Someone else will explain in better detail, but...
I'm not sure why Meg Mundy was not continued in the role after the TV-movie.
Augusta Dabney was fired to try to refocus Isabelle's role on the canvas. Celeste Holm's Isabelle was colder and scheming. She was married to Wesley Addy (Cabot) in real life. They had killed Cabot but had him return so Isabelle could talk to his ghost. This went further and further until the story was set up to reveal that Isabelle had had an affair with a man and conceived Clay, whom she passed off as Cabot's son.
Celeste Holm wasn't happy with the material, I believe, and left. Isabelle was burned with bad face cream and via plastic surgery became Pat Barry. Barry played the character very close to her character on GL almost a decade earlier - scheming, ineffectual (and vaguely Southern). She stayed in the role for about a year and a half or a little more before leaving.
Months later, Dabney returned, and the character returned to Dabney's settings (if, as some have mentioned, a little colder).
To me, Dabney was the only Isabelle and shouldn't have been recast. She's no Celeste Holm, but I don't think that type of role suited Isabelle and I would have just brought Holm in as a new character.
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DRW50 ·
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