ALL: Short lived Headwriter stints

[JAS0N47]

I only did main research on the head writers. I did research at some point on the staff writer birthdays, but I'd have to track down that file somewhere.

[Paul Raven]

General Hospital

In 1977, Irving and Tex Ellman had a 6 week writing stint but accomplished a lot- they wrote in Kin Shriner as Scotty and began Scotty/Laura, introduced Alan Quartermaine, David Hamilton and Nurse Dorrie Fleming. Also killed off Diana's  daughter Martha, thus paving the way to Diana adopting Steven Lars. and dropped Terri Webber Arnett (never to return) One misstep was the Lana/Lisa story which Doug Marland wrapped up when he arrived.

Then Richard & Suzanne Holland were there for about 10 weeks and killed off Mark Dante's wife Mary Ellen and introduced Lamont and Katie (Mark's next love interest)They otherwise pretty much continued the Ellman's stories.

Doug Marland arrived in January and pretty much tweaked what was already happening rather than make major changes immediately.

 

[JAS0N47]

WGA East directory lists him as deceased:

https://findawriter.wgaeast.org/member/michaelrdavid/

An article from 1974 lists him as 41 then, so he was born around 1933. But that's about as much as I can find on him.

Edited June 8 by JAS0N47

[Khan]

Thanks, @JAS0N47!

[Titus Andronicus]

Going through some newspaper archives, James Reynolds co-produced a play in 1986 with Michael Robert David, a comedy titled Untitled. Reynolds and Lissa Layng were set to star. 

One brief about Untitled mentioned David was a former Days writer. He had at least a couple of other plays in a quick search after leaving Days.

[Paul Raven]

Harding Lemay set a record for short lived stints I think.

He was the original writer of Lovers and Friends but after it's 13 week run, he didn't return to the revamped For Richer,For Poorer.

He returned to soaps with a stint on SFT beginning March 81, but it was short lived as a Writers Strike began in April. He was fired after the strike. Don Chastain who had been writing during the strike took over,

Then he was at The Doctors from Dec 81 -June 82.

Finally his return stint at AW from Sept - Nov 88.