GH: Sunset Beach Actress Fills In

[John]

Priscilla Garita will step in and play Harmony starting today

[AlexElizabeth]

So many pointless characters getting temp recasts lately. 

[dio]

i don't think anyone cares about Harmony? So, no offence to the og actress, but why don't they just fully-recast? Then, maybe, peeps will take interest in the character. 

[Cat]

Almost a waste of Priscilla Garita's potential. She did some great work as Gabi on SuBe. Really.

[Vee]

I don't care for the weird character to begin with or anything connected to them.

[FrenchBug82]

She did.
I am having the same thought about a lot of good actresses taking temp roles lately: her, Lindsay, Karla M....
I guess they want jobs but this closes the door on them getting more permanent gigs and that's a shame.

[Vee]

I don't think it closes the door. No one would blink twice if Hartley or Garita returned in a permanent role. Chloe Lanier started out on this show as Young Pat Spencer, which got her Nelle not long after due to fans loving her performance.

It's also a time-honored soap tradition, with one of the most prominent examples being Bethany Joy Lenz from GL - hired to play young Clone Reva, and was so good they made her Michelle Bauer, who became part of a major couple.

[John]

Garita already played a short term role of a Hooker Lupe in 2010-2011 era. She had scenes with the fake Mateo from AMC

[te.]

I was always surprised that Garita wasn't able to land a long-term gig on another soap since she did good work on SuBe, then again, so did several others we don't see. Maybe she was hoping for more prominent prime time gigs and by the time she was willing to do daytime the moment was gone?

[carolineg]

Am I the only one who thinks Garita looked so much like Kristen Davis?  I wonder if that hindered her career.

[FrenchBug82]

I hear what you are saying but all these examples featured performers doing a one-day mini-role, not a temporary recast of major character.

Impossible? Of course not. Not in an era where ME and RH can be on their third role in a row.
But I don't think it would happen with actresses that are not buddy-buddy with producers. I think they are burning their shot.
But hey happy to be proven wrong on that one.

[DRW50]

Gloria  Monty also gave a temp Frisco a new, central role for about a year or a year and a half when Jack Wagner returned, supposedly to send Wagner a message. 

She does, yes. 

I do wonder what happened with Garita as she got a lot of praise on Sunset Beach. I guess some people just can't move on to the next stady gig.

[Vee]

Lenz was not on for one day. She had a prominent role in a major story and both the magazines and fans had enough time to take notice in print back then, without much Internet. There are many other short-termers who have been given contract roles over the last 50+ years. I can go on as long as you'd like.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Vee

[FrenchBug82]

People who have been on shows have been rehired in other parts later plenty of times indeed.
However I just don't believe whatever happened before would/will happen today for these actresses.

We have the same set of facts but it is just one of these rare occasions where I take the more cynical side of the argument

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In the end it doesn't matter because, even if I were correct, they shouldn't be expected to pass on an opportunity now in the risky hope some better contract role might come later. 

So let's enjoy having them on-screen for a bit and if they rock on, that they will indeed catch someone's eye and get a larger meatier part later. For at least a couple of them  I'd love nothing more.

[Cat]

 

 

Maybe it's also bad timing. Garita came to prominence on SuBe at a time when writing for females on soaps and network Primetime began to shift. You might call it the Les Moonvesification of TV during the late 90s/early 2000s! Less interest in fleshing out multi-dimensional roles for women. More interest in young pretty girls playing young and pretty as their defining character trait.

Early on during Garita's run as Gabi, it seemed like the SuBe writers didn't really have an idea for the character, who she was, why she was -- unlike, say, Olivia, Annie and Meg. Garita played her character as quite ruthless and unlikeable at time, while also balancing it out with moments of devastating vulnerability (on the witness stand, for example, when she revealed she'd been abused by her father) and that is how Gabi evolved on the show. It worked. But later, maybe that played against what producers/casting directors were looking for in ingénues at the time. When she subbed for LH on Passions, I remember there was discussion on SON of how 'icey' and 'hard' Garita played the character of Theresa. Not criticism per se. Just that she was revealing some of the darker elements driving Theresa's obsession.

I notice in her IMDB resume she has played a passing Hispanic on the odd crime show, and @John mentioned she previously played hooker Lupe on GH which that right there... that's it. That's all you need to know about the character! It's hard to make material work when you're not given a lot. On SuBe, Garita was given that breakdown on the witness stand and she ran with it. It totally changed the way the audience perceived the character and established her permanent place on the show.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Cat