John Conboy comes off super sleazy in this article. And the fact is that Y&R didn't add a bunch of youngsters when it expanded. Julia, Michael, Steve, Victor etc didn't fit that demographic. Patty Williams was the only character I can think of offhand.
Maybe Conboy put out the casting call so he could drool over sexy young bods.
MEDINA JOURNAL-REGISTER Dec 24 1979
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) - The word went out that 16 new cast members are being sought for the soap opera "The Young and The Restless," currently rated No. 1 among daytime dramas. Producer John Conboy is expanding the 30-minute series to a full hour and needs the services of a bunch of young actors, mostly in their teens and early 20s to make the expansion possible, The opportunities the show represents for young performers is irresistible - a generous weekly paycheck, national exposure and hard-to-get experience.
Now in its sixth year, "The Young and The Restless" provides its performers with a built-in, loyal audience. Conboy has interviewed 150 youthful actors and hasn't come close to filling any of the roles. He expects to see 500 others before he completes casting. He is hampered by the fact that some teen-age roles must be played by actors 18 or older who must look 15 or 16 to get around California child labor laws. For every young actor and actress he interviews another one or two are screened out by his casting associates. Conboy, a former actor himself, knows about rejection. But he can allow compassion or sentiment to enter his thinking. "There must be thousands of young actors in the 18-t0-25 age bracket," Conboy said during a break in a full day of ° interviewing prospective stars. "'Because they haven't any track record I depend on a trick to cast young, inexperienced people. "I study their off-screen personalities. If they really turn on, light a fire, express themselves well and excitingly in my office, then I know they'll do the same thing on camera.
"When I was producing another soap opera back in New York - 'Love Is A Many Splendored Thing', I hired Paul Michael Glaser (later the star of 'Starsky and Hutch') on the basis of his off-screen personality. "The people who come in to talk to me had better be glossy, the kind of performers who attract immediate attention. "If viewers are going to be looking at them. five days a week, they'd better be good looking as well as talented. And I expect them to be good listeners, too. If I were looking for experienced performers, the casting job would be a great deal easier. Established actors have done enough things to give you a pretty good idea of what they can do."
Conboy mentally eliminates most young performers the moment they enter his office. Their appearance or attitudes or both are wrong. Those who do pass a cursory inspection often fail during the reading or screen test because "their acting technique" shows, according to Conboy who adds that too many youngsters are badly trained. "Young people absorb bad habits from their theatrical coaches," he said. "They accumulate theatricality from teachers. Their techniques are unnatural.
"The success of 'The Young and The Restless' is due to the fact that the kids in the series don't know how to be dishonest in front of the cameras. Also, they've discovered how much hard work goes into a soap opera. "Casting a soap is different from other series in somé respects but not in others. There are certain types that follow a pattern, especially with women. "If I'm casting a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, she must have a big bosom because women with big chests are made to appear to be more salacious than other women. "You rarely see a flat chested actress playing bawdy roles. It just seems to be one of the unwritten rules of theater, movies and television. On the other hand, uptight, puritanical women are almost always flat chested.
"Facial beauty is an enormously important part of casting a soap opera because we shoot tight, close-in one shots of performers which show every pore of their skins. The point is to see what is going on in their eyes. "The young men I'm looking for must be handsome or sexy looking. Like the actresses, they must have good bodies because we play as many scenes as we can in soaps with people undressed.
"We play on the fantasies of our viewers by putting our characters in settings where there are legitimate reasons for undressing -- in bed, showers, hot tubs, karate classes swimming pools or gyms. So we have to find actors and actresses find are hot to look at, exciting, sexy. "In the final analysis, people who tune in soaps like to watch attractive young people. You find the same thing is pretty much true of prime time performers. I think you see better looking people on TV than in movies.
"Viewers also would rather see good locking older people than they would unattractive performers. You've got to provide fantasy if you expect viewers to tune in."
By
Paul Raven ·
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