News & Gossip from the mid-1980s per The Soaps of Yesterday

[j swift]

Neither Kelli, nor the character of Tina, are very convincing as "business school" graduates.  It is no wonder that Tina's MBA was never referenced in later iterations.

 

I hope we'll read about it on the Tumblr, because the casting was announced in November 1984, so it looks like Kelli only lasted a few weeks.  Also in November 1984 Marsha Clarke was fired from GL, so the timing makes it seem like there is some shenanigans going on at OLTL...

 

Either way, Bo's prediction about Tina becoming Asa's second hand to replace Chuck was as likely as Didi O'Neil becoming the endgame for Bo Buchanan.  Although it is notable that she was the only O'Neil not to get recast.

Edited March 10, 2021 by j swift

[Franko]

Yeah, it's really not good. The only way it maybe would have been salvageable was as a novelty song and/or in character as Tootie.

[John]

So Kelli was only Tina for a month? I know KM said that Paul Rauch didnt like her and it was mutual

Were Kelli and Marsha just place holders until OLTL could get a deal done with Andrea as Tina?

[Sean]

 

Not to "spoil" (

Please register in order to view this content

) anything from the blog, but from what Jon-Michael Reed and Linda Hirsch reported at the time it seems like Kelli Maroney was intended to be in the role long-term, while Marsha Clark was always meant to be temporary.

 

This is from a JMR column, published around October 8:

 

"ONE LIFE TO LIVE" has been announcing for the past year that actresses have been cast to play the returning role of Tina Clayton. For some reason they've never worked and never appeared on the screen. But the big surprise is that "OLTL" has cast Kelli Maroney, (formerly Kimberly Harris on "Ryan's Hope"), one of the more uninteresting actresses to ever appear on a soap. Although there weren't many defenders of her talent she managed to have a fairly long run on "RH." She will appear as Tina Clayton, again, around mid-October.

 

(JMR was really not a fan of Maroney's - he made similar comments when she re-joined the cast of RH in the spring of 1982.)

 

On January 17, Linda Hirsch reported that Clark's stint was temporary and that Andrea Evans was on her way back:

 

With the exit of Kelli Maroney from the role of Tina on "One Life to Live," the show's producers have been looking high and low for a replacement. They brought in Marsha Clark, last seen as Hilary on "Guiding Light", for the short term, but she was not interested in taking over the role on a permanent basis. The producers have now decided to go with Andrea Evans. If the name is familiar, it's because she created the role of Tina several years ago. She left that show and was then seen as Patti in "Young and the Restless."

[victoria foxton]

I like Marsha Clark. But i can't see her as Tina. It's like if Joyce DeWitt played Crissy.

Edited March 10, 2021 by victoria foxton

[John]

Ive seen one Marsha as Tina  scene. With her, ES, CR & Bryan Cranston

KM said her time as Tina was short but for some reason I thought she said she was there 6 months,  so Oct-Dec for Kelli and Dec-Feb for Marsha

Edited March 10, 2021 by John

[Mitch]

HAHAHAAHA...I can't see Rauch thinking butch Clark was right for ANY role...except maybe a Bo recast!

 

 

[victoria foxton]

I would kill to see even a clip. It's such a bonkers recast. Paul should've just kept Kelli Maroney. Until Andrea came back.

[zanereed]

 

To be fair, Peter Simon definitely left, declining to stay with the show. Meanwhile, Don Stewart was definitely fired by Gail Kobe, and that article is pretty accurate as far as the "why"!  

 

However, it was unfortunate that Stewart never got a final scene or farewell on the show. Mike was simply written out as having taken a job in Washington DC and that was it.

[Mitch]

Dumb move to fire Stewart when Simon left...I know Kobe didn't know Charita would pass away but it wasn't fair to Charita to hang it all on her.

[j swift]

Reading the 1984 recaps got me thinking about how members of this board would react to iconic moments from the period.

 

DAYS - Bo rescuing Hope from her wedding to Larry Welch on his motorcycle to the pop song "Holding Out for a Hero" was so much fun, but 2021 soap fans would commiserate about the fact Doug and Julie couldn't attend the party because they left due a contract dispute.

 

GL - Josh Lewis being motivated to recover from paralysis by Bert Bauer after her amputation was inspirational, but 2021 soap fans would quibble that both of the long term actors who played her sons Mike and Ed were missing from Springfield when Bert returned.

 

ATWT - Betsy and Steve's wedding was a ratings bonanza for the show, but 2021 fans would find fault in how long it took for them to get together, only to be torn apart weeks later when Meg Ryan left the show.

 

It is not that 2021 fans are more opinionated per se, it just made me nostalgic for a time when fans had no more information than what was on screen, and could still be genuinely surprised, moved, or excited by the scenes of the day.

 

 

[zanereed]

 

Agreed. 100%. However, I think that Peter Simon leaving the show was a surprise, which is why they had to come up with a recast so quickly. If Simon had stayed on, I'm pretty sure Kobe would have recast Mike. The reason being was that Mike was already being weaved into a semi-front burner storyline via a love triangle with Lillian and Alexandra, the ramifications of which were supposed to have spilled over into the budding Beth/Lujack romance. Allegedly Don Stewart had not been an easy person to work with, going back years on the show. However, his popularity was so high with viewers that it was tolerated. For example, Mike Bauer had not been in any long-term romantic relationship since Leslie Bauer died in 1976! Apparently Stewart was never happy with who he was paired with (with perhaps the exception of Trish Lewis, but Stewart thought Trish was essentially too young for Mike).

 

When Pam Long came on as head writer, she *wanted* to write for Mike, which is why she positioned him in the center of the triangle. I guess Don and Bev didn't get along very well, so once again Stewart was resistant to the storyline. That must have been the last straw for Kobe, so she fired him around August of 1984. Looking back, Mike was on quite a bit over the spring and summer of 1984. I believe his last major appearance was at the Founders Day Celebration? I think the original plan was that Mike would be with Alex when the Dreaming Death/Susan Piper/Brandon Spaulding is alive in Barbados storyline reached its conclusion in late 1984, but those plans were scrapped, along with anything else tied to Lillian/Alexandra/Beth/Lujack.

[j swift]

Here's news I never knew

Please register in order to view this content

Reportedly, he was unhappy at AMC, and Hugo Napier was just fired at ATWT, so he substituted in for the role (also the press spells Nick's last name in multiple different ways)

 

 

More news I never knew

Apparently cultural appropriation was not an issue in 1984, so if Tony Geary wanted to look like Bo Derek, he was free to do so, but ultimately Luke showed up with his iconic perm.

 

I'm a bit shocked that a newspaper was willing to print this gossip about the firing to Leslie Graves from Capitol

 

More news about the recasting of Tina

However, rude her detractors may have been, they weren't wrong...

 

Also, on the rude front, this odd note about the recasting of Ava on Loving

 

 

 

Finally, speaking of rude, someone has taken Queen Lynda to task

It was Linda Borgeson (aka AW's Alice #5), but don't be so rude next time RG.  I can't believe Lynda printed it, it must have been her nasty, soap illiterate, editor.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by j swift

[j swift]

Wow, I had no idea JMR died so young.  It's one year after what we're reading now, so those must have been his final columns

 

LAT ARCHIVES

MAY 29, 1986 12 AM PT

Jon-Michael Reed who wrote a column about television soap operas for The Times and 200 other newspapers in the United States and Canada, is dead of the complications of hepatitis.

He was 38 and died at a New York City Hospital Friday, a spokesman for United Feature Syndicate, distributor of the column, said Wednesday.

Reed was believed the first to regularly chronicle the daily dramas that appeared on American TV screens and each week offered a plot summary of the leading soaps which The Times had published on weekends for the past several years.

Edited March 13, 2021 by j swift

[will81]

He was credited right up to late May 1986 and Nancy M. Reichardt took over the next week.