Most miscast soap roles

[Shawn]

I loved Josie Davis. Her portrayal was SUCH a far cry from her days on Charles In Charge.

[OldGHFan]

GH - Jed Allen as Edward Quartermaine.

[John]

yeah he was all wrong and too young

[DeeeDee]

You could actually sympathize with her Grace.

Gareis Grace not so much.

[DRW50]

One of the soap magazines from back then had a photo shoot of the various men hired by ATWT and GL during most of 1996 - all standing around with their shirts off. It was pretty clear what the idea with their casting was.

[ZoeTate]

Who were the non Taylor Miller Nina's on AMC? One was a brunette, the other had long blonde hair and looked like a witch. They were both AWFUL.

Lee Meriwether to me just suffers from comparasion to Mary Fickett. Mary played one of the great mother figures on soaps. She was classic. To me the show misses Ruth horribly.

Harriet Hall as Brooke, bad, bad, bad.

TO me, the worst -Bennye Gatteys as Susan on DOOL replacing the unreplacable Denise Alexander.

[DRW50]

I always have a tough time judging Bennye because I have only seen a brief glimpse of her but the one clip I have seen she looked a bit like a frumpy and somewhat blowsy person sitting on the sidelines. Odd. Perhaps she looked better in other clips.

Here's that hilarious catfight with one of the Nina (Robin Stearns?) and Melissa Leo.

[Sedrick]

I remember the buzz that accompanied the arrival of Ceara on AMC...the character was named after Agnes Nixon's granddaughter and was promoted as being a status-driven schemer looking to marry rich...however, what we got was just Laura Spencer in pants suits walking around Pine Valley staring long and hard at every adult man with a few bucks...then she was positioned as a sudden rival to Erica, not even on the level of Brooke English. Then she joined forces with Adam to snatch ownership of Enchantment from Erica, which led to a few good scenes of bitchy scenes between the two..but then the press went wild with praise for the incest story garner attention and praise over on, as SOD called it, "that pot of Hollywood gloss, THE BOLD & the BEAUTIFUL, with claims that some stated was daytime's first.. That reportedly pissed Mrs Nixon off, as she had done the incest thing on LOVING in 1983, and the press acted as if it never happened...so in and ill-advised move, the spunky Ceara suddenly was seen in wardrobe befitting Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, crying at the drop of hat and cowering in corners, a out-of left field, it was revealed she had been raped by her father. Afterwards, Ceara was turned in the show's happy dull wallpaper before she took off with Jeremy to LOVING, only to be seen later being played by a stand-in seen from behind and from the waist-up stepping off an airport shuttle that just happened to be the site of a terrorist machine gun battle (apparently the first attacks on the U.S. happened in sleepy Corinth!) and bullets put an end a very poorly developed character.

[DRW50]

Thank you (and can we talk some more in the Another Life thread? I would enjoy talking more about that show). Is any of her work as Ceara available on Youtube? Genie Francis to this day praises the writing (it's as good as today's Y&R writing!) and clearly loved playing Ceara, but I have never heard any great things about her work or that character. In fact SOD seemed to dislike the triangle with Jeremy and David, and disliked the incest story, calling it a retread, rushed, and criticizing the show for having Genie play herself as a child.

[EricMontreal22]

That Brooke recast was in an episode on the old wost site--I think I saved it to CD-Rom, I wonder if I can upload it. Anyway, she was pretty bad, but I guess it was just a temporary (long termporary) thing while Barr did that theatre tour.

The only stuff I've found online at all is wost had an episode from her Nov 1991 visit to Corinth on Loving with Jeremy (Kate locks them up in a shed so that they get over their fighting and make up). Like i said I liked her, but she was already on her way out it seemed by the time I really started watching--or at least they seemed to have run out of story for her--I remember the very end of the incest stuff and then her basically fading into the background, which seems odd for an actress like Genie.

[Khan]

First point: It's tough for me to be critical of Marj Dusay since I've also seen her at her best: as Myrna Clegg on CAPITOL, and as the second Pamela Capwell Conrad on SANTA BARBARA. That said, if she had to be on GUIDING LIGHT, I'd much rather she'd played, say, Alex's former sister-in-law, Baron Leo von Halkein's sister, who comes to Springfield and attempts to usurp her former nemesis' territory. If nothing else, it would've given the show an excuse to bring back Mary Kay Adams as India (along with a killer storyline where we'd learn Marj's character was actually India's biological mother).

Second point: Faye Dunaway over Joan Collins as nuAlex? Me likee.

Yes, FD can be a diva. I'm also told, however, she stuck up for another actor in a production who was being treated unfairly and that, say what you will about her, "but she is dedicated to finding truth in her character, and refuses to phone in her performance under any circumstances." (That, by the way, comes from a playwright and former professor of mine who has worked with her in the past.)

[Khan]

Pretty much...to all of that.

I, too, remember the hype surrounding Genie Francis and Ceara. Reportedly, both AMC and OLTL jockeyed for the opportunity, but AMC ultimately nabbed her, w/ one of the show's actors (Larkin Malloy, ex-Travis?) making the big announcement at that year's Daytime Emmys. (For some reason, I remember the cameraman getting a shot of GF, sitting in the audience and wearing what looked on my TV screen like a big hat and a black polka-dot dress...but I could be wrong on that, lol.)

IA, too, that the incest story was a huge blunder on AN's part and a complete one-eighty from how Ceara had been set up for the audience. (I actually remember, too, the moment that story kicked into high-gear, w/ Ceara getting all weepy over a phone call and then crying on Myrtle's shoulder at the boardinghouse, and wondering, "WTF was that?" Yes, R Sinclair, I was eleven and aware that something was off about that scene. Deal with it. LOL!)

However, in retrospect, I think two other factors went into that particular change. One was the fact that GF just wasn't capable (at that time) of playing a vixenish character w/o looking like a little girl playing dress-up. The other was probably that ABC, who later made it known to GF that she was worth more to them as Laura than as Ceara, didn't want "Laura"'s virginal image bespoiled in any way. GF encountered the same problem before at DAYS; they wanted to do something different for her, but between her abilities as an actress and the spectre of Luke & Laura hanging over everything, it simply was impossible.

Ironically, though, I've yet to hear anyone even suggest that Susan Lucci had difficulty sharing "her show" with someone as big in the industry as GF. Jane Elliot was on AMC, too, for awhile; but even though Cynthia and Erica didn't have anything to do with each other story-wise, you never heard stories about Lucci being threatened by her mere presence alone. In fact, the only prominent actor who had difficulty appearing on AMC w/ Lucci was Robin Strasser, and even Strasser will tell you that had more to do w/ no one understanding who her character, Dr. Christina Karras, really was or what she about and not because she couldn't get along w/ Lucci.

It just kinda makes you wonder what to really think about those stories w/ SuLu and SMG, doesn't it?

[ZoeTate]

OMG that Nina/Linda scene is one of the funniest things I've ever seen!!!!!!! I cannot imagine Taylor Miller and Amy Steel having that confrontation. Melissa Leo is SO BUTCH!!!

Maybe I'm prejudiced aganist Bennye, too, because she came off as such a dip in her interviews.

I loved Harriet Hall as Andrea on Somerset and she was matched well with David Grant(Ron Martin). I didn't like when Andrea fell for Joel Crothers (Hell - who wouldn't have, though?). She had that long, long hair. Strange to remember that Elissa Leeds was the first Brooke.

[DRW50]

Did Hall seem too old to you as Brooke?

I never knew another actress played Linda.

[Khan]

Amy Steel played Peggy, not Linda.