SOW March 95 Headwriter Profiles-Reilly,Malone,McTavish etc

[Paul Raven]

[DRW50]

Thanks. I'd never seen that photo of those GL headwriters - I'd forgotten they were even GL's headwriters. I believe GL had about 20 headwriters between early 1994 and mid-1995. I'd never seen that photo of Juliet Law Packer.

[EricMontreal22]

I assume this is 95 and not 85 --Great to read

[Paul Raven]

Sorry,don't know why I put 85- old age I guess!

[juniorz1]

Thanks for posting! Great read. Funny how at that time, only the real daytime "names" had solid shows (B&B, DAYS, GH, Y&R, AMC) and the second tier "names" were the second tier shows creatively (LOV, AW, OLTL).

Meanwhile, the shows with the virtually unrecognizable head writers (ATWT &GL) were not themselves at all back then.

[DRW50]

I thought ATWT was really improving at that time, although not enough to stave off more firings.

[LeClerc]

Thank you for posting this. I love this kind of stuff!!

I'd always wondered who the heck Douglas Anderson was as he never had another soap credit before or after his GL run. Now I know.

JER wrote for AMC!?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It's nice to finally put a face to Juliet Law Packer, who was very underrated at ATWT IMO.

LOL, I thought the same about Douglas Anderson. I don't think he was at GL for more than 5 minutes. I always thought Nancy Williams Watt got a raw deal at GL, she knew the show and its history so well. She was given the HW (or co-HW) position at a bad time when JFP's ego was running rampant.

Interesting that Reilly was in contention to take over ATWT in '81. I wonder what happened there.

[Toups]

Lots of new information on Reilly! Yay! I didn't know he was a story consultant with PFS at Ryan's Hope or he developed a primetime for P&G. I surprised that he named PFS as his mentor - I thought for sure he would've said Bill Bell. And how ironic that Reilly studied socio anthropology! LOL

I see that ATWT had for different writing regimes in 1981 - crazy!!! I wonder kind of stories he gave P&G for him to become a contender for the HW job.

So were Douglas Anderson and NWW equal Co-Head Writers or was Nancy a second-tier HW because have a space between them:

January 27, 1995

Written By

Douglas Anderson

Nancy Williams Watt

Do you panic when you get stuck?

"Definitely. That's when you freak, and you've just got to come up with something and scramble for that next thing."

LMAO!! That is so Brad Bell. You can tell whenever that happens.

Man, how come SOD/SOW don't do articles like this anymore. The information on the writers is so detailed.

Thanks for posting, Paul!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It's funny that John Conboy was Reilly's introduction to daytime.

Patrick Mulcahey said that Reilly told him "hilarious stories" about Conboy.

The GL credits were a mess after the Curlee/Demorest era.

1994-1995 was a big mess, there must have been 10 different HW's that year, and the positioning in the credits changed a lot. I remember at one point, like 5 HW's were given top billing, I believe Sherri Anderson, Millee Taggart, and Leah Laiman were among them for a few months.

I don't think Douglas Anderson was there more than a few months.

[Toups]

I wish there was a biograhy on Reilly.

The credits I have is so unclear.

1994

Patrick Mulcahey, Nancy Williams Watt, Stephen Demorest, Millee Taggart, Sheri Anderson, Peggy Sloan

1994

Stephen Demorest

1994-1995

Douglas Anderson

What is that??? I can't believe there was no one to keep track of the credits back then.

[DRW50]

I believe Douglas Anderson came in around December 1994, as he was part of the fresh start which JFP touted to the press, along with burning down Fifth Street and having Justin Deas yell on a rooftop for two or three days. He must have been gone by summer 1995, as McTavish started around May or June.

[~bl~]

At one point on the listed GL credits, 5 different people were listed at the same time as the head writer. The staff was that messed up, so what they put is accurate.

[glatwt]

i strongly believe Anderson wasn't given a fair chance at GL. i actually liked him and his stories! dinah's return and her affair with roger, the introduction of annie and brent lawerence, lucy's rape, josh/annie, rick's return, eve's death, matt/vanessa affair revealed. he was just one of those writers P&G replaced as soon as McTavish came available thinking she would be a savior? well......

[Soaplovers]

An example of how come I think you should keep a head-writer on a show for at least one year minimum! You have to allow time for the incoming writer to resolve previous plot lines and seamlessly introduce their ideas. A year is enough time to allow this to happen. I'm sure if done all over, P & G might have opted to keep this writer on the show longer then a few months. Constant rotation of writers can make fixing a show next to impossible!