This blog is to discuss why various performers left their various soap opera roles.  

 

I have wondered for years who Ernest Graves departed One Life to Live and the role that he had created, Victor Lord.   Was this his own decision (and why?), or did the show replace him.

I have wondered for years about Ed Bryce.    He played Bill Bauer on The Guiding Light, but, in the early 1960s, he left the show.  

(The role of Bill Bauer had been played originally by Lyle Sudrow.)    It was in 1964 that Mr. Bryce left the role and was replaced by Eugene Smith.   Then, in 1965, Mr. Bryce returned to the role and played him until Bill's death in 1983.

 

Mr. Bryce continued in daytime soap operas with roles on As the World Turns and Somerset.   Both roles, though, were rather minor and were probably not contract roles.   He later played Mr. Donovan #3 on Loving (a role which reunited him with Agnes Nixon).

 

Does anyone know why Mr. Bryce departed The Guiding Light in 1964 as Bill #2?

I am wondering why Jeffrey David Pomenantz left One Life to Live and the role that he had created "Dr. Peter Jansen."

I am wondering why Rosemary Murphy left The Secret Storm when she did.   Mary K. Wells replaced her in the role of Nola Hollister (widow of Wilifred and mother of Laurie Hollister Stevens).  Ms. Murphy was the second actress to play Nola.  Sohe later returned to soap operas on All My Children (as Mark's mother) and Another World (as Sam's mother).

Edited May 24, 20232 yr by danfling

One that I'm curious about is Carolee Campbell on The Doctors. I don't believe she acted again, but she went from dayplayer to one of the main stars of the show. I'm sure if she wanted to stay she could have.

1 hour ago, Chris B said:

One that I'm curious about is Carolee Campbell on The Doctors. I don't believe she acted again, but she went from dayplayer to one of the main stars of the show. I'm sure if she wanted to stay she could have.

via Ninja Press:

Quote

In 1976, after winning an Emmy for her starring role in a Dramatic Special on NBC and having completed her ninth year as one of the stars of the television show, “The Doctors,” playing the beloved and beleaguered nurse, Carolee Simpson Aldrich, Carolee decided to take her leave from acting. Her years on television had been made all the richer by an additional life in photography, darkroom work, and gallery showings. Summers were spent whitewater rafting, improving her skills by rowing many of the major rivers of the Southwest including a twenty-three-day trip through the entire length of the Grand Canyon. Along with her husband, actor Hector Elizondo, whom she had married in 1969, Carolee practiced the martial art of kendo, Japanese fencing, in New York and in 1976, toured Japan with their American Buddhist Academy kendo team. That period of time was a critical turning point in which, through her photographic work, she became devoted to the heightened pleasure of working alone. As a consequence, she left acting behind.

 

What was the real reason that James Fitzpatrick left Another World and his role Willis Frame #1?

I am wondering what the reason was for Michael Stroka to leave his role as Dr. Quentin Henderson on The Edge of Night.