They escaped at the right time!

[titan1978]

I was watching an old interview with Judith Light, talking about Karen Wolek, and I started imagining if she had stayed on OLTL.  And I just could not see her and that character on a OLTL that goes to Eterna.  I know she was part of a mind control story, but still.  
 

As much as we wish these actors had stayed at the time, where would they fit?  Where does Karen fit on what Rauch would turn OLTL into?  It’s hard to imagine OLTL in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s without her, and yet, she’s out of place (in my mind) in the Gabrielle/Tina years.

I also can’t imagine Sarah Brown’s Carly with Ron Carlivati writing.  All that camp would not suit her at all.

Beverlee McKinsey saved herself from years of awful GL story (Rauch again).  I would not wish her having to act out scenes with Lucy, and try to maintain some dignity when Reva’s clone is running around town.

 

Even though I loved Labine on GH, I can’t imagine her writing Robert Scorpio.  Anna I could see, but not Robert.

Any other examples come to mind?

[DramatistDreamer]

Julianne Moore immediately comes to mind. She had done two heavy-duty storylines nearly back to back on ATWT, the second storyline, for which she played two roles at once, one, Sabrina in which she had to affect a nifty British accent.  I think that was enough to get her noticed by casting directors, since it was the late 1980s when soap actors were still on the radar of casting agents and directors. 

When Moore was nominated for, an eventually won her Daytime Emmy (way before the Daytime Emmy became something a participation prize) in 1988, Moore had already left ATWT and was doing prime time TV as well as theater.  Within two years, Moore got critical attention for doing Vanya on 42nd Street.  Moore did some work that was less than award-winning during that time too but she became a steady working actress and by the time she did Robert Altman's Short Cuts in 1993, ATWT entered the beginning of a period marked by BTS upheaval, which was reflected in the writing.   I think Moore got out just in time, while her character still had a place on the canvas and the actress on a critical high.

 

Moore's former fellow castmate and distant cousin Marisa Tomei, who I'm not sure whether she left or just got squeezed out at ATWT, also left at a good time, I think. Within a year of her final appearance on the show, Tomei got a primetime sitcom gig on A Different World (a role, oddly enough, for which fellow former castmate Meg Ryan was originally considered for) which, even though her character Maggie Lawton was cut from the show, Tomei soon made a name for herself on Broadway and eventually My Cousin Vinny. Like I said, I don't know with her leaving the show was of her own volition but the timing turned out to be right, in the end.

[Gray Bunny]

When I saw the title of this thread, I thought of actors escaping from a sinking ship and my first thought was Laura Wright jumping from GL to GH. Admittedly, I wish she hadn't escaped until a couple years later, as I think a Reva/Josh/Cassie triangle would've been much more successful and well received with Wright still in the role as Cassie. 

 

But back to your intended topic, for some reason I can't see Lisa Rinna being Billie during some of the storylines they gave Krista Allen from '96 to '99. 

[Faulkner]

Bev McKinsey, as you’ve stated, was my initial thought. Alex was already becoming unglued with Nick and Mindy obsession during her tenure. I can’t imagine her playing some of the degrading and unhinged stuff Marj eventually had to play. I would also say Sherry Stringfield got out in the nick of time.

 

This was pure coincidence and inappropriate to call an “escape,” but Doug Marland sadly left us right when daytime had its last great year, before corporate interference really took hold and O.J. halted any momentum.

[Franko]

This might be a stretch, since it's not about any one person, but I'm glad Search For Tomorrow wasn't still on the air during the era that NBC was pushing Another World to be a Days clone. At the same time, I'm wondering how The Edge of Night would have done during those years.

[Khan]

 

Don't forget, though, SFT flirted with the supernatural when the Corringtons were head-writing the show.  Wasn't there some psychic or voodoo priestess on there, named Tante Helene?

 

As long as EON retained what I call its' criminal element, I feel like the show would have been okay.  As it was, though, Lee Sheldon was already taking it in a more sci-fi-ish direction with the ISIS storyline.

 

 

Agree with all these statements. 

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I think that's why Rinna's subsequent returns as Billie have been lackluster.  By the time she came back the first time, Billie had changed so much from what she was in the beginning.  For one thing, Rinna's Billie, who was in a triangle with Robert Kelker-Kelly's Bo and KA's amnesiac Gina, didn't degrade herself as much as other Billies did just to hold onto Bo.

 

 

IDK why, but I've always suspected that LW jumped ship because she saw or heard a Josh/Reva/Cassie triangle was coming and wasn't having any of it.  (If anything, going by my theory, LW's exit might have delayed the triangle at least for awhile.)

[Khan]

 

Actually, @titan1978, as crazy and OTT as OLTL was during the Rauch era, I don't believe Karen would have suffered too terribly had she remained on the canvas.  After all, her sister, Jenny, was there for part of it and (by my estimation) she emerged unscathed. 

 

It wasn't the characters who had changed during those years so much as the situations that Rauch and his writers placed them into.

[Gray Bunny]

 

Actually, I think it would've been the opposite. I seem to remember reading that Robert Newman and Laura Wright bumped into each other within a year after she left (probably at the Emmys?) and they laughed about how the story they both suspected would eventually or should eventually happen (Josh & Cassie) is now happening right after she left. I think they made mention of how Josh and Cassie had gotten really close around the Reva clone story and thought GL would eventually go down that route... 

[Faulkner]

Soaps are all about transgression and siblings sharing partners is as old as the genre itself, but I still think Josh/Cassie should have been off limits. Glad Laura didn’t have to play any of that.

[Khan]

IMO, the Josh/Cassie pairing was devoid of any real, natural conflict.  Reva loved her family too much to try and upset her sister's happiness -- if anything, Reva would have given the two her blessing while crying her eyes out in private -- and having Cassie become jealous of Josh and Reva's history together would have turned her into another Annie, and Lord KNOWS we had been there and done that.  So, again, where's the conflict?  What's going to hold my interest beyond the initial shock factor of seeing Josh hook up with his sister-in-law?

 

OTOH, if Cassie had somehow ended up with Alan Spaulding....  ;)

[Gray Bunny]

Just wondering... how did they eventually write off Nicole Forester’s Cassie? I peaced out during the Peapack era... 

[Khan]

 

According to wikipedia and soapcentral.com (which are hardly reliable, I know, but...), Cassie and RJ moved to Hawaii when she realized she hadn't stopped grieving over Tammy's death.

[Gray Bunny]

Oh. Lame.

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thanks 

[Aback]

Friendly reminder that Cassie was seducing her nephew way before LW's departure.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

I always wondered how it would be if Strasser had stayed on as Rachel Cory or even Edward Mallory’ Bill during the Mike/Janice/Bill stuff and the Lucas reveal.