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ATWT: Elizabeth Hubbard Dies at 89


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100%. I did not realise the gift that we had with NYC soaps when I was a young kid. It's only when I got into my late teens and 20s that the quality, from the writing to the acting, became evident to me. LA soaps, and there were some great ones I dearly loved, had their own style and dynamism. However, some of those NY soaps were spine-tinglingly good, literal page-turners put to screen. Dames like EH and BM anchored those shows, and it was kind of considered a slow day if they weren't on.

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 LA soaps are just... different, from their production models to the talent they hire. Some were great finds, but, overall.. they just lacked that something special the NYC soaps had overall. And I think, that's why, at the end of the day, those that left NYC soaps for a career in Hollywood did end up returning to NYC. It was just a different environment.

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Who can fail to tear up when reading Martha's words? They both loved each other like family. 

Her last line: "...grateful the universe gifted me with such a force of nature, of which the world will not see the likes of again." 

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I love LA soaps, and they were my first entrée into Daytime -- Days, Santa Barbara, Y&R, B&B, GH. They all have a very special place in my heart. As a kid, I always assumed the NYC soaps' reserves of history were a wall I might never be able to climb. One day, I was switching channels, and fell upon a young Lily in the stables of her estate, and I was like "Hello." It seemed like I was embarking on the first page of a very exciting book. NYC soaps ATWT and AW had something excitingly Literary about them. I mean that in the best possible way, not an alienating kind of Literary snobbism, but more an inclusive, exciting way of constructing characters and telling a story. There was a time in the 1980s when ATWT could really get you scared and keep your heart pounding with its cliffhangers.

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She will be missed.  

There have been many incredible actors on soaps over the years.  My favorite kind to watch were the ones that clearly had an internal life going on as their character as well as what they said and emoted on screen.  Especially when they were at odds with whatever they were saying, and you got to see layers in their performances.  You could tell in the best of days she relished Lucinda Walsh.  It’s such a treat that her fans can have access to Althea as well.

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