He was on Y&R during a period I didn't watch it much. (I never really watched B&B). When he was on Dark Shadows he played a mute ghost for months. His performance was so intense that without saying a word he scared the crap out of the audience. When he played a human character later, he was a schemer and someone who easily manipulated women, and the audience just loved him. Perfect for Alan, IMO.
The only one more popular with the DS female audience at the time was David Selby. He also would have been a fantastic Alan, but he was eating it up on prime time from the 80s on.
Since all of this moot and time has long past, if I could pick ANYONE, even someone who would never do a soap, my ideal actor to play Alan during the 90s would have Chris Sarandon. He can play funny and charming, but also play villainous and dark. He's handsome without being pretty handsome, and believably play a powerful person. Those are the qualities that I believe an actor playing Alan needed to work.
I love fantasy casting. This is so much fun.
Coster and Reilly would both have been good--they were not that much older than Bernau. I would lean a little bit in favor of Coster. He was really good at playing complex characters.
I believe Reilly left GH around the time Raines was cast. Maybe he even auditioned for the part, who knows.
During Bernau's first run, he was replaced briefly twice (he was ill or maybe he was holding out for more money during contract negotiations). First David Bailey, who played Russ Matthews on AW, replaced him for a few episodes, and then later on Wayne Tippit who played Ted on SFT. At least one of the episodes with Tippit is available on the German channel. I have to say it was EXTREMELY weird to see him play opposite Elvera. He just did not work for me as Alan. But I could see David as a permanent replacement for him.
DHK I think was a bit too young for the part of Ed. Larkin Malloy--again, too young, and he played rich snots almost his whole career, I think for a reason. Even though Kyle was brought up by a madam, I don't see him having the middle-class vibe Ed would need.
Age aside, Ed is not so easy to come up with a good recast. Yeah, he's the good guy, but he also has demons. Ron Hale--yeah, I could see it. If I just think of him as Roger on RH, I would think he suited Alan better, but he could play other kinds characters. He was only a little bit younger than Simon, so age-wise he would have worked.
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DeeVee ·
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