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

[EricMontreal22]

Ellen does discuss selling a story between the time Doris and Joe Stuart were there (involving the affair with doctor whose actor she hated so much.)

I assume Jill is specifically talking about Pratt?

[Vee]

That's my assumption.

[CBRVA83]

I wondered what the cast and crew of OLTL said about JFP in the book? I think that most of those people hated her because of her reputation as a "show killer"! Can someone post some quotes from the book about the JFP era, please?

[Chris B]

I don't recall the book mentioning JFP or going into detail about her time on the show.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah, like I said that whole era between Malone leaving and Higley/Carlivati is largely skipped over, unfortunately.

[John]

HBS was talking JFP she is the one that broke up Bo Nora for Sam Rappaport

[EricMontreal22]

That's true--that was the story I'm sure she was referring to.

[John]

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2013/10/17/jeff-giles-one-life-to-live-oral-history-q-and-a/

[alexisfan07]

It's so cool that EW did a feature about the book, there was no real reason to. It's not like they have a big soap audience.

[EricMontreal22]

They're not too bad at covering, randomly, soap stuff online. It was a nice little interview (I wish it was a bit longer, but I am sure this is the only even somewhat mainstream coverage the book got.) I wish it got one of their tiny blurbs in the magazine, but with two pages or something devoted to books, that would never happen--I remember when they used to have a small weekly soap column ages back--now I thinkthe last soap article we got was that awful Death of Soaps one (although they did do a nice little write up in their "what to watch" column about Jeanne Cooper's tribute episode,to their credit.)

[Vee]

It seems as though some of the media coverage of Ms. Cooper's passing was more classy than the tribute onscreen.

[EricMontreal22]

The out of character actor episode was well done, I thought, but I'd agree with the actual scripted ones...

(And I appreciated that this article didn't say that OLTL online was canceled...)

[Lust4Life76]

Curious if anyone can explain what Ilene Kristen means by being "polite":

"...I knew kind of which storyline I was coming into, but I have my own acting style, and it isn’t polite -- and the show, at the time, was too polite. Too much of something I didn’t want to do.

I loved the show when Marilyn Chris was on it. Marilyn's one of my favorite actors. She's as real as real can be. Judith Light, Gerry Anthony. They were not polite actors. Marilyn Chris -- she’s a blood-and-guts kind of person. Real. I wanted to come on and do that -- not conform. Not that the show was bad, it was just too polite for me."

- Giles, Jeff (2013-09-09). Llanview in the Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life to Live (p. 253). . Kindle Edition.

I don't know I always thought Judith Light was blood-and-guts...but I don't understand how "polite" is being used by Ms. Kristen? Anyone?

[John]

I feel she means actors that arent afraid to get truthful, real & at times ugly to get the truth of the story

Some play it SAFE with their acting choices. They dont wanna get real and emotional, sometimes ugly. However, Ilene & the actors she mentioned arent afraid to go there. Plus Ilene was right, in 2001 when she came on, the majority of the acting company I would say(Sans Woods, Slezak & Smith) did play the safe and predictible choices

[Darn]

She played an unfunny drunk for 10 years. I don't know what she was talking about, they didn't even take the fact that she abused her kids seriously. It was all drinking and malapropisms.