Just saw on the Wiki death page that André Landzaat (Tony Cassadine) has passed away.

1 hour ago, FlyRightOrchestraGuy said:

@vetsoapfan @depboy As far as GH was concerned, was the Samantha Livingstone character always on the back burner?  Future Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter star Kimberly Beck had a brief stint as Samantha in 1975.  Future Small Wonder regular Marla Pennington succeeded Beck as Samantha, but she was let go along with a bunch of other GH cast members in early 1976.  I presume that most (if not all) of the GH episodes featuring the Samantha Livingstone character have been "wiped."  *sigh*

Yes, as I just posted above (before seeing this message of yours), Samantha was always a minor, supporting player. She was never terribly well developed (with the poor writing which spanned multiple writing regimes, this was a problem for GH in the mid-1970s). With yet another change of scribes, the show wrote out the entire Baldwin/Chandler family in one fell swoop. Except for Lee (who would later return alone), none of the temporary family left any lasting impact on the show.

It's said that GH only started keeping their episodes in 1978/9, so most/all of Samantha's eps would have been wiped long ago.

EDITED TO ADD: I just read in a soap-history book (which has proven to be inaccurate in the past), that supposedly Samantha Livingstone Chandler remained on GH until 1979. I don't believe this is right. It would have brought her into the Douglas Marland era. With her entire family having moved to NYC, why would the show have kept around a minor player from a temporary family which never caught on in the first place?

Anyway, if this is true, 1979 eps do exist, so the dream of seeing footage of the character could be within the realm of possibility.

Edited September 22Sep 22 by vetsoapfan

I would love to see a picture of Kimberly at GH!

4 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

I just read in a soap-history book (which has proven to be inaccurate in the past), that supposedly Samantha Livingstone Chandler remained on GH until 1979. I don't believe this is right.

No Lee, Carolyn, Samantha and Bobby were all shipped out of town in early 76.

When the Pollocks took over they were all dropped.

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

No Lee, Carolyn, Samantha and Bobby were all shipped out of town in early 76.

When the Pollocks took over they were all dropped.

Yes, that's how I remember it (I watched GH during its dark years in the 1970s), but I just wanted to acknowledge that another source contradicted my memory.

Not to sound too arrogant, LOL, but when reference material contradicts what I watched first-hand and/or recorded at the time, I trust myself over sources which repeatedly prove themselves to be in the wrong about their information. (Exhibit A: SoapCentral.🙄)

On 9/21/2025 at 9:29 PM, AdelaideCate007 said:

It's funny you mention them raising her baby because as a kid, I remember thinking that's where it was going. Like another Monica and Jason scenario.

I think Sean and Tiffany had talked of having a baby in late September a week or two before Cheryl's car accident and they are caring for Lucas. Lucas' custody puts a halt to the baby plans and when Sean refuses to go along with Tiffany in the custody case, which torpedoed Tiffany's chances in court their marriage was in such a tough spot. I think Jessica's child would have been the next step in that process after the miscarriage and Sean not wanting to have 2 under 2 with his and Jessica's baby. I also assumed this may have caused Tiffany to pull away from Sean, but under Riche, it may have made them stronger. 

On 9/22/2025 at 8:31 AM, carolineg said:

I didn't know Riche and Elliot had issues.  Do you know why?  I assume it was the Paul/Jenny/Tracy triangle which felt demeaning to Tracy, but I am curious if that was the issue.  I thought the triangle was winding down by the time Riche came on board.  It's possible I am confusing my timelines though.

Tracy's abortion stance. I'm not sure if we have ever pinpointed when this occurred in the story. We always assume it was Tracy's views of Jenny's teenage pregnancy during the Jack Kensington story as I think everyone was led to believe Jenny aborted the baby rather than had a miscarriage because Kensington had the hospital records expunged. 

Tracy / Paul / Jenny / Ned is very late stage Monty 2.0. Tracy learns she is pregnant at the very end of January and Riche starts the first week of February. Ned and Jenny marry in February. This story plays out for most of 1992 with Levinson and Thoma adding the Julia / Ned angle in June / July and Levinson (solo) leading the charge with the Jack Kensington scandal where it was revealed a teenaged Jenny had gotten pregnant by family friend Jack Kensington, a senator, and later miscarried the baby. This story basically ends Ned and Jenny's marriage which united Paul and Jenny leaving Tracy in the wind while playing Tracy against a lovelorn Marco Dane. 

By May, 1993, Ned and Tracy are seeking revenge on Paul and Jenny and set up Paul on theft charges and then Tracy runs over Jenny in the parking garage. 

22 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Like many fans, watching Tiffany have such a dark turn was rough to see. I think it could have been more successful had this happened when Labine arrived. Although there is a lot of the Riche/Levinson period I love, his writing was also very trashy and sensationalistic in many ways, and not kind towards the women. Nothing as vile and openly misogynistic as Guza and JFP, but still pretty gross.

I cannot fault Sharon Wyatt. She really went there, but the show’s writing didn’t do a good enough job building her back up after.

Levinson's work is seedy. I think what differentiates his misogyny from later General Hospital misogyny and Levinson's victimatization of women is meant to elicit sympathy for the female characters whereas JFP and Guza's was more about showing the strenght of men. I never get the sense that when A.J. and Jason Quartermaine are slut shaming Karen because of her relationship with Jagger, and her eventually stint as a stripper, was intended to make the Q boys look good, but rather make us feel for Karen. And during the custody battle, Bobbie and Tiffany bringing up each other's sordid sex worker pasts shows how far the women are willing to go, and highlights how far from the original goal they have gotten. 

Wyatt plays Tiffany's pain so well. In particular, the scene in the hospital where Tiffany is rejecting Sean's attempt at reconciliation is so emotional from everything that Sharon Wyatt emotes in her body language to the classic melacholy GH music cue to the emotionally heavy dialogue. I think the script writers really embed some beautiful subtext with Tiffany questioning why Jessica would lie (Tiffany's a reporter and would pick up on the "lack" of motivation) emphasizing how Tiffany is still unaware of Jessica and Sean's dalliance even though Stevie wonder can see Jessica fawning over Sean in front of his wife. 

In some ways, Tiffany's redemption starts to happen in waves with the pregnancy, and then she relapses when she learns of the affair and the miscarriage occurs. Doesn't Sean try to help clear Tiffany of Jessica's murder start the new reconcilliation? I agree with those who say they didn't go far enough to rebuild Tiffany. 

21 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Her first return was more successful, because even during Monty 2 she had more layers. That pop-up sort of established her as kind of brat, leaning much more into snob and elitist. Which is not to say those qualities didn’t exist before, because they did. Her return to usher Dillon onto the show and eventual return for Tracy herself used that persona as the basis for her character, with a huge helping of cynicism sprinkled on top.

When you watch a lot of her original run, Tracy is a manipulative bitch, and much more evil than her later runs. Famously she was willing to let her beloved daddy die over the will! She’s catty, and cunning. But she also is betrayed by the men in her life and lacks agency in a way Monica doesn’t, because Monica got to use her talents in a way that enhanced her life and gave her purpose.

Palumbo's Tracy was fun, but not as well layered from what I recall. Her relationship with Scotty was more light hearted than some of the nastier elements Tracy had embodied before and after, but I don't remember her having as much humanity as she did in later incarnations. 

I haven't seen a lot of Monty 2.0 (all scattered), but I definitely thought Tracy was a more complicated character by the end of Monty's run where she briefly attempts to make a society girl out of Jenny so that her marriage to Ned will work out and it keeps her away from Paul. In the final month of Monty with Linda Grover as a headwriter with Norma, there was a brief set up for a rivalry between Tracy and the newly fabulous Angela Eckert, who had returned from her sabbatical in Italy as a buyer for a famous fashion company owned by her cousin. Carol Lawrence vs. Jane Elliot would have been fun, but maybe not sustainable. I can't see Tracy ever really letting "the baker's wife" have the upper hand. 

I find Tracy's position as head of special projects in spring 1993 more heartbreaking than comical, as I think it was intended. Like you said, Edward always underestimates the business accumen of Tracy.  

20 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Yes, as I just posted above (before seeing this message of yours), Samantha was always a minor, supporting player. She was never terribly well developed (with the poor writing which spanned multiple writing regimes, this was a problem for GH in the mid-1970s). With yet another change of scribes, the show wrote out the entire Baldwin/Chandler family in one fell swoop. Except for Lee (who would later return alone), none of the temporary family left any lasting impact on the show.

Caroline and Bobby Chandler were created by the Hollands, I believe, and were basically cribbed from their radio soap, To Have and To Hold, which premiered around the time that they started at General Hospital. On their radio show, Robert Carter, a lawyer, was married to a wealthy widow, Caroline, his second wife, who had a daughter from her previous marriage, Ann. Robert's son, Jason, was a doctor at the local hospital who's wife, Emily, had started experiencing unexplained headaches and aural hallucinations that suggested a brain tumor. I think the Hollands tweaked a lot of this for General Hospital. 

51 minutes ago, dc11786 said:

Tracy's abortion stance. I'm not sure if we have ever pinpointed when this occurred in the story. We always assume it was Tracy's views of Jenny's teenage pregnancy during the Jack Kensington story as I think everyone was led to believe Jenny aborted the baby rather than had a miscarriage because Kensington had the hospital records expunged. 

Tracy / Paul / Jenny / Ned is very late stage Monty 2.0. Tracy learns she is pregnant at the very end of January and Riche starts the first week of February. Ned and Jenny marry in February. This story plays out for most of 1992 with Levinson and Thoma adding the Julia / Ned angle in June / July and Levinson (solo) leading the charge with the Jack Kensington scandal where it was revealed a teenaged Jenny had gotten pregnant by family friend Jack Kensington, a senator, and later miscarried the baby. This story basically ends Ned and Jenny's marriage which united Paul and Jenny leaving Tracy in the wind while playing Tracy against a lovelorn Marco Dane. 

By May, 1993, Ned and Tracy are seeking revenge on Paul and Jenny and set up Paul on theft charges and then Tracy runs over Jenny in the parking garage. 

 

But we never got any confirmation Jenny had an abortion, correct?  I guess my next question would be did they scrap the definitive abortion because Jane was against it or was the whole thing too hot button at the time to make things clear?

The whole Jenny situation was always a bit confusing.  I have no idea why she lied about being a virgin when she was a woman in her 20's in the 1990's.  It wasn't 1950 and even if she had an affair with the Senator she was clearly an underaged, groomed victim.  Jenny was always a dud of a character to me, but most of her motivations never made sense either. 

54 minutes ago, carolineg said:

The whole Jenny situation was always a bit confusing.  I have no idea why she lied about being a virgin when she was a woman in her 20's in the 1990's.  It wasn't 1950 and even if she had an affair with the Senator she was clearly an underaged, groomed victim.  Jenny was always a dud of a character to me, but most of her motivations never made sense either.

I think the problem was the same with her entire family. They had an idea and a basic layout of the family history as far as relationships went. But none of them were actual characters, they were just people being repositioned around the canvas to find something that worked after the ratings collapsed and the initial plans fell through. When I think of the Eckerts I remember Leslie Charleson and Stuart Damon both saying that Monty said the Q’s were basically yesterday’s news, and then they ended up needing them when the new family tanked to make the audience give a damn.

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

But we never got any confirmation Jenny had an abortion, correct?  I guess my next question would be did they scrap the definitive abortion because Jane was against it or was the whole thing too hot button at the time to make things clear?

The whole Jenny situation was always a bit confusing.  I have no idea why she lied about being a virgin when she was a woman in her 20's in the 1990's.  It wasn't 1950 and even if she had an affair with the Senator she was clearly an underaged, groomed victim.  Jenny was always a dud of a character to me, but most of her motivations never made sense either. 

I believe Jenny had a miscarriage. There was a congressional hearing about the whole incident and Jack Kensington tried to paint Jenny as some sort of Lolita-type who had been seducing him in order to extort money. I believe part of the ruse was that Jenny had aborted the baby, but Jenny's truth was that it had been a natural miscarriage. The abortion may have been the final straw in Ned and Jenny's marriage. 

Jenny also doesn't know why she lied about being a virgin. 

To save you the burden of watching a fairly long Jenny scene (over 5 minutes), Jenny says that she said it so that they wouldn't have sex before marriage because she didn't want to ever be in that position again. Ned makes the point that he could just said she didn't want to have sex. Jenny admits what she says sounds dumb even as it comes out of her mouth.

The episode also includes the first time that Bobbie is reunited with Lucas after Cheryl's passing.  

7 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

I think the problem was the same with her entire family. They had an idea and a basic layout of the family history as far as relationships went. But none of them were actual characters, they were just people being repositioned around the canvas to find something that worked after the ratings collapsed and the initial plans fell through. When I think of the Eckerts I remember Leslie Charleson and Stuart Damon both saying that Monty said the Q’s were basically yesterday’s news, and then they ended up needing them when the new family tanked to make the audience give a damn.

Nothing is more telling to me about Monty's view of the Eckerts than the staging of Dawn and Decker's engagement in the Eckert bakery where you basically get the POV of Fred and Angela watching the engagement occur rather than focusing on the actual engagement. In all my years of hearing how shows have been invaded by new families, I've never seen new characters completely eclipse the established characters in the established characters own story climax. I half expected Angela to give a eulogy at Dawn's funeral. 

Also, after the initial flop of the Eckerts, the proposed Eckerts are basically abandoned. Even as Jenny recounts the pregnancy saga, it was just Angela and Jenny who knew even though there was at least a younger sister, Ava, who should have been around for the drama. And brother Mario also wasn't mentioned again. With all that said, I do like the more thinned down Eckerts (Bill, Jenny, with pop ins from Angela) because they were part of the fabric of the community and not the entire dress. 

I think the angle that connected Kensington and Jenny was Jenny's friendship with his daughter Betsy. They could have linked the multiple backstories by making the connetion related to Jenny's environmental activism. Jenny ends up being gone within a year or so. I guess it really didn't matter in the end.

   

53 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

I think the problem was the same with her entire family. They had an idea and a basic layout of the family history as far as relationships went. But none of them were actual characters, they were just people being repositioned around the canvas to find something that worked after the ratings collapsed and the initial plans fell through. When I think of the Eckerts I remember Leslie Charleson and Stuart Damon both saying that Monty said the Q’s were basically yesterday’s news, and then they ended up needing them when the new family tanked to make the audience give a damn.

It seems like the characters did have an okay base.  I am just not sure it was ever fully fleshed out like you noted.  It was too much too soon for the Eckerts.  And outside of Tony, I am not sure the show found the right actors for the parts.  Pushing everyone else aside for the Eckert clan was never going to work.  That's not how you integrate a family and Monty should have known better.

28 minutes ago, dc11786 said:

I believe Jenny had a miscarriage. There was a congressional hearing about the whole incident and Jack Kensington tried to paint Jenny as some sort of Lolita-type who had been seducing him in order to extort money. I believe part of the ruse was that Jenny had aborted the baby, but Jenny's truth was that it had been a natural miscarriage. The abortion may have been the final straw in Ned and Jenny's marriage. 

Jenny also doesn't know why she lied about being a virgin. 

To save you the burden of watching a fairly long Jenny scene (over 5 minutes), Jenny says that she said it so that they wouldn't have sex before marriage because she didn't want to ever be in that position again. Ned makes the point that he could just said she didn't want to have sex. Jenny admits what she says sounds dumb even as it comes out of her mouth.

 

Ned's face is my face when I hear this explanation.  Thank you for trying to spare me, but I did watch it lol.  "I never even thought about telling you!"  Lol, clearly a woman ready for adult relationships and marriage.

The irony lies in Monty apparently thinking Eastenders from the UK was the wave of the future, and modeling the working-class Eckert influx around that. She wasn't really wrong about EE, but her approach and execution were way off.

Edited September 23Sep 23 by Vee

48 minutes ago, Vee said:

The irony lies in Monty apparently thinking Eastenders from the UK was the wave of the future, and modeling the working-class Eckert influx around that. She wasn't really wrong about EE, but her approach and execution were way off.

On paper it really wasn't a bad idea.  Obviously way too much too fast to integrate them properly, but I don't think the casting was great either.  Sure, Tony, whatever.  It wasn't the best idea from the start, but Cheryl Richardson was a poor choice for Jenny.  Especially when you focused huge stories around her.  Someone with more spunk and a bit more prickly would have worked better considering her past.  Crystal Carson probably would have done well as Jenny.  Obviously I would never take away Julia Barrett because of Brenda.  I just think the mid 20's virginal blonde heroine was dull at this period on GH.  It was already tried a few times and failed.

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

It seems like the characters did have an okay base.  I am just not sure it was ever fully fleshed out like you noted.  It was too much too soon for the Eckerts.  And outside of Tony, I am not sure the show found the right actors for the parts.  Pushing everyone else aside for the Eckert clan was never going to work.  That's not how you integrate a family and Monty should have known better.

I think by all accounts she drank her own kool-aid by this point. What she accomplished during her first run was remarkable. I do think Riche came onto a troubled production but the tone of the show was closer to what she was going to do than it would have been before Monty’s attempts. If Monty had invested in strong writers she would have been more successful. In my opinion the two strongest periods of her GH were the ones with strong writing- Marland/PFS, and then again when PFS returned for a second run. It is beyond messy between them, held together by strong casting, umbrella action/thriller stories, and romance.

I have said this before, and I know Wendy went to both of them and tried to get them to stay/come back, but I really cannot imagine Robert and Anna being a great fit with Riche’s tenure in the beginning. Robert especially.

Luke and Laura works because while they went off into flights of fancy, they were both very grounded characters at their core thanks to Marland and PFS. Focusing their return as being on the run with Lucky, but it was the mob again and not some supervillain, really worked well overall.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

The irony lies in Monty apparently thinking Eastenders from the UK was the wave of the future, and modeling the working-class Eckert influx around that. She wasn't really wrong about EE, but her approach and execution were way off.

Her instincts were right. Her ego got in the way- chiefly her arrogance that the audience would come along for the ride so quickly, and her inability to work with strong writers that were not her sister, who was talented but not enough to pull this off. Then we see Riche arrive, and hunt for writers to execute her ideas, finally landing on Labine. And according to Labine, she produced the hell out of whatever they wanted to do.

22 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

I think by all accounts she drank her own kool-aid by this point. What she accomplished during her first run was remarkable. I do think Riche came onto a troubled production but the tone of the show was closer to what she was going to do than it would have been before Monty’s attempts. If Monty had invested in strong writers she would have been more successful. In my opinion the two strongest periods of her GH were the ones with strong writing- Marland/PFS, and then again when PFS returned for a second run. It is beyond messy between them, held together by strong casting, umbrella action/thriller stories, and romance.

I have said this before, and I know Wendy went to both of them and tried to get them to stay/come back, but I really cannot imagine Robert and Anna being a great fit with Riche’s tenure in the beginning. Robert especially.

Luke and Laura works because while they went off into flights of fancy, they were both very grounded characters at their core thanks to Marland and PFS. Focusing their return as being on the run with Lucky, but it was the mob again and not some supervillain, really worked well overall.

If Monty 2.0 just pivoted, took input in, and cast better with superior writers her return could have worked.  I think the landscape of daytime had changed and GM didn't care lol.

I can't really picture Robert/Anna in Riche/Labine's GH.  It definitely would have changed Robin's trajectory which I think was perfect at the time.