Soap Producers/Writers Odd Reasons Behind their exits

[BetterForgotten]

It’s hard to even read those old threads sometimes, the formatting is so wonky with the various site updates that have happened over the years.

[VanessaReardon]

And IF it’s true about Josh having a meltdown and locking himself in his office - let’s expand on that - because of JFP pressuring him - JFP was right! Josh is a boring writer! His third time around confirms this. He needs to just go away and stop boring the viewers. 

[Paul Raven]

Some other BTS happenings up for discussion

 

Claire Labine leaving GL and quickly returning.

 

Doug Marland departing Loving.There was never any real explanation for that.

 

Pat Falken Smith's much heralded return to Days which lasted but a few months.

[watson71]

Another BTS shakeup that has always been clouded in mystery- in Spring 1988, AW rehired Harding Lemay as headwriter.  A writers' strike delays his debut until September.  By mid-November, he is replaced by Donna Swajeski, an NBC executive.  Many say that Swajeski borrowed heavily from the Bible that Lemay wrote for AW upon his return.

[titan1978]

That was so odd.  I pulled a quote from her awesome We Love Soaps interview about it.  Does anyone know who they had chosen to take over that didn’t work out?  That’s why they ended up staying- the people to replace her team were deemed a bad fit or unavailable or something.

 

 

Claire Labine: I’m not good at network politics. I’m terrible at it. There was a lot going on that I had no idea of. We were just trying to do it the best we could. And having to fight the good fight and then they fired us. Then they couldn’t get anybody to replace us and were they embarrassed! They had announced it. Mickey called me and said, “We are in a real mess. The people that we had lined up aren’t going to work. Would you consider extending?” I said, “Sure, I’m not going to leave you in the lurch, for heaven’s sake.” So we stuck around and they left us absolutely alone for a cycle. And on the last day of our stuff the ratings were the highest they had been in three or four years. By that time we were really invested in it because they left us alone and were having such a great time. We made it work. I loved it. I was really surprised [when we were fired again] because they hadn’t let on that they were looking or training or anything. I should have realized that if they were leaving us alone that they were really pursuing it. And that was the deal. We were only supposed to be holding on until they could find somebody. 

[ghfan89]

Richard Culliton got punched by Tony Geary, and that was the end of his stint on GH as headwriter back in 1997.

[Khan]

 

Or why he removed his name from the "Created by" credit, except (I suspect) he and Agnes Nixon probably had a falling-out of sorts over the show's direction.

 

 

The official explanation was that PFS left (or was fired again) due to residual matters stemming from the lawsuit she'd filed against TPTB in the wake of her first exit from the show.  But...wouldn't everyone involved had ironed out everything BEFORE bringing her back?  That's always been my question, anyway.

 

 

As well as it should have been.  Richard Culliton might not have been the best HW for GH, but no writer should tolerate being attacked by an actor over scripts.  I don't care HOW talented Tony Geary is, or was.  There are ways to come to an understanding about the scripts and such WITHOUT resorting to violence.  It's just a shame that the network likely sided with him over Culliton, because, if you ask me, GH is bigger than any one actor.

 

 

IIRC, someone on SON posted several years ago that Karen Harris, in attendance for some panel or college classroom discussion on writing for the soaps, discussed being approached to work on GL.  Apparently, Harris turned them down after talking to some people (writers?) who'd work on the show before.  Perhaps, she was the one whom P&G had picked to succeed Claire Labine?  But, that's only my guess.

[BetterForgotten]

Speaking of Marland and Calhoun separately, does anyone know what led to Calhoun's exit at ATWT? Was he starting to clash with Marland? 

 

He couldn't have burned too many bridges as Ed Trach hired him for GL a year or so later. If not for him, we wouldn't have gotten Curlee/Demoest as HW's either. 

[Aback]

Labine spoke as if her 'unsupervised' stint on GL was some kind of acclaimed success. I thought her GL was dreadful, disjointed, unhappy.

[watson71]

 

Calhoun was replaced at ATWT by Laurence Caso.  Prior to becoming ATWT's EP, Caso had been CBS daytime executive.  P&G probably continued to keep Calhoun on a retainer and pay him until Joe Willmore's contract expired and he took over at GL.  Does Calhoun hold the record for producing the most P&G soaps?  He was a producer on AW and Texas and executive producer on ATWT and GL.

 

[soapfan770]

Actually I think that title belongs to John Valente, who severed as some type of producer and/or EP at GL, Edge, SFT, AW and ATWT. Speaking of Valente, apparently  he was unhappy about the big EP switch in 1995 going over  to ATWT and there is speculation he was actually sabotaging the show out of spite. Why Kenneth L. Fitts did what he did in 1995 is a real mystery but it eventually got him fired in 1996 along with all the EP’s and HW’s.  

[BetterForgotten]

Didn't JFP quit AW? I remember her giving a farewell interview of some sort, and alluding to friction between NBC and P&G being the reason why she stepped down. 

[soapfan770]

I believe she did resign, or was asked to resign or something like that. JFP definitely saw the writing on the wall, it’s probably why she made the claim she was not responsible for Frankie Frame’s death.

[BetterForgotten]

To this day, Maureen's death on GL is the only thing she'll apologize for, lol. 

[watson71]

 

You are correct- John Valente did work at 5 P&G shows.  Another person who worked at four P&G shows was John Whitesell.  He was at Texas, GL, SFT, and AW.  Remember he staged the Henderson flood on SFT and in less than a month he was transferred to AW as EP.  As a matter of fact, Whitesell was listed as both the EP of SFT and AW simultaneously for a few weeks in 1986.