Jan 82 Lynda Hirsch column

Pat Falken Smith, now head writer of "Days of Our Lives" and former head writer of "General Hospital," had another go at Gloria Monty, producer of "General Hospital," on the cable network news special "The Soap Behind the Soaps." In it, Falken Smith said she simply did not want to work for Monty any more and furthermore, "If the show had been on radio I'm certain Gloria would have done the acting parts as well." Falken Smith also took Tony Geary to task and said at one point she asked him "to get a Writer's Guild card because he was doing rewrites of the scripts and then telling people in the media about it." She further says that she went to Geary and asked him to stop rewriting continually and also said she wanted to know where the gracious, grateful young man who came to her two years ago and thanked her for giving him the role of a lifetime had gone. In Geary's defense, Falken Smith said, "When I asked him to stop doing all this rewriting, he stopped." Geary makes no secret that he feels that Luke is a very important part of his career and that he does take liberties with the script. However, we believe that's probably one of the reasons why the character of Luke has been so exciting. 

 On the other hand, most of the "General Hospital" actors stick to the scripts, and when they were being written by Falken Smith, they rang true and were interesting, just as they were when Doug Marland was writing it. As for the new writers on "General Hospital," we'll have to give them a bit more time because their main concerns to date have been getting rid of two major characters Bobbi and Laura. By the way, when Gloria Monty was asked about Falken Smith on the same cable network news special, Monty said as graciously as she could, "Pat and I are dear friends. She was a great writer and when her sub-writers left with her, they all wrote notes to me saying they were sorry to be leaving."

Edited May 27, 20196 yr by Paul Raven

5 hours ago, j swift said:

My timing was off because I thought Marland wrote the rape, then left and PFS picked up from there.  But I just did a deep dive on her obits and she started in 1979 so that was before the rape.  Which makes a difference in how I perceive her work.

 

In any case, both DM and PFS gave us extraordinary material to enjoy. They both wrote  GH in a way that appealed to the mass audience AND was highly intelligent. Not many writers have been able to accomplish that in the last 20 years. GH would be dead right now without the contribution of these great scribes. We were so lucky to have them. Those were golden years.

 

5 hours ago, j swift said:

I also saw that she left in 1981, but I guess it was after the WGA strike that year.  There was an article about her re-hiring at Days which stated that she was pilfered along with six members of her writing staff.  Can you imagine that meeting?

https://newspaperarchive.com/bluefield-daily-telegraph-nov-01-1981-p-337/

 

Yes, she stopped wotking during that writers' strike, which is when the scabs and Monty destroyed the show with the Ice Princess garbage. PFS was furious. She acknowledged that she did not like material that went beyond the realm of possibility. The sci-fi sh*t was not her idea or her doing. She made that very clear in the press.

 

5 hours ago, j swift said:

I'm with you that flattening Rick would have been the best alternative (although I've always questioned the logic of a skylight in a nursery).  But, who wrote those Monica/Leslie scenes when Monica lays into Leslie for her lack of lust?  On YT that remains a throughline to their relationship including when Leslie helped birth AJ, and later in the early 80s, so there are a lot of arguments between the two.  There is a scene that is frequently referenced when Leslie is pleading with Monica to give up Rick, but Monica talks about how Leslie doesn't fulfill his needs, and I wonder who claims responsibility for those remarkable scenes?

 

Later writers sometimes continued on with the Lesley/Monica antagonism, sometimes not. Certain writers (probably those too lazy to investigate the show's history or understand the characters' relationship) had Lesley and Monica more friendly; had them go to lunch together (as IF!!!). But the scenes in which Lesley helped Monica give birth were during PFS's tenure.

 

5 hours ago, j swift said:

 

BTW- Monica's arc is underrated/amazing.  Without any specific redemptive plot, (except for age, breast cancer, and motherhood), she has evolved from a very selfish character to the voice of morality for Jason.  That is a leap you only get from a show that's been on as long as GH.   So many bitchy characters are punished before they become better humans, but Monica has just evolved that way on her own. 

 

 

I always saw Monica (during her early years) to be more insecure and desperate than a total bitch. Growing up an orphan (well, until Gail adopted her later in life, which the show and the writers then forgot about) and unloved, she was determined to do anything necessary to find love and financial/emotional security. Her atrocious behavior towards Jeff, Lesley, and Alan stemmed from the fact that she was so madly and genuinely in love with Rick that ethics and morality went out the window. The bigger problem was, her relationship with Rick was toxic and unhealthy. He brought out the worst, rather than any good qualities, in her. Once the "Rick fever" was out of her system, and Monica settled into a marriage with Alan, she became healthier,  more secure, less desperate, and her better qualities emerged. Certainly Alan and Monica had their battles and their conflict, but there was an underlying understanding between them; they really were meant to end up together. Damn the incompetent writers for callously killing off Alan (and all the Qs), and for ultimately turning Rick into a degenerate sleazeball who pretty much deserved his ultimate fate. (That final Rick story was EGREGIOUS; a real stain on the show's history.)

4 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

At least with Roger and Jack, their behavior was never brushed aside and what they did was very integral to what their characters were about. They were never really forgiven for anything, and in Roger's case, he was always the town pariah, even when his intentions were good. He never became the hero of the universe like Luke. 

 

Well said.

 

No matter how much power, money and sex he had, Roger Thorpe always suffered for his raping Holly (as he should have). He was guilt-ridden and seen as a pariah for decades. It disgusts me that people like Luke, Sonny, Jason and their ilk commit the vilest, most despicable actions (not just rape), and then become celebrated members of the community and/or have their crimes forgiven and dismissed.  On the latest anniversary show, I gagged watching Laura sing Sonny's praises. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Khan said:

On the bright side, PFS and Gloria Monty never tried to blame Luke's raping Laura on something REALLY silly...like a brain tumor.

 

True, although in order to justify the Luke and Laura relationship, true-blue and noble Scotty Baldwin (who was a sweet, supportive hero back then), got thrown under the bus. He was ultimately painted as a villain for "daring" to feel resentful that his wife abandoned him and ran off with a criminal rapist. That infuriated me. I have always loathed Luke.

3 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

I always saw Monica (during her early years) to be more insecure and desperate than a total bitch. Growing up an orphan (well, until Gail adopted her later in life, which the show and the writers then forgot about) and unloved, she was determined to do anything necessary to find love and financial/emotional security.

I recently read a fascinating fact lost to history.  Monica and Gail were estranged when she first arrived because Gail thought Monica had an affair with her first husband, when in fact her husband had sexually assaulted Monica.

 

From Soaps in Depth: Gail was horrified to learn that her late husband, Greg, had raped Monica when she was younger. This caused a rift between the two women, but they eventually worked through it. 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

 

Holly felt a ton of guilt and shame over connecting with Roger sexually again though, it wasn't like she slept with him and all was forgiven over night. It took years for them to even get that to that point again, and when it finally happened, she had a hard time accepting it for months afterward. The rape was always thrown in Roger's face - whether it be by Holly, Ed, Alexandra, or Ross and that never really stopped. GL, during its best years, always reminded us that Roger and Holly were deeply messed up people and it was wrong (yet strangely delicious) for them to feel the attraction they always felt for one another. 

 

Yes! The writing and acting really saved the day for the Roger and Holly saga. We always understood and felt mesmerized by their (admittedly twisted at times) feelings for each other, which we did not have to feel guilty about because Roger's crimes were never forgotten about, dismissed or ignored.

 

2 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

 

The annoying thing with Luke was that the show had to pretend it never happened, so it never allowed to become an integral part of Luke's character. Even after the revisitation, they never really incorporated it into the character, other than to destroy Luke & Laura (to appease Geary). 

 

Right. I was mollified somewhat by the fact that years later, Luke finally admitted he had raped (and not just "seduced") Laura, but it was still hard to swallow that they had been happily together and married for so many years without this MAJOR ISSUE surfacing loooong before it did. The show made a huge blunder by glossing over Luke's degenerate, vile crime and Laura's passive acceptance of it. The entire fiasco was so immoral, so socially irresponsible. I don't care if Geary and Francis had significant chemistry. It does not justify turning a violent crime into romance.

5 hours ago, titan1978 said:

 

 

 

4 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Monica could go from concern for Laura and selfishness with Rick and Lesley to love for Alan and anger over his child with Susan.  And yet she ended up loving Jason, arguably more at times than her own son.  She helped Sean steal the Q fortune and kicked them out of the house, and was later devastated by Alan cheating on her and marrying Lucy.  She had so many layers that her cancer storyline never occurred to me to be a redeeming story.

I agree, what I like about Monica is that she grew-up because of everything that happened to her and nobody had to stop and notice her heroics. 

 

5 hours ago, titan1978 said:

 

 

 

4 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Same with Bobbie back then.  She was awful to Laura in her pursuit of Scotty and then protection of her brother.  But she was also a good nurse, and seeing Roy killed and then her abusive relationship with Brock never seemed like a redemption arc.  

I agree again, she needed redemption, but there was never exposition about how she had changed for the better, which I appreciate.

 

It is interesting that unlike their relationships with their long-lost daughters (Dawn and Carly), both Bobbie and Monica were also excellent mother-figures to their almost-daughters (Emily and Terry) and almost-sons (Lucas and Jason).  I hope Terry still calls Bobbie on Mother's Day.

  

5 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Luke and Laura and the left handed boy seems like a redemption arc to me though.

Totally, it was the dancing in the department store, and the sleeping with a sheet between, and living on a farm, that harkened back to old Clark Gable and Gene Kelly movies and gave them rooting value.  It de-intensified their passion and made them more idyllic. Which, of course, opened them to criticism of "romanticizing the rape", but it was very effective at the time.  I recall how the whole package of a mystery, with fast scenes, filmed out of the studio (in recognizable parts of LA that we would scream at the TV), using an odd-looking actor with a perm, and contemporary music was so novel that it was part of the appeal.

 

Also, (I really hope it is clear that I am not defending this, just stating the facts), "A Trip Down Soap Lane" podcast has this fascinating scene when Scotty finds out and he asks Laura why she left the disco and then went to the park, cried rape, and told the police she was raped in the park.  Which is also an interesting detail given the times.

 

Edited May 27, 20196 yr by j swift

2 hours ago, Khan said:

 

Thank goodness, though, DAYS never tried to sell us a Jack/Kayla pairing after the rape, like they did with Bill and Laura.  In fact, I think Kayla has always had mixed feelings about Jack even after he redeemed himself in the eyes of most everyone else in Salem.

 

The handling of the Bill and Laura situation was very adult, very complicated. They had been in love first, and desperately wanted to be together, but when Bill disappeared and Laura married Mickey, that set off a dreadful chain of events. Laura was still madly in love with Bill upon his return (she had only married Mickey for security and to forget her doomed romance with Bill). Bill was still in love with her too, and crushed that she had married his brother. They physically longed for each other, we saw this day after day, but Laura denied herself because of her marriage vows and her sense of morality. When Bill got drunk and cornered her in the hospital, Laura physically and emotionally wanted to be with him but intellectually knew it was wrong. Bill forced himself upon her, yes, no question...but viewers saw and understood that in her heart, Laura really had wanted to consummate her love for Bill. It was rape, but the circumstances were ambiguous and gray, rather than black and white. (I am NOT justifying sexual assault, just pointing out how complicated this situation was, which is why the story captivated the audience so much. It pulled at your emotions, heartstrings, and understanding of right and wrong. Brilliant, brilliant writing by William J. Bell and Pat Falken Smith. DAMN. I miss the days of adult, nuanced, complicated material on soaps!)

 

2 hours ago, Khan said:

 

Because, where do you go once you've acknowledged someone to be a rapist?  You can't turn him back into the hero, and you certainly can't have him reunite with his victim (even though, to be perfect and frank, she was the ONLY female on the show who made him palatable).  So, either you kill him off (which was never on the table) or you turn him into a completely different character, like how DAYS turned Jack into a clown.

 

I've always contended that soap writers must be careful about what they allow their characters to do. Once characters go beyond a certain point, and commit rape, murder, and other heinous acts, they should be punished and certainly not turned into the towns' heroes, saints and saviors. Daytime TV executives and writers understood and adhered to this rule once upon a time, but since Luke The Rapist captured screaming fangurls' lust, anything goes. Repugnant slugs like Sonny, Jason, Franko and their ilk should have been dispatched long ago.

 

2 hours ago, Khan said:

Again, that's what I found remarkable about Roger Thorpe's journey: although GL certainly added layers to him both before and after he raped Holly and Rita, they never swept his actions under the proverbial rug or turned him into some romantic hero/comic relief character.  They let Roger BE Roger.

 

Exactly. And frankly, Michael Zaslow's talent went a long way to humanize Roger, and let us see the broken man behind the monster. Geary often settled for belligerent camp. Luke was a degenerate.

 

2 hours ago, Khan said:

 

Frankly, as pissed as I was to learn about Laura's rape and how it was turned into a "seduction" in order to make her and Luke a couple, I was just as pissed when the show brought it back up as a means to destroy the two.  IDC what Tony Geary thought or wanted: you don't ask the audience to invest not just years but DECADES in the couple that literally put soaps and GH back on the map, just to have it all end like that.  If you don't want to be saddled with Luke and Laura forever, then just f**king quit.  Let Luke die some noble death, so Laura (and the audience) can grieve and then move on.

 

Yep. Without his chemistry with Genie Francis, Geary's Luke Spencer never would have become a phenomenon. ABC's acquiescing to his enormous ego was infuriating. An actor is there to act, not dictate personal story preferences. I'm glad he's gone, to be honest. Now we need to axe Sonny, Jason, Franko, and 25 other GH characters!

 

2 hours ago, Khan said:

 

I could swear I read once how Marland had planned for Luke and Laura to become a couple eventually (although, I don't know whether the rape was part of the plan) but that he wanted to take his time getting there.

 

I dunno, I've also read Pat Falken Smith say she never intended for what happened at the Campus Disco to be considered rape either.  The whole BTS on that plot twist is murky as hell.

 

In the interviews I've read, Marland said that he never intended for Luke to become a major character at all; he was there as Bobbie's sidekick and henchman in crime. he was supposed to be killed off. Laura and Scotty were Marland's endgame, the way Kelly and Morgan on TGL and Lily and Holden on ATWT were. I can't see Marland allowing Kelly to ultimately end up with Nola, or Lily to end up with, say, Craig Montgomery, or laura to break up with Scotty and leave him for Luke.

 

PFS did develop the Luke and Laura saga, but said that she wrote the rape as a rape. It was Gloria Monty (seeing the obvious chemistry between Geary and Francis) who wanted them to become a romantic duo. That's why Monty started to pontificate in the press (and have characters saying on-screen) that Luke had only "seduced" Laura. For a female executive to foist that sort of sick message onto teenage girls in the audience is deplorable,

2 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

Frankly, it seemed strange that the audience even accepted Luke & Laura regardless of the rape - did the 15 year age difference between Geary and Francis not bother people in a more conservative era? Or did Genie always read as "older" even though she was a teenager?  

 

I think the overheated and frenzied fangurls in the audience focused their attention and lust on the ((ahem)) "beautiful rapist" and pictured themselves in Laura's shoes. It's not uncommon for teenagers to fantasize about older lovers. But many more mature and rational members of the audience and the press condemned the immorality behind this ill-advised plot 

1 hour ago, j swift said:

I was going to add this scene as a classic example of a Leslie/Monica argument.

 

However, what made me laugh was Leslie's dialogue about Heather coming to stay at her house for the holidays as a respite from the asylum, when she says, "I keep forgetting about her amnesia..." 

 

 

You would never guess from their interaction that Monica was once married to Jeff.  Which makes me wonder if Monica is younger than Leslie? She married Jeff while they were in med school together, and Jeff is Rick's younger half-brother. 

 

It also leads to the perennial question of why anyone would choose RIck over Jeff, or even Alan?

 

 

The first Rick, Michael Gregory, was a hunk and a half. He did not look special in still photographs, but he had a spark, a charisma, a certain something on screen that was quite appealing. Chris Robinson, on the other hand, always struck me as cold, aloof, unfeeling. I never warmed up to him. But Richard Dean Anderson's Jeff? WOOF! Total babe. His virtue would not have been safe around me!

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

Jan 82 Lynda Hirsch column

Pat Falken Smith, now head writer of "Days of Our Lives" and former head writer of "General Hospital," had another go at Gloria Monty, producer of "General Hospital," on the cable network news special "The Soap Behind the Soaps." In it, Falken Smith said she simply did not want to work for Monty any more and furthermore, "If the show had been on radio I'm certain Gloria would have done the acting parts as well." Falken Smith also took Tony Geary to task and said at one point she asked him "to get a Writer's Guild card because he was doing rewrites of the scripts and then telling people in the media about it." She further says that she went to Geary and asked him to stop rewriting continually and also said she wanted to know where the gracious, grateful young man who came to her two years ago and thanked her for giving him the role of a lifetime had gone. In Geary's defense, Falken Smith said, "When I asked him to stop doing all this rewriting, he stopped." Geary makes no secret that he feels that Luke is a very important part of his career and that he does take liberties with the script. However, we believe that's probably one of the reasons why the character of Luke has been so exciting. 

 On the other hand, most of the "General Hospital" actors stick to the scripts, and when they were being written by Falken Smith, they rang true and were interesting, just as they were when Doug Marland was writing it. As for the new writers on "General Hospital," we'll have to give them a bit more time because their main concerns to date have been getting rid of two major characters Bobbi and Laura. By the way, when Gloria Monty was asked about Falken Smith on the same cable network news special, Monty said as graciously as she could, "Pat and I are dear friends. She was a great writer and when her sub-writers left with her, they all wrote notes to me saying they were sorry to be leaving."

 

Thanks for posting this. Gotta love the brutally honest PFS!

 

 

1

3 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

But Richard Dean Anderson's Jeff? WOOF! Total babe. His virtue would not have been safe around me!

 

RDA's scarf game was iconic. 

55 minutes ago, j swift said:

I recently read a fascinating fact lost to history.  Monica and Gail were estranged when she first arrived because Gail thought Monica had an affair with her first husband, when in fact her husband had sexually assaulted Monica.

 

From Soaps in Depth: Gail was horrified to learn that her late husband, Greg, had raped Monica when she was younger. This caused a rift between the two women, but they eventually worked through it. 

 

 

 

 

 

It had originally been written that Greg and Monica had had an affair, but I think the show later said Greg had raped her, in an attempt to redeem Monica.

2 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

It had originally been written that Greg and Monica had had an affair, but I think the show later said Greg had raped her, in an attempt to redeem Monica.

It could have been interesting if Greg was Dawn's father.  Unfortunately, after four recasts, an awful scene partner, and the return of Gloria Monty, nothing was compelling about Dawn.

Just now, j swift said:

 

RDA's scarf game was iconic. 

 

He always looked great in a T-shirt and jeans. 😜

 

Chris Robinson complained in an interview once that RDA would go into his own dressing room and smoke cigarettes, as if that were uncommon or a crime back then. Robinson just came across as unpleasant. RDA came across as affable, gregarious and adorable. I know whom I would have chosen.

2 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

It was not praised for its writing at what time?

 

Everyone seemed to be singing its praises during Douglas Marland's stint and then when Pat Falken Smith FIRST took over. Until the sci-fi dreck began, the quality writing was referred to in the press and in commentary by the viewers as a fundamental reason why the show soared in the ratings and stayed at the top. Then, of course, once the campy science fiction plots began, GH started attracting a different kind of viewer (kids and teens), who kept the show popular even though, through most of the 1980s, the scripts were far inferior to what Marland and Smith had given us before that.

I was talking more so about the mid to end point of Monty's tenure. A lot of the press articles from the mid to late 80's often criticized the show for catering to the lowest common denominator and for the heavily plot-driven writing. 

 

Gordon Russell was supposed to be transferred over to GH from OLTL before his death - Monty and Russell would have been an interesting combination. Too bad we never got to see that happen. 

 

Likewise, Nancy Curlee was supposed to replace the Labine's in 1996, but she backed out when she got pregnant again, and we got Guza instead...

On 5/27/2019 at 3:21 AM, BetterForgotten said:

I was talking more so about the mid to end point of Monty's tenure. A lot of the press articles from the mid to late 80's often criticized the show for catering to the lowest common denominator and for the heavily plot-driven writing. 

 

Gordon Russell was supposed to be transferred over to GH from OLTL before his death - Monty and Russell would have been an interesting combination. Too bad we never got to see that happen. 

 

Likewise, Nancy Curlee was supposed to replace the Labine's in 1996, but she backed out when she got pregnant again, and we got Guza instead...

 

ITA about the state of GH in the mid-to-late 1980s. I thought it was poorly written and sophomoric. So many of the sci-fi/fantasy/adventure plots that the show did was painfully bad. The Ice Princess story initially attracted the interest of kids, but they are not the target audience of soaps, and tend not to stick around after their initial curiosity dissipates. Trying harder and harder to present more outlandish stories just to keep a fly-by-night audience around has never worked. Even Dark Shadows, which was very well done its first few years, burned itself out and lost its once-eager audience.

 

Soaps were created and meant to be primarily about human relationships, family conflict, social problems and romance. When the shows stray too far from that foundation, they falter. "Gimmick soaps" NEVER last too long.

 

I watched OLTL all through Russell's reign. I found him to be weaker on his own, but excellent when paired with other writers like Sam Hall. Wallace and Monty might have been an interesting pair. Nancy Curleee following Labine would have been the best-available choice, IMHO. It's too bad we got stuck with Guza again. The relentless focus on mobsters, brain-damaged killers, and violent degenerates in general really destroyed the show.

Edited May 28, 20196 yr by vetsoapfan

9 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

I can't see Marland allowing Kelly to ultimately end up with Nola

 

Ah, but that WAS his game plan, according to his original story projections.

 

Yes, Kelly and Morgan were slated to marry, and Nola was to pay dearly for her lies.  However, Quint was NOT supposed to end up as Nola's true love -- at least not originally.  I don't have the full details, but going on comments made by (I think) Tom Casiello (who had access to Marland's writing at one time) and John Wesley Shipp, as well as how the beginning of the story played out onscreen, I surmise that Marland had designed Quint to be a (short-term) villain, who would ultimately place Nola in some type of mortal danger, thereby forcing Kelly to rescue her, and launching him and Nola into a full-fledged relationship.

 

Of course, once Lisa Brown and Michael Tylo began working together, Marland saw the chemistry between them and changed his plans.  That's why I think JWS, as Kelly, floundered once Kelly and Morgan's marriage fell apart (which, in retrospect, was part of Marland's original plan), because, without Nola, there was nowhere for him to go, romantically speaking.

Edited May 27, 20196 yr by Khan