I watched OLTL religiously from 1968 to 1983.
I find it amusing (well, baffling, really) that complaints about the writing would arise "en masse" about Gordon Russell.
From 1968-72, with Agnes Nixon and Don Wallace at the helm, the show was wonderful. Multi-ethnic, down-to-earth; a solid combination of everyday realism and the familiar, heightened romanticism inherent to many soaps during their heydays.
When Gordon Russell joined the show, he worked alongside Nixon for a while and then took over and went solo in 1973.
The show was blessed with the continued presence of Don Wallace as a script writer throughout the 1960s, '70s, and into the '80s. Various actors have praised his material for its natural, character-centric dialogue. Doris Belack once said that DW could weigh her down with scripts of 80 pages, but the words would just flow naturally from her lips because Wallace understood the characters so well and wrote for them as individuals.
DW continued during Russell's solo period, and I believe that the nuanced, believable way characters spoke and behaved was one of the show's greatest assets in its first 15 years. Natural conversations made you feel like you were spending time with "regular folks" from your community.
I found more flaws with the directing in the 1970s than I did with the writing. While I would not consider Gordon Russell to be on a par with Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon and William J. Bell, his work (to me) was at least decent.
Now, when Sam Hall teamed up with GR in 1978 as co-head writer, I did notice the difference. The stories, the pace and the depth improved a lot. OLTL really started sizzling. The next few years (along with Nixon's opening years) were the soap's best.
But there's no way in hell that I'll ever consider Gordon Russell an awful writer who deserved to be booted from the show, when viewers had to endure the likes of Leah Laiman, Margaret DePriest, Jean Passanante, Megan McTavish, Dena Highley, Ron Carvilati and Thom Racina.🤢🤮
Even Michael Malone's second tenure and Claire Labine's work were failures.
I'd take Gordon Russell as head writer over ANY of the scribes daytime TV has inflicted on us for the last 30 years.
By
vetsoapfan ·
