Jump to content

Characters that survived multiple recasts


Recommended Posts

  • Members

With the latest Y&R recast announcement (see the spoiler thread) Billy was mentioned as having been recast multiple times and still there on the front burner.  So I started thinking about recasted characters that were still vital, even if I did not personally like the portrayer anymore.

 

Margo Hughes- ATWT.  I’ve seen all four women and while I enjoyed Dolan at times, she’s not Margaret Colin or Hillary B Smith. But the character was still popular with Dolan.  Tom Hughes could just as easily be here too.  What couple survived as many recasts and still remained popular?

 

Carly-GH.  Again, four actresses, and the character has been a lead on the show since her arrival, and THE leading woman for almost 20 years.  And at times I have hated her, but I can’t deny three of the four actresses have been very successful as the character.

 

Any others anyone can think of?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 38
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

Billie on Days more or less. I was a fan of Krista Allen’s Billie, and she was the only one of the Billies that realistically looked like Koslow’s Kate’s kid. I wasn’t big fan of Pinson’s Billie but I remember her having some fans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Going back quite a ways, but almost any of the Capwells on Santa Barbara. C.C. had like two or three actors before Jed Allan. Mason was played by three different actors. Kelly was played by four actresses. And even Ted was recast once. Eden was the only one never recast. (Technically, Judith McConnell was Sophia #2, although the only one of the two to actually play Sophia since Rosemary Forsyth [I think she was #1] was still in disguise as other people before the Sophia reveal.)

 

Come to think of it, Gina was played by two actresses. And Santana, god, I lost count.

 

Hell, just say almost the entire show of SB survived recasts galore!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I am very anti-recast, although I understand their necessity for soaps because they are perpetual and have larger ensembles. It’s usually fine if there is behind-the-scenes continuity to maintain the general vision of a character, but too often new regimes recast and mold characters to fit agendas. Joey and Kevin on OLTL just didn’t really feel like they had any specificity as characters after the third or fourth change in actor. Happy-go-lucky Kevin Stapleton to gruff and hard-edged Tim Gibbs to suave and urbane Dan Gauthier. It didn’t make sense, and it felt like they just needed a male in a general age range more than they needed “Kevin Buchanan.”

 

I do agree with Margo, although Colin, HBS, and Dolan all had different interpretations of the character. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Well, in a way, some were unavoidable as the Capwells were the main family. And since a large part of the show was C.C. versus son Mason, well, you can't have that conflict without those characters, so their recasts were necessary.

 

Kelly I think was also necessary as she carried some of the weight besides Eden in terms of the daughters.

 

I don't think Ted was ever vital, though, to be honest.

 

Kelly was doing very well under Carrington Garland; the final recast with miscast Eileen Davidson was, to me, about scoring a name than someone right for the role. CG was perfect. Why the Dobsons made that mistake, I'll never understand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Oddly... I liked everyone but Byrne (who seemed incapable of maturing Lily.. her coming back eventually caused Lily to regress from the maturity/edge Rattray brought to the part)... and I think Beck would have worked better had she been cast back in the late 80s/early 90s then near the end of the show's run.  I did like that her Lily was more calm then shrill.

 

 

Ashley Abbott


Eileen Davidson

Brenda Epperson (my personal favorite)

Shari Stattock (she had a lot of edge and intensity.. no way I could have see her Ashley having a nervous breakdown twice in the 80s.. she was too strong willed).

 

Jill Abbott

 

Brenda Dickson

Bond Gideon

Deborah Adair (pretty Jill)

Jess Walton 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Thorne B&B

Clayton Norcross

Jeff Trachta

Winsor Harmon

Ingo Rademacher

 

Sharon Y&R

Monica Potter

Heidi Mark

Sharon Case

 

Phyllis Y&R

Michelle Stafford

Sandra Nelson

Michelle Stafford

Gina Tognoni

 

Abby Y&R

Darcy Rose Byrnes

Hayley Erin

Emme Rylan

Melissa Ordway

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I don't know if this actually qualifies, but what about Patti on SFT?  There were sooooo many who played that role.  I think even I might have played her for a minute.

 

Although I'm sure Deas did everything he could to sabotage Tom's relationship with HBS' Margo since his then-girlfriend was no longer playing the role, I think he and HBS worked for the same reason he and Colin had worked.  They shouldn't have made ANY sense together, as a couple; and yet, they kinda did.

 

In fact, I'd go so far as to say HBS didn't really have trouble generating chemistry with ANY of her on-screen partners.  Deas, Marx, Holmes, Stephen Burleigh (on THE DOCTORS), Robert S. Woods, even Larry Lay and wooden Ty Treadway looked REALLY good when paired with her.  The only exception, IMO, would be Kale Browne, and that's due to his being, well, Kale Browne.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • Please register in order to view this content

    • Well now we had Ashley's reaction-and weren't we all gasping when she appeared to hate it-but she was just joking!! She loved it. Now we have to see Abby's reaction, and maybe Mamie could come back to say she loves it. How about Jill via Zoom giving her opinion (she'll love it) and bring in a day player to play Mrs Martinez to say she loves it also... I feel bad to keep dumping on this show (not really) but when the choices they make are so inane, it's the only entertainment value the show has. Let's unpack the Nikki birthday story. So Claire wants to throw her Nana a birthday bash as away of endearing Kyle to Victor. Don't quite get the logic there,but OK. She hires a party planner who makes ridiculous suggestions. Slightly annoyed that Y&R are hiring someone for this role for 5 episodes when we never see doctors, co- workers etc. But OK to that to. With all the talk we are expecting something special. What we get is the Jazz Lounge hideously decorated with some ugly tablecloths and a few tacky decorations. They needed a planner for this? Then the guest list consists of family members (no grandchildren)and a few others. Hardly a party. As usual the costuming is pretty awful. A red and black theme ? And our guest of honor is sporting a do that looks like a cross between Cameron Diaz in Something about Mary and Marie from Roxette. They should have had an intimate dinner and ditched all the fanfare. Would have been way more believable.
    • Please register in order to view this content

    • Her accent sounds horrible and doesn't fit in line with the character or the dialogue. I was just messing around on YouTube and perusing early Tad and Dixie videos. Notably, Dixie, a resident of Pigeon Hollow, West Virginia, has no discernible accent. i have no idea why she would add a defunct accent to this character now. I want to do an honest survey here. I watch BTG every day and I love it. It's not perfect, but I find it 99% entertaining. For those that find fault with it - what is actually bothering you? I'm not going to argue at all, or disagree with you. I just want to know what others are seeing that I'm not.
    • It's a choice and today, she made it more British than ever before. It's almost like she's making Pamela act like how she thinks she should be acting.
    • I cannot believe there is a whole storyline about the Abbott house renovation. They really are grasping over at Y&R. I don’t see a big difference in the set. It is refreshed. Why make a storyline out of it? 
    • Cady is using what sounds like a transatlantic accent which is so odd these days. Sharon's hostility is entertaining already. That look she gave Anita when she opened the door was pure attitude.
    • Glad you agree about Chandler’s smirking. It’s the reason I criticize him. He hasn’t grown as an actor, unfortunately. I don’t fawn over him because of his looks. I wish he’d never appear until he loses his smirking style of acting.  Dee is doing a great job but yes, the story with the bandages isn’t the best. I get it- Drake wasn’t available and its a throwback to how John came to Salem, but it’s tough to get into the scenes when we know it’s not Drake under the bandages. 
    • From that same channel, Anything For Love, which failed to make NBC's 1985-86 schedule. With all due respect to Lauren Tewes and Vicki Lawrence, that this was under consideration seems less about their star power and/or chemistry and more that NBC wanted its own Kate & Allie. Still, kudos to Lauren for being rehabilitated enough in one year to already go on the comeback trail.

      Please register in order to view this content

       
    • Some of my first memories of GL are Reva's last episodes before she "died." As a kid, those moments were extremely dramatic, and it did make the character a bit of a legend in my mind, even though the show quickly moved on, due to the departure of Robert Newman.  Due to this, I was never really upset when Reva came back. I think if the show had been in better shape, I might have been, but at the time, if I felt like anyone was eating up the show, it was Dinah. I would have taken Reva any day, even though it was clear even then that the show did not really know how to use her, saddling her with the busted Alan pairing, then at Fifth Street, and the stalled-out reunion with Josh. I got the sense the show didn't really know what tone to take with Reva and maybe even resented her a little. I missed her relationship with Sarah, and I knew Reva wasn't what she could have been. Once Rauch arrived, he put the pedal to the medal with Reva. She was centered, whereas under Laibson she had been a "big" name awkwardly fit into the canvas. She also became even more generic, and after the initial exciting Annie vs Reva tangles, the show fell into a long list of iffy story ideas that were clearly just there to keep her in story rather than benefiting the character (the island, the island hunk, the clone, San Cristobel, Jeva breakup #40, a talk show, blindness, time travel, stalking, etc.) But I never felt like Kim lost her step, and unlike Beth Ehlers, I never felt like Kim herself lost her spark in dreary material. I don't think I disliked Reva even then nor did I feel like there were times she was suffocating other characters. I think this is, again, more down to the rest of the show by this point - it was much more superficial than the GL I had started watching. Much duller. If Vanessa and Holly had been in their best years when Reva had returned, if Bev's Alex had still been around, if a new generation of compelling and complicated heroines or anti-heroines on par with Blake, Harley, even Eleni in the early '90s had been around, I would have been more annoyed at Reva's presence. But they weren't, and the few newer young characters I did connect with, like Drew, certainly had their share of story. There were reports of rivalries with rising names like Cynthia Watros, but it was clear Watros was not going to stay even if she and Kim had been BFF, which meant I never blamed Kim for that loss of dynamism in the cast.  So Reva never really bothered me. However, I do get annoyed at the narrative of Zimmer the brave truthteller, Zimmer holding the show together, Zimmer as the show's face, and so forth. She was certainly a key part of GL's last years, she's a tough person who is willing to admit flaws, she always gave everything to her work, she had a legion of devoted fans. Reva just was never a character who brought me that level of love or hate. And in the end I don't think her contributions to the show, good or bad, were ever as meaningful as they are meant to be. It's just that history remembers the personalities, especially with a juicy memoir. I think that her influence is overhyped, and so are her instincts for the role, as the producer she intensely disliked is the one I think gave her most of her best material post 1990.  When I think of GL, I don't ever think of Reva first, and even in the show's barest years when she was one of the only "stars," I did not. When I think of GL, it's always going to be Vanessa, or Ross, or Ed and Maureen, or Beverlee, or early Harley, or young Bill and Michelle, or Gilly, or Hamp, or Billy, or Henry, or Sherry's Blake...or just GL itself, such a nuanced, messy show, nothing else on daytime like it, not then, not now. 
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy