Llanview In The Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life to Live, by Jeff Giles out today

[Darn]

You're welcome.

It makes you wonder how they were able to make a show at all. It's no wonder every episode felt so choppy, there was no flow from scene to scene. Things were always just *happening*, constantly with no rhyme or reason. It was less about a cohesive story and more about keeping up with making an hour of television everyday. That's sad.

[SFK]

That BB quote is so on point, exactly what we were saying in the daily threads. It's a shame he never improved upon it though. Always sounded like he had a Hall's cough drop in one cheek, a Jell-O Jiggler in the other.

Kerwin's anecdote about the funeral is hilarious yet sad. The emphasis on cranking out a product doesn't sit right with me. Not that the majority of the cast didn't seem up for the challege, nor were they incapable of pulling it off. But it makes me reflect on how critical I was of the show and how I still tried to take it seriously when it was obvious that it no longer took itself all that seriously. I feel like I used to get worked up over a bunch of nothing, and I see a lot of that on the board now with all of PP's drama.

[SFK]

Precisely. I wish I could have been like, "Fine. It is what it is. This is what OLTL has decided to be now. If you're going to stay on for the ride, just accept it." I just couldn't accept what the show had become.

[marceline]

The thing that makes me sad about Kerwin's quote and many of the others is that these are people who really want(ed) to do good work. They want to give us their best and the process of making these shows just grinds away at them.

[Chris B]

Hilary B. Smith was really hard on herself. She wanted to quit several times and felt she couldn't make sense of what she was doing. One of the producers mentioned a time Erika Slezak also felt that she did a terrible job and was so exhausted and he was startled because she never reacted that way. I've always wanted to act on a soap, but it scares me to think of the way they were filming it. I get filming an episode out of sequence, but Ron Carlivati doesn't give his cast complete scripts so you don't know what's happening in that episode, let alone in general.

[SFK]

I think I would have a nervous breakdown. I worked on a primetime show once and saw the A.D. deny the lead a chance to do a second take all in the interest of time so this stuff doesn't surprise me, but the overall lack of interest or respect for what the serious actors are trying to contribute is upsetting.

I remember Forbes March talking about how they'd make up portions of the scripts "as they go", so to speak, and have these manic tapings where they'd argue about their characters and whatnot. It was all very surprising to me and I wondered if writers got their toes stepped on and if union rules were being bent if not broken.

[Vee]

Hillary wanted to be killed off during the JFP era. She hated the Sam Rappaport cabana affair. She thought it destroyed the character, and asked for Nora to die in childbirth. She was extremely candid about it in late 2002, said the character was unrecognizable post-Bo. Nora was rehabilitated a bit after that, then went into the Dena Higley abyss, and eventually it was Carlivati that ultimately fully restored Nora (IMO) - though she had some iffy stuff near the very end on ABC, it wasn't really that big a deal.

I'm too hung over this weekend to begin to deal with quoting anything from the book at the moment, but there is a passage in there from Peter Miner, one of the show's most revered directors, who said that after he retired he attended Phil Carey's funeral and spoke with Frank Valentini. FV told him, "you know, what you did (taking time out for mining character, working with actors in rehearsal, etc.) was great, but we just don't have time anymore." And that was unfortunately the truth, and the reality of the budget-cutting at Disney/ABC after the mid-'90s.

There's also a lot in the book about how both Tim Stickney and Erika Slezak worked a lot on their scripts, retooling their lines. Apparently Erika would work on others as well, and Jerry verDorn, Brian Kerwin, etc. would enjoy waiting around to see her changes. JVD says she should've been paid a fee.

I think the question of whether they took the product seriously or not is more nuanced - it's obvious some people didn't, and certainly the network didn't. I think a lot of the people at the show always did; their love for the work, the history, the character truth shines through in many of the actors and creative team's recollections, right down to the crew and directors. It's more a question of how they sometimes had to find just a kernel of truth, or history or really good work from the day to day grind near the end. There's a lot of talk about the small victories on a daily basis, just getting whatever moment you can that works for you or for the character. That's what they had to do. And that, I think, is really a reality no matter when they were making soap opera, ten, twenty, thirty years ago - it was always the daily grind, and the small victories. Sometimes the product still stands up today, sometimes it doesn't. On any soap. The question is whether enough people came to work that day caring, and I think most of the OLTL team did, even when there were truly terrible storylines (Frank Valentini apparently couldn't stand Dena Higley's work).

Whatever PP's overages, they did apparently give some more rehearsal time back to the show, and I thought it was clear the younger actors benefitted from that. Even Andrew Trischitta became half of a decent actor.

[John]

Thats why I am good having 20 or 30 episodes a season. If they shoot 6 weeks thats an episode taped a day and gives more time for the shooting and may give time for more takes and since the sets stay up they can almost shoot in sequence

[Soaplovers]

It's no wonder that most of the characters were acting more like themselves during the 1st season of OLTL, since they had more time to rehearse and I think they were given full scripts so they knew what was going on in each episodes so that the actor could better focus their acting to each situation as opposed to just picking an emotion.

If both shows resume filming, I would be happy to have 20 to 40 half hour episodes with a clear start, middle, and cliffhanger/ending.

[cassadine1991]

I would be happy just seeing the show again

[Antoyne]

For the first time ever I agree with you about something.

[Darn]

According to TDS he joined the script writing team at one point. Did anyone know this?

I noticed how many of the actors said how good the money was, even with the paycuts they money was still really good. That surprised me, I was under the impression that soap actors received pennies. I suppose they do compare to primetime and movie stars but still, they all said they made good money.

[Antoyne]

Does anyone know the average salary of a newbie on the shows?

[~bl~]

On the ABC version about 1,000 per episode to start if you are a contract player.

[Vee]

I knew he was in the ABC writing program and tweaked his dialogue. I didn't know he was a full-fledged staff writer, if indeed he was. I didn't realize until the book just how heavily he, Slezak, etc. changed up some of the scripts.

And yeah, it's good money.