Offbeat Soap Facts/News bits/Anecdotes you still remember

[Soaplovers]

I'm sad looking at the picture... it was when Melissa Reeves still had beautiful hair.  

[titan1978]

I’m sad because I loved Jennifer back then.  Pretty much from her arrival until she quit. Only during her Beth Milstein written exit in the mid 2000’s did I see the real Jennifer come through again.

 

I don’t even hate her hair currently, but her character is so nothing now.

[amybrickwallace]

 

I looked it up and he is still married to the same woman. They wed in 1994, with two sons. Since the affair was discovered in late 1995, I guess he hadn't completely sown his wild oats.

 

For whatever it's worth, Jason Brooks and Scott Reeves are only six days apart in age. JB was born 5/10/1966, and SR 5/16/1966.

 

 

 

[Franko]

And she's less than a year younger than either man (3/14/67).

[amybrickwallace]

Just for the heck of it, her other DAYS leading man at the time, Mark Valley, was born Christmas Eve 1964.

[vetsoapfan]

In the 1970s on Days, Richard Guthrie and Patty Weaver (David Banning and Trish Clayton) got into a heated argument on the set, and he hit her with a script. Over the back of the head, if I recall correctly. When that incident was talked about in the press, Guthrie said they had worked through their problems and he would never do such a thing again.

 

Bennye Gatteys (Susan Martin) married a man who swindled her out of her savings. She was broke when Days fired her in 1976.

 

Mary Stuart (Jo) loathed Ann Marcus as the headwriter on Search for Tomorrow. She felt Marcus was diminishing her character (although ironically, Marcus made SFT soar in the ratings). Marcus claimed that Stuart threw a drink in her face at a party.

 

Jacquie Courtney (Pat Kendall) allegedly had an affair with producer Joe Stewart when they worked together on OLTL. She did a magazine interview and photo spread at the time, and a picture of Stuart was prominently displayed by her bed. When news of the relationship got out, soap journalist Connie Passalacqua/Marlena De Lacroix said that poor Courtney was hysterical (although one would think that if she had wanted to keep her private life...private, she should have put that picture face-down in a drawer when the magazine photographers were there).

 

 Joe Stuart had Courtney stand next to him as they cut OLTL's 10th-anniversary cake together, even though longer-tenured actors were still part of the show and should arguably have been given that honor. Some of the cast was not thrilled.

[DRW50]

 

I'd never heard that. How awful. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

Yes, Gatteys said that her ex-husband had swindled her out of all her money. And that Days fired her (or took her off-contract, anyway), when the story about Susan Martin's seeking psychiatric treatment for her sexual problems precipitated complaints from the audience.

[amybrickwallace]

More about Patty Weaver, 1986:

 

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1986-12-09/features/8603150551_1_abuse-suicide-life

[Paul Raven]

Patty seems to have had some troubled times. She is now working as an artist.

Here's what Weley Eure said about his estrangement from Patty. He says it was Jerry Birn, Pattys 3rd and final hubby, who insisted they not hang out.

WE LOVE SOAPS TV: Did you keep in touch with anyone from DAYS after you left? 
Wesley Eure: It was an odd time. Patty Weaver, who was on DAYS OF OUR LIVES [as Trish], used to hang out with me and my friends and had a lot of gay friends, then she moved over to her show [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS] and married an older man who was a writer, Bill Bell's good friend, and suddenly she cut all the gay men out of her life. [She] actually told us she was cutting us out of her life because she was not allowed to have that lifestyle anymore. I lost my friend Patty Weaver. She literally made her bed. Homophobia effects us in a lot of different ways, professionally and personally. Certain things are different but they are nowhere closed to being resolved. 
 

[SoapDope]

Jerry's daughter Laura played Paul's secretary Lynne for years. Jerry died in 2009. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

I appreciate the clarification about which husband caused the problem. I had thought it was Weaver's first spouse. Thanks for the information.

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[Khan]

As much as it pains me to say it, I can believe Jerry Birn telling Patty Weaver to "cut out" all gay friends from her life.  He and Bill Bell were conservative men from a conservative generation.

[titan1978]

He was undoubtedly conservative.  But he wrote some gay subtext into a DAYS story (which I read about on this board), and he tried to write a lesbian story with Kay on Y&R.  So he was at least aware enough to think it would make a good story, even if the audience balked.

[YRfan23]

I think more so Birn then Bill Bell, but you never know...