Offbeat Soap Facts/News bits/Anecdotes you still remember

[amybrickwallace]

Exactly, @vetsoapfan. I know I would prefer discretion, especially in mixed company.

[vetsoapfan]

 

I imagine it was Courtney too. EH was quite catty about her in Giles' book, but to be fair, when Courtney and Reinholt were hired, their salaries were almost double what OLTL's veteran players were getting. That must have caused a lot of resentment. Slezak mentioned this pay disparity too. But to get kicked out of the dressing room as well...that must have added fuel to the fire. I'd be furious.

 

JC also arrived at the studio in a limo, which was not the case with everyone else. There were rumblings about that, but as it turned out, she was paying for it, herself. It was not a perk from the network.

 

Right. I joke about not minding seeing their Kibbles & Bits, but there are many actors whose junk I would NOT want to confronted with, up close.

[amybrickwallace]

 

I would have been furious, too. The likes of Holly, Heyman, Storm, Belack, Slezak, etc., who had been with the show from the beginning or close to it, weren't getting that kind of money or perks. Plus, it's not like Jacquie Courtney didn’t know what is was like to be an original cast member of a fledgling soap. 

[robbwolff]

I recently got done binging the last year of Dark Shadows, including the 1841 parallel time storyline. I recall reading that Dark Shadows had a new costume designer during the final months. It was obvious as the wardrobe was quite different...quite beautiful...and quite revealing. The late Keith Prentice portrayed Morgan Collins during the final months and it was quite obvious that Prentice was going commando. I mean quite obvious. I was shocked that his scenes made it to air as they did. It appears that someone finally noticed the obvious because Prentice started sporting an overcoat during the final weeks.

[vetsoapfan]

 

I certainly don't begrudge any employee of any company negotiating the best-possible deal for herself. I don't think Courtney and Reinholt were getting too MUCH money. I think that the woefully-cheap network (ABC) was paying everyone ELSE a pittance that was degrading. Back in 1966, when she signed on to Dark Shadows, Joan Bennett earned $52,000.00 a year; $1000.00 a week, $333.33 per episode. By 1975, other top stars of ABC soaps should not have been receiving salaries of under $20,000.00 a year.

[YRfan23]

Maybe SSH stole SF's lunch or something! LOL
This is why it's a shame SF will probably never do one of those Emmy Legends interviews, because she's such a private person, because I would totally ask her about that incident, if I was the Interviewer!

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[vetsoapfan]

 

In the 1970s and into the 1980s, daytime TV treated its audience to many actors wearing super-tight and/or revealing pants. I was shocked they got away with some of it, actually. It was the style back then, but still....Benny Tate on Return to Peyton Place, Hutch on General Hospital, Steve on As the World Turns, Chris Kositchek on Days, etc., really strutted their stuff, LOL. There was an actor on Where the Heart Is (whose character name escapes me at the moment) who would certain pairs of pants that were simply mesmerizing. I would get distracted if he knelt down, sat down, or bent over.

 

SOD published an interview once with Passions' Bruce Michael Hall, who joked that the jeans he was given to wear on the show were so tight, they showed the outline of his private parts. He secretly went and snatched Galen Gering's pants to wear instead. Frank Runyeon once reported that the jeans he had to wear on ATWT were so small that he had to lie down to zip them up.  We don't see any of that nowadays. Alas!

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Well, it was reported in the daytime press, but you know that not every gossip magazine was noted for its truthfulness, so I'd like to ask Flannery or SSH about this alleged incident too. In the 1970s, many magazines were simply OUTRAGEOUS in what they reported. I remember one rag had Julie Andrews on the cover with the headline, "What I tell Paul Newman when we go to bed!"

 

Another rag had a picture of some Dark Shadows actors along  with the headline, "Mad Ghoul Strikes the cast of DS! Who's Next?" (A fan had run into an actor with his bicycle and gotten mad, LOL.)

[amybrickwallace]

Don't forget the jeans A Martinez wore as Cruz on SB. 😉

[SoapDope]

LOL.....I bet that was a shock. She always had a prim and proper type of persona that you could never imagine her even doing something like that. 

 

 

[Vee]

It was fairly common back then. A lot of big stars got their start in softcore pictorials in that era.

[Khan]

 

I could!  Hey, a check is a check!

[vetsoapfan]

 

Who could forget? A Martinez guest starred on All in the Family and Nancy Drew in the 1970s, wearing very tight and sexy jeans on those shows too.

 

And who could forget Marc Singer's infamously snug jeans on V?

[Gray Bunny]

 

Oh wow.... LOL 

[amybrickwallace]

I have to admit wondering how things might have turned out had Missy not quit in late 1995. Would Jason Brooks have been let go instead (and wasn't he also married IRL at the time?), or would the Reeves marriage been broken beyond repair?

[Wendy]

Yeah, Jason Brooks was also married during his...whatever...with Melissa Reeves.