What character was a favorite of yours until the actor playing the role ruined it for you?

[P.J.]

Of characters that weren't recast...I have to agree with whoever said Beth Ehlers as Harley. I grew to love Harley as she grew from the bad girl to the take no bullshit woman. Then something just happened after they paired her with Gus/RPG that just turned her into a whiney hypocrite.

 

Others have been mentioned...Block as Craig, Howarth as Paul, KMH as Emily, Budig and St. Alban as Michelle, anyone other than Krista Tesearu as Mindy.

 

The one that hasn't is Beth Chamberlain as Beth on GL. She turned Beth from a sympathetic heroine into a needy, self-absorbed and brittle irritant taking on Beth's name.

 

[applcin]

I've mentioned this before but one of my teen soap crushes was Richard Muenz, RH's original Joe Novak. I hated when Roscoe Born took over the role (who I didn't find attractive at all and the character started to be written more slimy) and I never warmed up to him in anything after that. I even stopped watching OLTL a couple of times when they brought him back as Mitch (who they turned into some supernatural uber-villain)....and to top it off, he killed Jared. Nope, not a favorite of mine. Might be a perfectly nice man, I just didn't want to see him onscreen.

OLTL- I liked Ava Haddad's Cassie (#2). She was sweet and had class. Then Holly Gagnier took over and they wrote her slutty and going after her mother's boyfriend, Jon Russell. That may have had more to do with the writing change and a little bit of SORASing but there was also something rougher, more streetwise about Gagnier that put me off. Between that and some lapsed viewing periods, I never much cared for the character of Cassie afterwards.

Now...this one, I don't think that I would use as harsh a word as ruined because I do like the actor who took over but...Clint Ritchie's Clint Buchanan was my longtime favorite character on OLTL, especially during the 80s. And they pretty much created Clint B around Clint R. I missed him a lot when he left/retired. Jerry verDorn I liked from GL but he became an entirely different Clint. That whole city-fied cowboy thing was gone, he was basically a wealthy, Waspy businessman in a cowboy hat. It was kind of like watching Ross in cowboy boots. I was so ambivalent about his casting as Clint. On the one hand, I was happy that JvD had been given a core character to play after being wasted on GL, happy that the character of Clint would continue in the hands of a soap vet and a likeable actor. But no matter who would have played Clint, it wouldn't have been the same because of how intertwined CB was with CR's personality and presence, and that's what I missed.

[DRW50]

JvD was just never Clint to me, even when he tried to have a Southern accent (....). I think the worst was the "he's the new Asa!!!" era, which I would like to block out. He tried his best, I'll admit. Clint just couldn't be recast. I also never saw any chemistry with Erika Slezak. 

[titan1978]

Many of my issues stem from terrible writing.  But sometimes it is the actor.

 

AMC- I really used to enjoy Ryan Lavery.  But I grew to dispise him so much now when I see the actor in other things I skip them.

 

GH- Luke.  He was one of my favorites for a very long time.  But the show let him do things with Luke that he wanted to, and many characters around him suffered.  He can say all he wants what Luke would or would not do.  But he wants to reinvent Luke for all time with how Tony feels today, and I just don't miss him at all.

 

 

ATWT -Lindstrom as Craig killed any enjoyment I had for him.  Same with Howarth as Paul.  Just wrong.

 

Y&R- Shari Shattuck's Ashley.  I think only  Davidson returning saved her character from becoming forgotten.  The current Victoria is also such a non-entity compared with her original actor.

[SoapDope]

Y&R-Patty Williams Abbott. I LOVED Lilibet Stern in the role of Patty, but Andrea Evans and what's her face cat woman was a bust. 

 

Y&R -Diane Jenkins --Alex Donnelly was Diane, but the recasts ruined the character.

 

Y&R-Jack Abbott-- I loved Terry Lester's Jack....Peter Bergman.....meh

 

ATWT- Tom & Margo Hughes-- I loved Hilary B. Smith's Margo and Greg Marx's Tom. Ellen Dolan and Scott Holmes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

 

 

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

I agree with a lot of posters, especially the complaints about many ATWT recasts.

 

Hunt Block and Roger Howarth especially bothered me.

 

The next one I'm going to mention may sound mean but for me Finn Carter was the only Sierra I enjoyed. I loved Mary Beth Evans as Beth in Guiding Light but I found her somewhat lacking warmth and even came off a bit stilted in her portrayal of Sierra. Finn was more fiery, even when she was trying to tamp down Sierra's emotions.

 

I actually think, had Lucy Deakins stayed on as Lily Walsh, Dusty and Lily would've stayed together and we might have had a few more years with Brian Bloom. For that reason alone, I prefer Lucy.

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 I had no problems with Martha Byrne or Heather Rattray, I wouldn't have minded if ATWT completed their run with any of these actresses. No offense to Noelle, but she just wasn't Lily, so I guess she probably ruined the role for me.

 

Terry Lester probably would've never accepted the characterization of Jack that Peter Bergman has so longterm, Bergman has ruined Jack for me.

 

Now that I've mentioned Rattray, I wonder how she would've done as a Victoria Newman recast? She most certainly would've held her own against Victor and would've been taken seriously as a corporate titan but I'm not sure about her romantic possibilities on that show...would she just have been too tall for everyone?

[cassadine1991]

Mary Beth Evans was never Beth Raines on GL, that was Judi Evans. Mary Beth played Kayla and Katherine before joining ATWT

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Yikes you're right! Why do I get them mixed up. Loved Judi Evans. LOL. Hmm, I wonder... had she played a recast Sierra, would I have liked her?

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[DRW50]

Poor Judi having a guest stint as some redneck woman who kept Holden as her man after his latest and last "death."

 

Speaking of Heather Rattray - she was the only Lily I ever really liked. I just never felt much (other than annoyance - at best tolerance) with Byrne in the role. I always kind of wanted someone to give her a slap. 

[Soapsuds]

I floved her as Lily. She was the only Lily who I thought didn't need Holden to exist. I especially loved the whole Angel/Barbara stuff.

[Melroser]

Eileen Davidson as Kelly Capwell on SB. She should have been a different character. I never liked Kelly when she was in the role. 

[P.J.]

I was fine with MBE as a mature version of Sierra. She certainly stood her ground with Hunt Block.

 

But how could I have forgotten Grayson McCouch as Dusty. Just wrong on so many levels. And then the creepy assed romance with Lucy, FCOL. Other than thanking God he managed to impregnate Janet at the end, there was absolutely zero reason for Dusty to have come back.

[kalbir]

 

Shari Shattuck was all wrong for Ashley. She turned the character into a boring b---- and every pairing they tried with her tanked. IMO she was cast because she was married at the time to Ronn Moss.

 

Speaking of bad Y&R recasts, why hasn't anyone yet mentioned Eddie Winslow as Malcolm.

[DramatistDreamer]

Craig and Sierra were my favorite couple as a kid in the 80s, so I'm sensitive about them. I treated Block and Evans almost as two separate unrelated, almost brand new and unfamiliar characters, that just happened to go by the same name as characters I used to know.

 

I agree about McCouch as Dusty. Between saddling Jennifer with Craig (yuck!) and Lucy with grizzled nuDusty, you could tell ATWT was being headwritten by middle-aged men with young women fantasies.

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[Soapsuds]

MBE was a great Sierra recast. As for GM ...he was good as Dusty until he became a Sonny mobster wannabe.