Y&R: TV Guide interview with Jill Farren Phelps

[DeliaIrisFan]

Y&R is the one long-running show (well I guess Y&R and B&B both are, now that the latter has hit its 25-year anniversary) that I have no investment in, but this is all extremely fascinating, even to me.

There's some truth in this, but I would argue that it's not like Hillary Clinton being called a "feminazi" by sexist, loathsome male pundit...JFP is criticized by (presumably mostly female) viewers, for her participation in things that are pretty anti-women. She's helped purge more than her share of soaps of some actresses of a certain age. As unfair as it is, she's probably held to a higher standard. Also, I think that maybe, in the absence of the kinds of classic soap villainesses we once loved to hate, JFP provides a real-life substitute: She's done some really nasty things, but never quite to the point of being irredeemable. She's a soap opera diva - who should have been played by Beverlee McKinsey, Robin Strasser, etc. For example, this quote...you don't hear comebacks like this on daytime anymore, and it's a damn shame:

Whereas if someone like Paul Rauch (whom Logan interestingly defends, or used to) were a soap opera character, he would have to be killed off in a whodunit after a few months (or become the show's misogynist leading man, in today's day and age). The sexual harassment allegations, having soaps' first black matriarch fired by the parking attendant and subsequently turning the show that had paved the way for diversity in daytime into a nearly all-white ensemble, etc. Dare I say JFP's never done anything quite so evil? The closest she's come was probably that Anna Lee thing, but even then, I don't think you can say that JFP is personally responsible in any way for her death, as was suggested earlier in this thread. Speaking of which...

I would argue it was probably worth more to have Anna Lee on contract never to be seen, than to have the cast members she probably used that money to hire on 4 days a week. She was a bona fide legend... If JFP had more perspective, she might appreciate the irony that AL had 100 times the Hollywood pedigree that even James Franco does.

Except, she has proven herself capable of that. Bringing Michael Zaslow back to OLTL and incorporating his illness into the story was - going back to my earlier metaphor - the kind of thing a high-powered soap diva would have done to throw the audience completely through a loop. And yes, he was a FOJ whereas Anna Lee was not, but still, even at the time, the vast majority of her friends who were scrounging for work would have rationalized her turning her back on him and been happy to sing her praises if she hired them. But she did the decent thing, at no real benefit to herself (except that it was probably the best work she produced at OLTL)...even if it was her predecessors' idea but couldn't legally be done until he was free from him GL contract. Again, she's not a saint, but I actually think she's human, and like most of us, she can do the right thing or the wrong thing, sometimes for arbitrary reasons.

Yeah, my assumption is JFP was distancing herself from the way in whcih Frankie was killed, more than anything else...which, yes, was offensive. I don't think JFP necessarily had any desire to see such an ugly end to the character, although I think she has a track record of recognizing and seizing upon the (short-term) ratings benefit of exploitative violence against women. I would agree that dePriest had more of a history of going out of her way to play up those kind of stories/scenes for shock value, though. Maureen's death was not inherently gruesome and the story idea itself was kind of brilliant, especially since it was no doubt formulated before other dynamic actresses like Beverlee McKinsey, Kimberly Simms, etc. abruptly exited. The show didn't follow through on half of the potential of Maureen's death, and there was no sufficient plan to fill the particular void Maureen's death would have left on the show, even had it not coincided with the exits of those other strong female characters. But all things being equal, it wasn't nearly as disgusting/pointlesss/stupid as Frankie's.

I would also say that it took a lot of missteps that predated JFP for either Frankie or Maureen to come anywhere near being the moral centers of their respective shows, but JFP, et al tinkered with both shows that were already structurally vulnerable. In the process, she sent them both down very dark and ugly paths that clearly a lot of viewers didn't want to go along for.

There are big differences between JFP's situation and that of primetime producers like Bochco. JFP has not been in a position to create new shows centered around actors she knows and trusts; she has grafted them onto existing shows, always accompanied by cuts to the existing cast. Worse, she came up with ridiculous plot devices in an effort to make it next to impossible to extricate her friends (except, little did she know, soaps would get increasingly more unrealistic and it would prove easy enough to come up with even more absurd plot twists to undo much of what she had done). At OLTL in particular, just about every Rappaport had a long-lost parent or a scandalously illegitimate child conceived via plot devices that were insulting to viewer intelligence. When it's so obvious that a story was designed solely to benefit a backstage agenda, I think it makes it that much harder to invest.

And, dare I say that primetime has certain advantages to daytime that make it easier to create successful new characters for proven talent to play? Even in the glory days of decades past, daytime had comparatively little time for rehearsal and directorial input. Established veterans had the advantage of playing characters they knew like the back of their hands, often opposite other actors they'd had working relationships with for decades, so they could do new things with existing characters and avoid having to start from square one. But even by the time JFP really started running amok with hiring her friends (OLTL, again, being the most obvious example), budgets were already shrinking, rehearsal time was already being scaled back, and network interference was starting to increase the number of last-minute rewrites.

Under those circumstances, if you drop someone like Kale Browne - who did good work as an affable patriarch on AW, with an ensemble he knew well - into a completely new cast, playing a character developed under a less than stable backstage writing regime, then at best the end result is going to be a crap shoot. When you add in implausible plot devices designed to give those friends staying power, it's an even harder sell. Steven Bochco did not create NYPD Blue to give Jimmy Smits lifetime job security, and Calista Flockhart has yet to hop from show to show playing one character, trying to figure out if her long lost daughter is Emily van Camp on Revenge or the teen daughter on Modern Family or...

Except, in all likelihood, this is likely the last laugh for JFP, based on process of elimination...unless DOOL somehow outlasts Y&R (or JFP's stint at Y&R, anyway) and hires JFP to spearhead its ten zillionth "renaissance," there is nowhere else left for her to go. I hope she takes that to heart, but even so, I don't know that she has been afforded the resources or the creative license to really turn this - or any - show around meaningfully. Like any soap opera diva, though, JFP is likely to be most interesting when between a rock and a hard place.

[DRW50]

I agree with you about the FOJ concept. It's highly debateable whether her favorite actors are talented or suited to the shows, and even if they are talented, the writing can crush them (Marcy Walker on GL). I didn't see any great talent from Kale Browne or Tim Gibbs on AW and I saw even less on OLTL.

I thought the interview was a fun read and her blunt one-liners were great, but I wish this had been done with someone else. Michael Logan is basically a less famewhorish Branco and those questions were wrapped in cotton candy.

[Susan Hunter]

I don't think the Anna Lee thing was evil. That was a corporate business decision pure and simple and different in my mind than the Frances Reid thing. Corday is a family owned company, Frances Reid had been on Days since episode #1. The relationship between Ken Corday and Frances Reid was probably much different than a relationship by some ABC corporate number cruncher looking at the books and wondering why a woman was getting paid for doing nothing. In the end, Jill has to report to someone to. No one is completely autonomous.

[JackPeyton]

I love her. Seriously.

[SFK]

I do like how she embraced and repeatedly used the term "FOJ".

[DRW50]

It reminds me of when Bob Woods went to the fan luncheon wearing the FOJ button, which always cracks me up, since she destroyed his character.

[Mitch]

I work with quite a few elderly people and dealing with something like this is one of the hardest things to deal with. I don't know the specifics, (but I did see a episode where the poor woman could hardly hold her head up) but sometimes people quite naturally hang on to work as long as they can, well point the time that others might think they need to retire. Sometimes this is an ability issue (not able to learn new procedures, use new technology) sometimes this is a saftey issue (it is dangerous to the person themselves to keep coming in, etc.)

I would think that a woman in AL's condition could produce logistical issues for a show, especially one on a tighter budget. From getting her safely in and out of the studio and keeping her comfortable while there, dealing with the long hours, and dealing with someone memorizing their lines etc (I am not casting any doubt on AL here, I just know that this can be a problem.) Its hard to tell someone that they can't work anymore, but you have to try to do it with as much sensitivity and respect as you can, while still making sure that the organization is protected. Phelps number one concern is producing a show that makes money, not making sure that one actor feels needed...sounds cold but its the truth.

And this is from someoe who has cursed Phelps existence ever since she unleashed the dreaded monster of Justin Deas as Buzz Cooper on MY show, and I to watch his over acting mug, spitting and boogers flying until the last day of the show, so I am not a JPL apologist.

[EastMA2]

During the end of Anna Lee's time on GH, I got the feeling that they had even had her say her lines, or struggle to say her lines, without others in the room and they just inserted her lines into the final edited product. It was like they didn't want to waste several actors time while Anna struggled to say her one line on cue. I think that her son Jeff Byron should be ashamed of himself for allowing his mother to be seen in that condition on televsion. She basically had to be wheeled in on a bed and obviously couldn't remember more than a few words at a time. Anna may have wanted to work, but realistically, she wasn't able to. As said above it is a sensitive issue. Rather than go on a tirade about how losing her job on GH killed Anna, her son should not have allowed his mother to be in that situation where she was basically bedridden and struggled to say even a few words.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Her son had no shame blaming the show for her death and his mother's finances.

It was up to him and his mother to mange their finances properly, which apparently, didn't happen. That was not JFP, GH, or ABC's problem.

[frequentsoapfan]

Honestly in any other business they would've fired her and most would not really care. Happens all the time in retail. I worked with alot of people in their 50s/60 and up and there are certain older sales associates that they want gone. One woman rushed to getback to work after having surgery because she was afraid to lose her job. It's sad but that's how it is.

[UKBoi]

I hope she updates the opening credits...

[sjbeutel]

I thought somewhere in 1996 or 1997, JFP gave an interview stating that NBC wanted here at Another World and she agreed to it as well as P&G. She pointed out in the interview that their was a struggle between NBC and P&G over the direction of the show and not matter what she did, there would be no pleasing of either side. That led to her resignation as EP of Another World and from there the nail was in the coffin for the show. She did bring the demographics up for the show but other then that it seemeed that it should turned into a show more like Days at the time and not staying true to the show original identity. I have the book on the history of Another World and it fansacting to read even 13 years later after the show was canceled and how it went through many changes in its run.

[Khan]

This isn't the first time I've read about clashes between P&G and NBC over the direction of ANOTHER WORLD. I'm curious, though, as to what or how P&G envisioned AW to be. It's clear NBC wanted another DAYS, but what did P&G want?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

AW struggled to find a true identity after the Lemay years, which is partly why it was such a hotbed for constant regime changes (even before they became the norm for every show in daytime).

I think the show had such a strong affiliation and and identity with Lemay's writing that it became hard to break away from when various regimes came in and started to tinker with the mechanics of the show and characters. Much like what we've seen with post-Bill Bell Y&R.

[SFK]

I think she will, though that's not a first priority. I have a feeling folks will be pleased as long as she doesn't go for a title card.

Do you all remember when Anna Lee's house caught on fire in the late '90s and her neighbor had to save her? The photos were in SOD. Her arm was all bandaged.