James DePaiva interview SPW April 95

[Paul Raven]

[DRW50]

No mention of Fiona - odd.

It seems like stories which may have challenged JdP were also big pieces of garbage. The gambling story was panned as one of the worst of the year by SOD - and from what I've seen of it, it was rushed and had no real stakes. Kassie and JdP also had little chemistry. The only honest outcome should have been breaking Luna and Max up for good, instead of saddling them with twins.

Later attempts to take Max back to the rascal, or whatever, were soul-sucking and show-killing and made the character hated by many fans.

[quartermainefan]

He came across like a real jerk in that article. Completely unlikable.

[EricMontreal22]

That's his shtick. Not to defend it but...

[SFK]

Did Marlena/Connie conduct this interview? The tone of the Gottlieb stuff had me wondering so.

I want to hear the full story from various actors on the Gottlieb situation. "Notoriously unpopular", wow. But was it just Rauch's stars who felt this way?

[Paul Raven]

Robert Rorke conducted the interview.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I'm surprised Max lasted as long as he did, because by 1995, was this character even vital anymore?

I guess the Q ratings really stood for something back then...

[MissLlanviewPA]

That was literally the first thing I thought (Shocking, I know ).

I don't think it's anything personal on his part, though. Based on all the pictures I saw of them both after she left the first time (she actually came to a few OLTL fan luncheons in the late 90s), and the second time (there's a picture of them together at the wrap party on Fiona's Facebook page), I don't think there's but good feelings between the two of them.

Needless to say, that makes me very happy .

I want to think not mentioning Gabrielle had to do with Fiona being on GL by then--but this was actually after she left the first time.

I have noticed that JDP didn't mention her name when asked Max's true love in that 2009 WLS interview--not that that means he doesn't think so. He was asked about the relationship in the OLTL tribute magazine, though, so he talked about it then.

Anyway, yeah, JDP will always give an honest interview, but this may have been his most honest interview--I think he and Misty Rowe may have been in the process of their divorce at the time, though, and maybe that made him extra tense here (especially if it involved custody of their daughter).

That, and maybe trying to hide any possible romantic relationship with Kassie when she showed up in his dressing room (she was divorcing her husband at the time as well).

Just a guess, though.

ETA: From the Fiona Fest site:

There's an SOU article with her from December 1994 (when she left GL the first time), called "Restless Rumors, Romantic Roads", which included this:

On The Rumor Of An Affair with Ex-Co-Star James DePaiva (Max, OLTL):

"DePaiva? Oh I like that rumor. Can we keep that one going? That's a yummy one. I'm going to have to tell Jim about that, but he probably knows. When you next see Jim, you tell him I love that rumor. I'm hanging on to that rumor."

Granted, she's probably playing along (ditto on rumors she was having an affair with Dennis Parlato), but who knows!

[MissLlanviewPA]

One other thing:

When JDP said in particular that "Blair is Max's type of woman" (on some level, yes she is--but Gabrielle is REALLY Max's type of woman, even if he wouldn't admit it very often!), it kind of made me wonder if it was also his own way of saying that Kassie is James' type of woman.

Of course, I'm focusing far too much on subtext here .

[Carolyn1980]

Oh, God. He is such an arrogant prick, lol.

Gottlieb's OLTL was too good to be called a "soap opera."

[Vee]

JdP's most recent interviews, with WLS, are equally candid but much more world-weary and self-deprecating. He's said he picked a lot of fights and made a lot of drama he didn't have to make. He's admitted to being a difficult person and I think it's enough that he knows it and has, I think, matured a lot with age. I certainly never saw his anger onscreen in the mid-90s with Susan Batten. They just enchanted me as a kid.

A lot of people at the show really disliked Gottlieb, professionally and personally. IIRC, Erika Slezak has gone out of her way multiple times to say that she disliked the woman both as an executive and as a person. And I understand why they felt that way, but I don't think the quality of the product can be denied.

I think Gottlieb knew what she wanted, knew how to do it and didn't care about the moving parts or the intricacies of the genre and the working industry. And for better or worse, for good feeling or ill, I think she mostly did it very, very, very well. OLTL never reached that height of storytelling and technical quality again. I'm not sure any American soap opera has. When it was at its best, it rivaled primetime or film in terms of post-production alone.

[Dale]

It's funny how different people perceive the same thing - I actually came away with a lot of respect for DePaiva when I read that interview way back in '95. There is NO way that anyone would be brave (or stupid!) enough to give an interview like that today. Like him or not, DePaiva gave a shockingly honest interview based on his perceptions. That interview was "sick and destructive" but I could NOT turn my head away!

[DRW50]

From his point of view I can see why he disliked her material. Most of Max/Luna was about Luna. Men like what he wanted Max to be weren't around at that time on the show. The problem is that no one at OLTL was able to write the Max he wanted. I know some people liked it but I thought the "bad" Max material he had from 98-00 was pure hell, and I could swear even he said in some interview he thought it was done to make him unpopular with viewers.

I did kind of laugh at how he called Andrea the ultimate Tina even though Krista was still on the show at the time. I guess Tina was such an afterthought by then no one bothered to care.

I think this was also the era when JdP and Tim Stickney were outspoken online about some of the material. I guess ABC eventually clamped down.

[Vee]

No, I think TDS started popping up around 1998 and 1999, during the advent of Kale Browne. JdP's online hijinks, I think, meandered around between late '94 and sometimes in '98 or '99.

Yes, JdP did say in a recent interview that JFP told him she would destroy his character, and she did exactly that beginning in 1998. It was absolutely horrible for the character. I don't think the audience had ever despised Max like they did from '98 to early 2001, before or after.

[DRW50]

That makes more sense, as TDS was still a newcomer in 1995.

I wonder if they should have just sent Max and Luna to North Carolina when Susan said she was leaving.