ALL: The "Soapourri" Thread

[Franko]

Maybe it's a fool's errand, maybe I'm being a buttinsky, but I'm creating this thread as an all-purpose space to post about anything related to soap operas in general, or related to more than one show, performer, etc. I'm not interested in fighting, I'll just say that it's been frustrating to watch threads that have been cultivated and expanded upon over the years devolve and sometimes lose their purpose.

I'll start by mentioning one of my favorite things, catching a soap clip "in the wild." Like how the common room TV at the start of Cocoon just happened to be tuned to DOOL. Or how Meryl Streep flipped past SFT (specially Michael Corbett as Warren) in Heartburn.

[Maxim]

I love this topic! 

Let me add this - I used to grow up in a very homophobic and really... not America... type of country. It was so shameful for a boy to watch soap operas, they would get labeled gay or everyone would call him a girl at school. So my obsession with soap operas began in a way as a rebellion and way to express myself. 

I remember the first scenes from Bold that hooked me - Sheila was threatening Stephanie circa 1993.  

I never stopped watching and with the years the interest turned into passion. Now I'm nearly 30 and I think I can't live without soap operas. When I die I want to be buried with my HARD drives full of episodes and favorite moments. Sorry for the morbid humor, but that's how I feel.

And here is a scene for all of you.

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[te.]

Models Inc might've largely been a stinker, but I still to this day quote this scene when things are bad:

 

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Hell baby, you're in hooker hell!

 

I also like poor Carrie's (who seriously is one of the most tortured soap characters ever, considering it lasted only 29 episodes!) line "This is kidnapping!". This is also the one cliffhanger that didn't get resolved in the tie-up final scenes they did, so I guess we're to assume Carrie's just stuck in white slavery forever since in that universe Greyson's dead and everyone thinks she left town. Poor Carrie indeed!

[Darn]

Comic books are soap operas with superpowers. Some of the best selling issues of comic books center around WEDDINGS. Best known comic book stories? Characters coming back from the dead. If soap operas could they would also perpetually write everyone as if they're 35. Oh wait, they do.

[Contessa Donatella]

I can't figure out where to put this & I can't figure out what to put here, so,  I'm putting this here. 

This is a game we're playing, "Guess the Soap Actor" in old episodes of the original Hawaii Five-O. So far we've got very young: Marj Dusay, Eric Braeden & Beverlee McKinsey & several unknowns who look so familiar! And, this remarkable woman: 

[Originally posted by DM James Fairbanks]

In today’s Hawaii Five-0 “soap finder” game is Nancy Malone who appeared as McGarrett’s sister in the excellent episode “Once Upon a Time” (a two parter). Ms. Malone began her career in 1950 appearing on Silver Theater. She began appearing on soaps in its TV infancy playing Margie Martin on The First Hundred Years. Known as an actress who could jump in with both feet, she was brought in to play Babby Dennis on The Brighter Day (1959-1960), then as Robin Lang Holden Bauer Bowden Fletcher on The Guiding Light (1961-1963).

Ms. Malone gained over 80 credits as an actress before becoming the first female vice-president of television at 20th Century Fox in 1976. Her first producers credit was in 1975 with Winner Takes All about An average American housewife who is addicted to gambling & gradually destroys her "ideal" suburban life and that of her family.

In 1977 was awarded one of the first Crystal Awards by Women in Film for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. She directed 34 projects, having been nominated for three times for an Emmy as Best Director, winning her statue in 1994.

She appeared in a documentary of another actress turned director, Susan Oliver (ex-Laura Horton, Days of Our Lives).

Then I came along & posted this: " the first female vice-president of television at 20th Century Fox in 1976." I am utterly amazed!!!! A VP there, in that major studio and in 1976!!! It was only in 1973 that women could get credit in their own names for the first time. So this career advancement would seem impossible.

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Edited March 25, 2024 by Contessa Donatella
spacing

[titan1978]

Agree 100%, especially the long form superhero ones published by Marvel and DC. X-Men and Spider-Man come to mind as ones that really told stories within the superhero formula that were very close to/essentially soaps.

Edited March 25, 2024 by titan1978

[Contessa Donatella]

A friend who was both a soap fan & a comic book aficionado copied a page out of a kind of an encyclopedia of comic book plots & brought it to show me because it was the spitting image of DAYS Paris underground storyline. 

[applcin]

For years (decades, really) there have been two major tv "universes" for me: soaps (though, not much anymore) and Star Trek (especially the original). Many times when I see a familiar actor in an old tv show, I'll either say "that person was on Star Trek" or "that person was on xyz soap playing such and such" or both (like Marj Dusay and Louise Sorel), even if they were better known for something else. Those are my two biggest frames of recognition reference. I saw a Little House episode the other day where I was like, I know that woman and it was Norma Connolly (Aunt Ruby, GH). Frank Maxwell (Dan Rooney, GH) appeared in a bunch of 50s and 60s shows as did Constance Ford (Ada, AW).

[Contessa Donatella]

I've just been doing a photo album devoted to Connie. First she was a successful model. There's an Elizabeth Arden lipstick ad that is so famous it hangs in the National Gallery, although it is the color version which I cannot find. Then she did those anthology dramas like Playhouse 90 & live theatre. Then she did so many primetime episodics & she did multiple Perry Masons. Somewhere in there she made the movie A Summer Place where she delivers one of those famous slaps to her daughter. Her character is an awful person but her husband is worse! And then she did a handful of soaps. She's my favorite actress. 

I, too, have long been aware of soap actors first in Star Trek but then in other sci-fi. Nancy Lee Grahn & Kim Zimmer both did guest shots in Babylon Five. 

A guy on Twitter is watching Sanford & Son & Fred watches DAYS! 

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