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

[~bl~]

Jimmy was interviewed, but the author had a technical problem and lost the audio.

[EricMontreal22]

I've been warned it may take 2 or so days for next day delivery because this is the edition that's printed on demand by Creativesomething or other--so they physically have o put together each order. (I assume that would till make it for your vacay...)

[Vee]

My only real beef with the Kindle Edition is no chapter stops have been coded in, though there are many chapters - you just have to read and read through or bookmark where you can. There's also no real ending page - the book kind of stops after the brief Prospect Park revival section, no usual back pages or whatever.

[EricMontreal22]

Ah I was wondering if that was just an issue with using the free Kindle reader--I found both of those aspects weird (as well as lack of page numbers--incidentally the print edition is some 300+ pages.) I went ahead and ordered a print edition, as I think it's a book I'd like to have next to my other fave soap books (yes, right beside All Her Children as well as 8 Years in ANother World, etc)--plus I don't mind supporting Giles on such a great, and rare, book. He himself hasn't even much watched in the past twenty years, and knows he'll make no real profit from it, but felt it was an important subject to document the way he did--which I agree with.

[allmc2008]

A little Off Topic but was Joseph Stuart a bad EP or not??? Wasn't he one of the best ones on TD?? How did he compare to Paul?

[John]

I have heard Mixed reviews on Him In the 1975 Tomorrow segments when he was EP of The doctors he seemed to have no idea about Soaps. Agnes & Mary Stuart looked like who the hell is this guy

[EricMontreal22]

Agnes Nixon chose him to be Loving's first EP, so there must have been something she liked about him...

[melador]

Just home from work and received the book in time for trip !!!

[EricMontreal22]

Excellent!

[All My Shadows]

I bought it and only intended to skim through some of it for now, but I ended up reading like 50% of it in one sitting and then skimming through the rest (stopping on a LOT of the different topics). One thing I'm interested in is how often we've misunderstood an actor or actress's dedication to their craft for "dedication to the show," and I mean this all across daytime.

The New York vs. Los Angeles thing is explained so well through the introduction of the Buchanans. We've all talked for years about the theater background of those 60s-70s soap stars, but it's very interesting to hear from the people who were there the effect expanding to an hour had on the show. I've always been under the impression that doing an hour was just "too much," which is why so many people left their shows, but now I see that it was more because they couldn't do other things and they couldn't spend the time they wanted to spend on developing the script.

I swear I'm not being messy when I say that we'd probably get a different portrait of Agnes from an AMC oral history. Many of the behind the scenes people at OLTL in the 1970s don't seem to hold that high of an opinion of her outside of her creativity.

This thing is extremely good, though. Just the number of people he talked to and the amount of information they were willing to share. I so, so wish Al Freeman Jr. could have been a part of this, as well as the early Dorians and Phil Carey.

[tina m]

Thank for posting about this book. Too bad it isn't on the B&N store so I can buy it for my nook. I think I will purchase a physical copy soon.

[Vee]

I think Sam Hall is just a curmudgeon in general - I take some of what he said re: Agnes with a grain of salt, and I go way back with him to Dark Shadows. But I do also think Agnes is, was and always has been a very skilled operator from the old Main Line. And I can't fault her for that, or judge her, really. The stuff from Don Wallace is also very interesting. I wish they'd been able to speak to Al Freeman and Doris Quinlan - I have no idea if Nancy Pinkerton is still kicking. Are Patricia Barry or Alice Hirson, the two Eileen Riley Siegels? Or Catherine Burns, the very first Cathy Craig, who went on to be so very good and Oscar-nominated for her role in Frank Perry's Last Summer that she outshone Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas and Bruce Davison?

What I was really into were people's testimonials about (as well as from) crew like Peter Miner - who also got his start at DS, and who everyone seems to have revered - and Alan Needleman, who refused to go to the new show, and about the late David Pressman. Everyone reveres Pressman, but sadly my only memory of him as a viewer was his cameo on the show in late 2003, when Malone wove him into the story as a performer, where he played a Shakespeare-quoting homeless person in Angel Square whom Antonio and the LPD were familiar with. IIRC, Antonio and Jessica uses his Shakespearean riddles to decipher the mystery behind Keri Reynolds's death (which, BTW, was an awful storyline). At the time as a young college kid I thought it was a pretentious touch and that Pressman wasn't much of an actor, but looking back now I can hardly begrudge them for doing that with such a beloved member of the company.

[cassadine1991]

How in depth did they go with the different eras (Rauch, Gottlieb, Phelps, etc.)

[All My Shadows]

The entire book is pretty in-depth, cassadine. It's 359 pages of virtually nothing but people talking, sharing memories, providing insight, etc. Giles provides some set-up here and there, and it's divided into extremely large sections, but other than that, it's just remembrances, and it's amazing.

Vee, Nancy Pinkerton died last year I believe (as did Claire Malis). Hirson and Pat Barry are still around.

I was wondering where I recognized Peter Miner's name from, and it's of course from DS. I love getting to know more about these people after only knowing them from seeing their names scroll by so many times in closing credits. Pressman, I believe, did one of those great TV Legends interviews. I did not realize he was 97 when he died, yikes. And he was directing OLTL up until 2003ish, I believe? So he was in his 80s regularly directing the show, and still doing a good job.

I find the whole "those black bitches" story to be weird. In 1983, between AMC and Loving, I doubt Agnes was invested enough to demand such a thing at an OLTL function. Again, not trying to be bitchy (as I often am for sh!ts and giggles in regards to the AMC/OLTL war), just trying to see it from that perspective.

And OMG, how refreshing to not see a chapter or two devoted to "Look at these awesome people who spent two seconds on our show." I love how Fillion, Light, and others are just rotated in and out of the narrative like everyone else.

[John]

The Kindle Version is over 6000 pages I guess or maybe its spilit up by paragraphs