Male Charachters that Carried their Shows or Revieved Heavy Focus

[Planet Soap]

As a companion to @Soapfan8's insiteful thread, exploring important leading female characters on soaps, let's explore the men. Soaps are a genre where the female characters dominate but what were some examples of leading men that carried a show at a point in time?

Easy ones:

Y&R: Victor Newman. The most dominant male character on that whole soap hands down. Victor embodied old movie masculinity. Multiple women. A white colar businessman with blue collar capabilities like boxing and horse riding. He was a villain that morphed into an anti hero then back into a crusty ageable villain. 

GH: Sonny Corinthos was the center of General Hospital from about 1999 up until the mid-2010s. A large concensus would say to the show's detrement.

Jason Moragn: Jason was the second male lead on the show for roughly that same period. 

OLTL: Todd Manning. So much focus was given to Todd especially during his 90s and 2000s runs.

Dallas: JR Ewing. I prefered the the early days when Bobby and Pam were the center while JR was the main antagonist. It was however fun to see Hagman embrace the spotlight, and have the character's nefarious deeds take over the show.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Planet Soap

[kalbir]

Victor owns this thread.

I can't really think of anyone for B&B though.

Maybe early 1990s GL Roger.

 

[Soapfan8]

I would say bold first it guy was bill but he’s a joke now.

yr had Victor for the most part and it recent years adam tbh.

[Planet Soap]

Roger is a good one!

Edited November 19, 2023 by Planet Soap

[janea4old]

I don't understand what you mean by "it guy" in this context.
I don't consider Victor, Sonny, Jason, or Todd to be "leading men".
I consider them to be disgusting villains I loathed and fast forwarded through!

Yes I know Victor Newman was featured as the star at times, but I don't consider him a leading man, I still consider him a villain.

To me, a leading man is someone I care about.  I loathed those guys.

To me, an "it girl" or "it guy" is someone with charisma AND an attractive personality -- someone I would want to be around!  They don't have to be perfect but they shouldn't be villains!

Edited November 24, 2022 by janea4old

[Soapfan8]

Wasn’t Victor like a anti villain though?

[kalbir]

@Soapfan8 Victor was introduced as the new villain but once Bill Bell created the backstory of Victor's childhood and his becoming a self-made man, Victor became more of an anti-hero/romantic leading man than a villain.

[Taoboi]

I am definitely curious to see where this thread goes. 

 

While the IT girls are more defined, I think the IT guys are going to be elusive.

 

Because from what was listed so far, I would say Victor...regardless of his beginnings...is (and continues to be in some parts of the world) an IT guy. From decades, men wanted to be him and women wanted to be with him in terms of fan opinion. Even now, he could post a picture on Twitter (and people have) and people immediately know him and want to be that powerful.   

 

At any moment even now, he could easily dominate any part of the canvas he chooses. Like an IT girl he is definitely connected to so many parts of the canvas that it is easily to drop him into it. And some of that is down to the writing. And some of that is down to the actor. Love him or hate him, EB does embody his character and has been there so long, no one could replace him with that kind of flavor that EB brings to Victor. Even as background, parts of the show revolve around him.

 

I would also say the same for Roger though while I was not around for most of his story, his reputation DEFINITELY preceded him so I knew what people would be up against. And Michael definitely embodied his character as well with a charisma that that recast could not duplicate. 

 

 

Same.

[Paul Raven]

To me 'it' means a charismatic actor playing a role that captures both the writers' and publics' imagination.

We tune in to see what they will get up to next , what challenges they will face and how they will fight for their happiness.

More often than not they are the 'grey' characters -a little unpredictable but prepared to justify their at times unscrupulous behaviour.

And often they still get featured despite being past their use by date due to that charisma, even though it might be long past.

Jack on Y&R was the perfect marriage of actor and character in Terry Lester. He became an 'it' guy.

It is harder to find example for male characters.

Way back when Steve Frame on AW.

[Faulkner]

I defer to the hardcore ATWT fans, but I think there’s a good argument for Craig Montgomery, both the Scott Bryce and the Hunt Block versions, for different reasons. When I watched 86-87 ATWT, Craig was treated with the same sensitivity and offered the same subjectivity and spotlight as the heroines, much more so than his male peers.

[Vee]

Agreed.

Scott Bryce was more than capable of playing the cold, scheming Craig he returned to deal with in the late 2000s. He was effective at that onscreen. The problem is the show was utter hackwork by then and gave him nothing else to flesh out, so when he attempted to at least layer the character again within the performance beyond the poor writing Chris Goutman would not tolerate it. Hunt Block was very good within a specific range, but Bryce was a chameleon.

[Taoboi]

I definitely remember SB being a chameleon versus how HB played him so I totally agree. And I remember how hard it was for SB to pull off with the writing, but still...he had it.

[AbcNbc247]

I'm surprised Luke Spencer hasn't been mentioned yet

[carolineg]

Sonny Corinthos.  Regardless of what his character has become I think his 90's run was the epitome of this thread. 

Jason Morgan is less clear to me.  SBu/Jason didn't really immediately catch fire until writing/a complete character change helped the character out.  I would also assume a character like Jason Q (Morgan) was always intended to lead stories, while a character like Sonny was supposed to be short term.

Other GH notables (to me)

Luke

Robert

Dante-no one watching now would believe it was all Dante all the time on GH for about 3 years lol.

I think there are a few other guys like Frisco, Duke, JJ's Lucky, early TC's Nik that were very well received and love by fans and press, but I wouldn't say carried the show, but had their "it" moments.

Days-

Doug was the original swinging it guy lol

WN's 80's Roman-got an entire core family built around him

Bo-probably the most famous hero on the show

Steve-he literally made eyepatches sexy lol

90's John-might give Bo a run for his money on the hero title

JS's EJ-I really couldn't stand him, but the man did carry Days for quite a few years

 

[MichaelGL]

GL

Roger Thorpe

Alan-Michael/Ric Hearst

David/Monti Sharp

Gus (for a short period 2001-2002)

Jonathan/Tom Pelphrey