Variety article on Rauch:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118063413.html?cmpid=RSS|News|TVNews

I found this part in particular fascinating. I had no idea.

In his 20s he served as music critic for an English-language edition of the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.

His OLTL was over the top, insane genius.

That era between Gottlieb and JFP is very confusing. It's almost as if ABC left the show on auto-pilot for a few years.

You very rarely hear anyone from fans to actors speak of that era.

That's what it felt like to watch. Some brief bits--like Labine's stuff (while it didn't work on OLTL it was a change), etc, stands out, but even Malone, once Griffith left as his co-HW and the Vicki DID story ended, ended that great term of his in a muddled mess. Really, the show just always felt kinda like that to me during that era.

The show fell apart after Eterna (I still think it was at its best with him and Peggy O'Shea at the helm, but once Schnessel left (or did he pass away?) it really bottomed out, despite some half hearted attempts by him to re-introduce social storylines.

I've seen some of his expensive looking Russian period serialized series on youtube, and would love to see more, actually.

Like Carl said, I always thought he'd just be around. RIP, I admit this has me a bit worried that we haven't heard from Agnes Nixon in a while... Since the Spring when she mentioned writing a book...

It was basically autopilot in that period. Coasting off Gottlieb and Malone's fumes.

Rauch is a very influential legend in the industry, that much can't be denied. And his work in the '70s was by all accounts incredible. Condolences to his loved ones.

This is the Russian soap (more like a telenovela) he was a producer on ten years back, rather inexplicably (did they seek him out because of his past work being popular there? It is true he wanted Texas to be a period piece so maybe always wanted to be involved in a period soap)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWMdNMjTJo4

Eterna was great, and a soap should be so lucky to have such a story today with a beginning, middle, and end. Villains, danger, an emotional crisis at center of it, it was solid storytelling with a movie serial/sci-fi skin. Same thing for the old west story. It was sci-fi meets western true, but it was solid story all the way through.

I know this was controversial, but I guess it seems oddly appropriate for the occasion. (Scroll to 9:56)

Wow - this is fantastic. I'Ve never seen it before.

This is the Russian soap (more like a telenovela) he was a producer on ten years back, rather inexplicably (did they seek him out because of his past work being popular there? It is true he wanted Texas to be a period piece so maybe always wanted to be involved in a period soap)

It was produced by SONY and they simply hired several people form the sioap biz they could rely on. This has happened before in other countries when they first start out with producing their own serials...

RIP, Paul Rauch and condolences to his family.

I didn't always ascribe to his vision or get some of his choices (including in the lighting department), but he had serial drama in his blood, lived and breathed it. More than that he had balls, was fiercely intelligent and cultivated and it showed. I admire him for that, greatly.

We Love Soaps obituary on Rauch:

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2012/12/paul-rauch-obituary.html

From the article:

In our 2011 interview, former ONE LIFE TO LIVE actor Thom Christopher may have said it best, "Paul Rauch wrote the book on daytime producing. I think the fact he thinks like an actor, he thinks like a director. Daytime is like doing an independent feature every day. What Paul did, and this is the key, is that Paul never got caught up in the process. He did the thing that gave him the best show. He combines the artistry, the creativity, the courage, and the technical process."

The show fell apart after Eterna (I still think it was at its best with him and Peggy O'Shea at the helm, but once Schnessel left (or did he pass away?) it really bottomed out, despite some half hearted attempts by him to re-introduce social storylines.

He passed away.

I was born in 1970 (December) and grew up watching the NBC shows my grandmother "made me watch" and Another World was her favorite and I watched it. This man did magic with that show in the late-1970's.

I later made the smart moove to leave NBC shows in 1987 but I have fond memories of the late-1970's stuff even though I am barely 40.

His work on AW really was one of the first times a producer seemed to really emphasize acting (not that there wasn't brilliant acting before, but I never got the sense an exec worried about it as much). Of course Lemay was (I think) already in place, and had a theatre background, so that played a part, but Rauch went out of his way to hire theatre actors, creating, as many said, little miniature plays each day. Yes, this meant that sometimes he seemed to pick on actors who he didn't think were strong enough, sometimes unfairly IMHO, but.

Gloria Monty often gets credited as the first powerhouse/authoritarian super-producer of daytime television, but I think that belongs to Rauch. He seemed to be the first daytime producer that was really involved and instrumental in daytime moving away from being a writer's medium to a producer's medium (which obviously had some dangerous consequences).