Recasts on shows: good, bad, in between

[Wendy]

Lot of talk of recasts on Santa Barbara in this thread. Another recast - besides Eileen Davidson - that I thought just never worked was Wanda DeJesus as Santana. I get life played her a cruel hand a lot, but DeJesus played Santana much too brittle, hard, and cold, IMO. Yes, she wasn't as weepy and clingy as Gina Gallego's version, but DeJesus' version seemed to go too far in the opposite direction. And her "romance" with C.C. I never bought, especially since he had involvement in the whole Brandon mess. (I recall reading here or elsewhere that Jed Allan didn't get along too well with her, too.)

[danfling]

Two recasts on As the World Turns were Patricia Bruder as Ellen Lowell Cole.  Wendy Drew had created the role, but I think that Ms. Bruder was so very, very good in that role.

 

I cannot remember the other actresses who had played Claire.   I remember the different actresses (including the late Nancy Wickwire), but I think that Barbara Berjer did such a good job in the role!   It was the first time that I had seen her since I don't think that my NBC station had carried From These Roots.

 

I especially remember a scene in which a drunken Claire told her husband Michael to leave and to go marry Lisa.

[danfling]

Does anyone have anything to say about the recast of Andy Hurley on Love Is a Many Splendored Thing?   Don Scardino (who had earlier played Johnny on The Guiding Light) created the role.   When he left the show, Russ/Rusty Thacker played the role until his half-sister's death.

[Mitch]

Betsy Von Furstenburg on a weird recast on ATWT. She was a good fill in for Fulton when she was sick, and they tapped her as a recast when Fulton left the show.  BVF sounded like Fulton, but was way too of the manner born and didn't have the energy Fulton had. However, Fulton was going through such a weird phase on ATWT then (dying her hair a weird shade to get attention, playing Lisa as if she was practically retarded, stuttering all the time..) it was a relief to have someone play a more mature Lisa.   I wonder if BVF would have made a good Alex recast instead of poor Marj who was terrible.

 

 

[pdm1974]

I always felt like Santana should have been a consistent character on the show...the show's Latina heroine...but they never quite found the actress I think.

Anne Heche grew into an AMAZING actress. She did a great job with both Vicky and Marley, more so than the other actresses IMO. She truly played two very distinct characters.

[chrisml]

Anne Heche was so good at playing Marley and Vicky that you could tune in halfway through an episode and know that Vicky was pretending to be Marley. That's how good she was. Jensen Buchanan was just awful in both roles. I know she has her fans, but I'm not one of them.

[pdm1974]

Not to mention how JB refused to play both roles so we got that horrible Marley now played by EW after a fire...so bad. Not to mention that EW was like a foot taller than JB...did she grow while she was in the coma, too?

[Melroser]

i know i'll get haters for this but i didn't mind JB as Vicky. However, I could not stand her as Marley. So darn bland. At the end if JB didn't want to play both parts they should have dumped her and taken EW back as both Marley/Vicky. What would the show have had to lose? An expensive contract of JB's that caused the show to pay her AND EW? I think most fans at that point would have been okay with the recasts considering it was going back to EW. 

[pdm1974]

That would have been interesting to have EW back in both roles, and as you said, at that point in the game, what did the show have to lose?

[Contessa Donatella]

Lots of us would have loved having EW back as both. And, AH set out to go to Parson's School of Design. She just fell into a major career -- and I still follow her to this day!

[j swift]

I especially agree with this from the perspective of Eden and Cruz's pairing.  Santana was never a viable threat to their romance. 

 

On paper she should have been amazing.  She bedded Channing, CC, and Mason.  She had Channing's baby, then was sent off to Europe, and returned to be a glamorous interior decorator.  She should have been foe to Eden not only for Cruz but also to her relationship with her father.  The underlying Electra complex of the Eden/CC relationship should have been threatened by the fact that Santana, a woman of a similar age to Eden was a romantic interest of her father. 

 

Instead, the character lost her glamour, and became a pathetic pill-popper (no offense to pill-poppers).   In the pilot she was clearly trying to distance herself from her identity as the maid's daughter.  However, later iterations tried to play Santana as a humble gal in contrast to Eden's glamour.   She should have been the catalyst for Sophia and Eden to unite against her and maintain their family structure.  However, she seems to have become redundant by Gina, who had grown so close to Brandon that it would have seemed cruel to break them up.

Edited October 20, 2019 by j swift

[denzo30]

I recall in the early 80's in like a 4 month span the role of Sally Frame was recasted like 3 times.  From Jennifer Runyon to Dawn Benz and then finally Mary Page Keller who owned the role after that.  Two years later Taylor Miller stepped in and was horrible.  I dont understand either why roles get recasted in such a short amount of time and Gloria Monty was famous for never recasting.  

[danfling]

Carol Deming Hughes was an important character on As the World Turns for many years.   Do you feel that, at the time of Rita McLaughin Walter's departure that a recast would have been successful in that role?

[Khan]

Granted, I wasn't alive to watch much of her run.  Thanks to YouTube, however, I was able to watch her attend David and Ellen Stewart's second wedding; and what little I did see, I liked.  I could see immediately why viewers loved Carol (and Rita) so much.  So, no, I don't believe a recast would have been as successful as she had been.  If anything, I hate she wasn't around longer -- but, given how much ATWT would change in a short period of time, perhaps that was for the best.

[Soaplovers]

 

She would have been the type of character Marland would have written well.. and I do agree that recasting her wouldn't have worked since she'd been on for 12 years.. and was the rare character that was both nice and interesting.