DAYS/YR/GH: Producer H. Wesley Kenney passes away at 89

[titan1978]

I liked Kenney on GH. He brought back Tom Hardy as an adult doctor, and introduced Simone and that story.

Tania died and Tony ended up with Lucy Coe, and the beginning of the Tony Bobbie relationship was forming. I also used to enjoy Lucy's aunt Charlene plotting with and against her during this time on the show.

The fantastic Grant Putnam kidnapping Anna storyline happened during his run on the show, which led directly to Duke ending up in the Jerome mob family. Olivia Jerome started then, as did her obsession with Duke and hatred of Anna.

Cheryl arrived, and ended up with Robert, and ultimately was Lucas's birth mother.

I also liked Colton and Felicia, which started during Kenney's run on the show as Jack Wagner left when his contract was up.

I really enjoyed his era of the show, but he didn't have the strongest of writing teams, and his ratings were not what Monty left at, nor could he get the top spot back. Hardy was awful, and Monty round two was dreadful.

[BetterForgotten]

GH had a merry-go-round of HW's throughout the 80's. Even when the show was widely popular and #1, I don't think it was ever viewed to be creatively stable or amazingly consistent in terms of day to day quality.

The instability was likely why is fell from #1, and why Y&R and AMC surpassed it in the ratings for much of the very late 80's and early 90's.

[Paul Raven]

How much influence/input Kenney had with Bill Bell would be interesting to know.

Kenney appointed Ann Marcus as GH headwriter as they had worked together on Days. Her time on the show was not regarded as good as what had gone before.

Taking on GH after Monty was a herculean task as it seemed Gloria was defacto headwriter and even her vision was becoming murky toward the end of her run.

Kenney/Marcus introduced the short term storyline idea with Herbert Quartermaine /Autumn Clayton but it was not a success and the concept was dropped.

[slick jones]

That Autumn story was a mess!

I remember reading many interviews w/ Kenney over the years. May he rest in peace.

[DRW50]

I remember someone writing into SOD talking about how Kenney made all the women weak. I can't imagine how they'd feel about the show now...

[titan1978]

That was one thing with Monty. The women were rarely weak, and her audience certainly responded to that. Also GH under her tenure didn't rape all the female leads. Except her famous "seduction" with Laura, I can't think of another woman that was raped on Monty's show. Which is rare when you consider how many soap women have been the victim of rape, and many of them in terrible storylines surrounding it.

[BetterForgotten]

Actually, I don't even know if strong women is one of the first things that come to my mind when I think of Gloria Monty. For the most part, I don't generally find her GH era to be very character based. It seemed filled with caricatures, which worked for a time, but then eventually became a weakness.

[ghfan89]

I might be in the minority, but I thought Anna was better written under Hardy's tenure than Kenney's. I liked that Hardy brought back Anna's dark past to the forefront and introduced Faison. Hardy made a good point in an interview when he took over GH about how long term characters sometimes loose their original edges or personalities and all become alike after awhile.

[ghfan89]

Kenney said in his TV Legends interview that he had more of a writing role on GH compared to Y&R. He also said he was happier at Y&R than he was at GH and only left because they doubled his salary. Said the cast and crew had a very defensive attitude, as a result of working with Monty, and she wouldn't allow the actors and writers to communicate and had tape on the floor that actors couldn't cross in the writers room.

[John]

http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/h-wesley-kenney#

[BetterForgotten]

I liked how he talked about John Conboy trying to f.uck over Bill Bell. I also liked that he appeared to challenge Bell in many ways (as he mentioned they often battled over story at Y&R), which the other producers dared not do since it was Bell's show after all. But they seemed to have a mutual respect for one another despite their differences. I had never heard the story about his letter to Bell after he had left Y&R and the industry and how producing Y&R were the happiest years in his TV professional life.

[amybrickwallace]

First of all, RIP to a man who seemed so loved by his family, friends and colleagues. My heart and prayers go out to his wife Heather, and their children and grandchildren.

Those Emmy Legends interviews with Mr. Kenney were great and shed so much light on both his daytime and primetime work. He seemed to really love the soap genre and character-driven stories.

I read a story about him in Gerry Waggett's DAYS trivia book that I found so true to life. Throughout his life, his name was often misspelled as "Kenny". One day he drove into his parking space at the studio and saw that his nameplate had been spelled "Kenny". Having been tired of having it misspelled his entire life, he threatened that if the nameplate wasn't corrected he would drive off the lot at the end of that workday and never come back. Having both my own first and last names misspelled constantly over the years, I could truly relate!!

[Sindacco]

Deidre Hall posted about Wes today.

https://www.facebook.com/DeidreHallFanPage/posts/913954718635607