Rumors of Storylines/Casting/BTS

[NothinButAttitude]

I remember hearing rumors around the mid 00s that Y&R was possibly entertaining the idea of recasting and bringing Victor's brother, Matt, back. 

[danfling]

I heard that The Secret Storm was to bring back the presumed dead character Jill Stevens Clayborn; however, the show was cancelled prior to the return.  (Barbara Roddell was free to rejoin the show after Brooke Adams returned to The Guiding Light as Leslie.  The dismissal of Ms. Adams from The Secret Storm had been the result of the return of Jada Rowland's return to the show. 

 

However, another actress could possibly been hired to play Jill.

 

I also heard that the show was toying with the idea of bringing back Kip Rysdale.

Edited November 1, 2019 by danfling

[teplin]

I've long heard that Harding Lemay planned to bring back Pat Matthews when he returned to the show in 1988, and that she would get involved with John Hudson. 

 

Sadly, that's one story thread Donna Swajeski didn't pursue.

[Albert]

Lynne Adams was Leslie. Brooke is married to Tony Shaloub and was in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

[amybrickwallace]

 

Yes. Lynne is Brooke's older sister.

[danfling]

I meant to post Lynne Adams, not Brooke.   I am surprised that I made that mistake.

 

 

[soapfan770]

The show did bring back Matt for a guest appearance in 2003 with the news of Albert Miller being still alive, but other than that nothing else occurred. 

 

Regarding that Patty rumor, word has it the show did reach out to Lilibert Stern, only to discover Stern had "let herself go". Andrea Evans was still in hiding and declined to reprise the role as well. 

[Khan]

"Let herself go" = she went up to a size 2 and let her hair return to its' natural color.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Khan

[SoapDope]

I had read that rumor about Lilibet letting herself go on the old media domain boards.  Supposedly she was an exercise instructor and nurse at one point in her life. There was also a story of a nasty divorce from her first husband and details about the home they were living in.

 

She is now in real estate and looks good. She goes by her re-married last name Iken now.

 

[SoapDope]

Speaking of Matt played by Robert Parucha......there was an actor that looked similar to him named John Darby. He was the boyfriend of Barker Beauty Holly Halstrom on the Price Is Right for a period in the mid 80's. It stated on TPIR that he was on Y&R and Capitol. I do not remember him on either show. I was in school then and only go to see the shows on breaks.

 

Does anyone remember him and the roles he played ? I assume they were short stints. Here is a clip of him surprising Holly in a showcase in 1984. 

 

[amybrickwallace]

 

Awww!! She's adorable!! ☺❤

[Wendy]

Geez, if the above photo is someone "letting themselves go", we should all be so lazy. I think Ms. Iken looks great.

[Paul Raven]

Around the time of the Patty references on Y&R, SOD published a blind item about a show planning a return of a past character, but hinted that the actor involved had gained a lot of weight, so it was dropped.

 I can't recall the exact wording.

 

SOD also stated at one time that Anna Dimera's younger sister Lily Fredericks was  slated to appear.

 

Edited November 7, 2019 by Paul Raven

[Khan]

 

Y&R: Fat shaming since 1973.

[Contessa Donatella]

"Insiders believe, and I agree with them that once the announcements were made for cancelling *both* shows there was no saving anyone." - Lynn Liccardo

"What Lemay couldn't have known was that in creating "AW" Irna was once again replaying the ramifications of her sterility. When Janet Matthews needs a hysterectomy to remove a tumor, her fiance` "deserts her for a woman who can bear him children." But the character through whom Phillips may well have told the truth about her pregnancy was not Janet, but her niece, Pat." - Lynn Liccardo

"… really it was just a figure of speech … It's like watching a train wreck. Unfortunately there actually *was a train wreck. Good-bye Reed, and Luke & Reed never even consummated. Homophobia: on GL with no kissing Otalia; on ATWT with Reed's death." - Lynn Liccardo

"Julie Pinson auditioned for the part of Lily when Chris Goutman had it in his head to burn Martha Byrne." - Donna L. Bridges

MARY STUART...If America's three contributions to world culture are musical comedy, jazz, and soap opera, …

Eileen Davidson: As a lead actress who’d always been known as a dramatic actress, it was just such a hoot for me, and so freeing to just let go and have fun.  I had a tape recorder and I would read the scene and turn it off when the character I was supposed to be talked.  I ran lines that way.  The major way that I knew it was working was because the crew was laughing, and I was laughing, we were cracking up all the time.  

They worked me to death.  I was at the end of my contract, I was going to leave after the first year I played Susan. And they asked me to stay an additional year to finish off the storyline, so I did.  James (Reilly; Headwriter) actually ended apologizing to me at the end of it.  He knew he’d worked me sixteen-hour days, Saturdays, I was really exhausted.  He apologized to me.  He said he couldn’t help it, he felt inspired by me.  He had no reason to apologize, it was a great, great, great thing for me!

"Some people don't like killing any character on a soap, but I believe that the death can be as important as the life if it shakes up the town and spins great story for the characters left behind. This was one of those cases." - Jill Lorie Hurst, GL, Otalia, Gus's death

"This is a big, bad blow to everybody in the soap business. It’s staggering having two shows canceled in such a short span of time." - Chris Goutman, ATWT
(CBS killed GL & ATWT back to back. Before two years had been up, ABC had killed  AMC & OLTL, also back to back. Network deaths.)

Elana Levine is a professor with the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee who will publish a book in © 2020 HER STORIES: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History."

"At NBC programmers admitted that they went to a 90-minute show 'because they couldn't come up with a better idea.'"

from the Another World Home Page: Nearby Towns (Fictional) to Bay City: Somerset, Bedfordtown, Brookville, Ogden (100 miles away; Ogden Memorial), Centerville.

In the Irna Phillips universe there were small cities clustered near each other. They were Oakdale, Illinois [ATWT], Flat Rock, Centerville, Somerset, [itself] Bedfordtown, Brookville, Ogden, Centerville, Bay City, Illinois, [AW], and Henderson [SFT].
 
So, we all of us have some semblance of an idea of how fine a writer Irna Phillips was. And, how prolific. And, how timely. And, how she could direct, focus & aim at her target. I've just finished through the Bill Bell book, and all throughout they mention Irna's unpublished memoir or unfinished autobiography. Whichever it is, it is with Irna's papers at one or more locales. I talked to someone today who has read it & deemed it far from being ready to do anything with. As far as she knows Irna's daughter has died, which would put it into the ownership of Irna's son. What a terrible shame that the remarkable writer that Irna was couldn't have knuckled down & finished a fantastic memoir. After all, she had so many tales to tell and so many people to tell them about. I wonder if she just was not ready to die yet--and death caught her unawares.

Earlier this year Days of our Lives celebrated the 50th anniversary of Susan Seaforth Hayes being on the show! They had flashbacks of much younger Julie, in San Francisco, on the rotary phone to first much younger Tom & then, after, to much younger Alice with them inviting her to return to Salem for a visit over the holidays. (Their rotary phones were on mantles, of all places. Would you put one there?) Corday arranged for Bill Hayes to be able to - once again - sing "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" to Julie. It was live! They did more flashbacks, where most of them were just Doug& Julie. He gave her one seriously passionate kiss. Later that week she was a guest on a Soap Opera Digest podcast with Stephanie & Mara& she revealed that she had never seen those early flashbacks before. She seemed somewhat taken aback at what she looked like in them. But, she looked fine & more than that, she looked like she really did in the show at the time. I was a fan then & already had a big crush on Julie. It was *years* before my father & I realized that we *both* had crushes on Julie.