dion]

Yes I believe so