What's the real deal about Santa Barbara's Marcy Walker?

Even though he was hurt at the time, Billy Warlock dodged a bullet.

A Martinez was so delicious.

Martinez didn't age so well, either.... but he was hot in his prime.

I still love to watch him in that old John Wayne movie. He was so damn young.

I started watching SB when I was I think 9 and I thought she was so beautiful then I wanted to look just like her, and now I look back at pics of her (then) and was like wtf was I thinking. Her face is kind of piggy looking and hair, which I thought was so pretty, is such a cheap dye job in retrospect -all one color. Kelly was much much prettier - although as discussed in other thread her features aren't the type that age well - she looks too hard now.

I believe she is some kind of religious nut too, no?

She tried to graduate to prime time with a show called Bar Girls but that never worked out.

That said, Santa Barbara was one hell of a show. Melrose Place tried to copy the hell out of it.

I really thought of all the people on that show it would be Lane Davies who would go on to have the breakout career. But after his stint on that Susan Harris show he totally disappeared - poof!

Good times.

Walker said Warlock was needy as hell and only wanted to hear the positive....

never the negative.

[quote]Even though he was hurt at the time, Billy Warlock dodged a bullet.

Given that she (allegedly) found him in flagrante delicto with another man, I'd say she dodged the bullet.

I used to LOVE Santa Barbara!!

I watched it for A Martinez and Vincent Irizarry. Damn they were hot back in those days.

Such schlock, but it was a lot of fun.

I never really liked Marcy Walker, but I thought Cruz and Eden were a great soap couple. My favorite, though was Mason & Julia (Lane Davies & Nancy Lee Grahn.)

she'll always be Liza Colby to me

Liza was trash, accusing Jesse of raping her. Jesse was gay, for cry in' out loud!

She married 5 times

She is now a major fundie and works as a preacher in a church in the mid-west

She found god late in life

She was crazy-good on All My Children! Between her, Kim Delaney ("Jennie"), Dorothy Lyman ("Opal") and Taylor Miller ("Nina"), that was when AMC was really good!

Years later, Marcy ditched the Soaps and turned her life over to Jesus; Kim was infamously 'bitten by the bottle'; Dorothy's career skyrocketed with "Mama's Family"; and Taylor pretty much vanished when she chopped off her hair.

She was engaged at one point to Bronson Pinchot from Perfect Strangers. When they called off the engagement, she saw his car in a parking lot and left his engagement ring on his windshield wiper.

Wasn't there a story about how Billy saw her at an ABC soap event (maybe when they did the Disney thing?) and she acted like she didn't know who he was? He had to tell her, "I'm your ex-husband."

Liza and Tad, those were the days.

WHAT R6?

That's the first I've heard of that!

Weht Trent Busey

R8, I loved Mason and Julia. Was also a fan of Cruz and Eden. A Martinez is now on Lomgmire (A&E) where he plays a bad guy. Santa Barbara was the only soap I ever watched. It was fun.

Where did Nancy Lee Grahn get that face?

Nancy Lee Grahn seems like a difficult person.

[quote]I started watching SB when I was I think 9 and I thought she was so beautiful then I wanted to look just like her, and now I look back at pics of her (then) and was like wtf was I thinking. Her face is kind of piggy looking and hair, which I thought was so pretty, is such a cheap dye job in retrospect -all one color.

The reason she seemed, at the time, to look so great on SB, was that she always looked so chunky and butch on AMC. By the time she started SB, she'd grown out that terrible bowl cut and lost 20 lbs. By comparison to her AMC days, she looked like a supermodel.

Grahn is a know it all cunt

SB continues to be my favorite American soap ever. It's the only one I ever watched, actually.

I watched religiously and even recorded it when I was in school. VCR's were pretty new back then but we had a really nice one.

The Robert Barr storyline was amazing.

Dane Witherspoon, the gut who played the original Joe (Kelly's boyfriend, released from jail for.supposedly shooting her brother) died recently.

Mid 50s .....A Martinez posted it on his Facebook, I think

[quote]The Robert Barr storyline was amazing.

Speaking of, what's the real deal with Roscoe Born? Didn't he drop out of showbiz for a while to work as a hospital orderly?

Marcy Walker today talking about her work in her church as a youth pastor,.

In Russian, so you can watch the visuals.

Robin Wright talking (for the first time) about working on Santa Barbara

For the longest time she refused to talk about her time.

Here she does.

Go to 4:45 in

Born was the classic story of an actor letting their ego grow to the size of a bus and getting an attitude with other actors, producers & directors. Eventually no one would hire him...in or out of soaps. Plus, he walked off from his role on All My Children in the '90's supposedly because he disagreed with something they were going to do with the character. He was eventually hired for short stints after being reduced to working as an orderly.

He had short term roles on Days of Our Lives, Young & Restless and was brought back near the end run of One Life to Live as Mitch Lawrence. Somehow in all those roles his character was killed off...guess to avoid return visits in case he acted up again.

Didn't he bail on Y&R as well? Someone told me it's how they ended up with the giant chipmunk

When is THIS one going to finally bite the dust like all the others?

When it reaches 600 posts, Cheryl. Just like the last one.

Back on topic, I always hated Eden and Cruz. But I loved Mason and Julia, and especially Keith and Gina.

A Martinez is a regular on the TNT drama Longmire.

Whoever said upthread that he's lost his looks is mistaken.

He looks good. Nice trim physique. Aging quite nicely.

Nancy Lee Grahn is am outspoken supporter of gay rights and women's rights. I think if people find her "difficult" it's because she is so adamant about sticking to her principles. Good for her!

Didn't she find Jesus?

Worked with Marcy during her AMC stint - toward the end of her time on soaps. She was terrific. Kind. Loving. Fun. Not a single issue.

I always thought that after All My Children Marcy would be one of the few to go on to bigger and better things. Who was that guy who played Greg. I remember loving him in 8th grade.

Marcy in AMC. She looks good here.

30 years ago this month, in August 1984, Jenny Gardner died.

30 fucking years!

Amazing.

Even after she got all churchy she said she would like to come back to AMC in occasional small doses, but I'm sure she would have had a problem with any "racy" stuff. It would have been better to have her back for a little while when Angie and Jesse came back..they could have flashbacks to those awesome stories from the 80s when Liza was such a cunt to Jesse and Jenny. Instead, they cast Jamie Luner as Liza...she was good, but was NOT Liza Colby.

It was weird during her last few years on AMC...she wasn't fat by any means. Maybe not a size 0 like other soap actresses, but they dressed her in the most dowdy big blazers and baggy sweaters. She'd appear off set in more fitted, youthful clothes and looked fine, but AMC dressed her like a total frump. Jennifer Bassey, who played her mother, wore sexier clothes!

When was she chubby?

The Jenny, Greg, Liza, Amanda shit was the best. Even Enid was a hoot.

[24]Dane Witherspoon was Robin Wright's first husband, and played her character's love interest on the show as well.

Laurence Lau -- is he gay?

Had such a crush on Todd McKee

Hot Todd then - just the bf I wanted

I always thought Vincent Irizarry was the hottest thing that ever hit soaps.

...and this is what age does to you. Enjoy being handsome, with a young, strong, attractive body will you can

Marcy Walker, Todd McKee, in their gorgeous Capwell prime...

Those are some good looking people R48

Yes, Larry Lau is gay. He had a bad drug problem during the 80s but has gotten through it.

Capwell's was the name of an Oakland-based department store chain in the '60s (and before). I always wondered if that was the inspiration for the name of the "Santa Barbara" clan.

Does Enid know?

R52 I thought Capulet→Capwell was tge derivation.

R49 indeed - look at Robin Wright, pre-"Princess Bride". All that beauty wasted on Sean Penn...

Actually if there was anyone that I thought would go onto greater things, it would have been Lane Davies. He made SB and I can't believe they even tried to replace him.

But I think he just quietly moved back to Georgia. Perhaps to some extent it was a choice. Sometimes that happens.

He's also in one of my favorite Golden Girls episodes.

Before Mason + Julia it was Mason and Mary - anyone remember when the giant "C" on the rooftop of the hotel (was that Orient Express? I forget) fell on her and killed her? Good times.

LOVED Gina and Keith too - hilarious.

I think Melrose Place tried to copy the camp humor style of SB. SB was the original funny soap.

Larry was married a couple of times before playing for our team. A friend of mine says he is very well hung (saw him flaccid, non-sexual situation).

Todd McKee has a FABULOUS body for a 50 year old!

Loved Santa Barbara during its first say five years. So many great characters and plot lines.

Todd looks great. Wonder when he started shaving, though.

R50 - I had no idea he was gay. I know most didn't care for him in the role but I had a huge crush on him when he was Jamie Frame!

Mason and Julia were the best.

Anyone remember Marcy Walker alongside fellow soap queens Genie Francis and Victoria Wyndham in the trashtastic Terror in the Shadows?

It's funny that Greg, Jessie, Jenny, and Amanda from the halcyon days of All My Children turnout to be gay. When I was a kid watching it was Marcy who pinged off the charts for me.

I used to love watching a teenage Marcy,as Liza, go toe to toe with Dorothy Lyman as Opal. Marcy's work as an alcoholic, druggie Liza was pure gold.

I liked Marcy better on AMC when she was mixed up with Tad The Cad. She was better the first time she was on AMC. she looked and acted rather pretentious on Santa Barbara.She looked like she was having more fun on AMC.

She became a fundie now? Don't tell me she's one of those "God hates fags" types now.She seemed to be the biggest fag hag of all time even marrying Billy Warlock. Who was the second biggest queen at GH after Tony Geary.

Marcy had the most beautiful hair. Here she is on Regis in 1989

I know someone who swears he went to A Martinez's gym in LA, and says he has a long, gorgeous brown cock.

I wouldn't have pegged him as particularly having BDF, but there you have it.

More about Marcy's new leading man: Jesus.

On last year's (very good) online AMC reboot, they were hinting all over the place that Liza Colby was on her way back to Pine Valley. The executive producer, who was a lifer at the ABC show, said that any time the story mentioned an old character it was a hint the performer may be returning.

Liza's daughter Colby Chandler was sexing up the town and her mom was coming up in scripts on a daily basis, with Opal trashing her "no good mamma" after Colby gave Opal's son Petey head, etcetera.

Since the show had already brought back the untouchable Michael Nader as Dimitri years after his drug bust to great success, it was not unthinkable that Marcy might have been on the verge of appearing as Liza again. Unfortunately, the venture capitalists behind the show fell down on funding and the show was forced to end.

I wish the online reboot had more time to get better. It had a lot of promise, though the dumb kidnapping/forced prostitution story was a big drag.

I thought the reboot was good as gold, especially once characters like Colby and Dimitri reentered the picture. It was a better All My Kids than I had seen since maybe the days of Bianca's coming out. There were flaws... for example, they were obviously working around David Canary's inability to do much work as Adam. But their growing pains were understandable, and negligible. It was a far better soap than anything on TV at the time.

The One Life to Live reboot started out very good then started spinning its wheels. In my opinion it was the one that was just finding its way and recovering by the end. I liked both of those shows.

Yeah, the OLTL reboot spent too much time on the whole two Todds and all that intrigue. It had less to reinvent and had less action.

AMC, on the other hand, really had a lot of interesting stuff to explore. I thought their young characters were the best I'd seen on any soap in a while. You could see a bit of the Agnes influence in developing them - in fact, that was the best thing about them -- they were developed a bit as people before insta-romance. I wanted to watch them all. Can't say that for any show for some time.

Liza was pretty good on her return to AMC until maybe sometime around her second marriage to Adam. She started to become watered down and would be wringing her hands about how bad Adam was. I read an interview where she wanted Liza to be more like Brooke. Maybe she was discovering Jesus at the time and wanted to be a more virtuous character, but that was not Liza. It did not help that they would have Marian and Stuart show up every other episode to tell Adam to stop being mean to Liza. No one wanted victim Liza - they wanted female version of Adam Liza.

I know a lot of people loved this pairing, and they did have some sweet moments, but I thought Marian was ruined by being married to Stuart. She was much less fun as a happy, content housewife. Stuart also went from being Adam's concerned conscience to being a judgmental critic. Another unpopular opinion, a little Stuart went a long way.

A little Stuart goes a long way is just how I felt.

From someone who interned at Santa Barbara and whose friends worked at Guiding Light, I was told that Marcy Walker was Evil. I never got the details, just easily threatened, would bait co-stars to complain about the producers and then tell the producers what the co-stars said. Was most comfortable promoting and befriending actresses who were never in position to become leads - for example, was friends with Nancy Grahn in Grahn's early days on SB but would spread stories about Grahn to the media and the show runners when Grahn's popularity threatened Walker's, and that though she and AJ Martinez made much of their friendship, by the end of Walker's run on Santa Barbara he considered her Satan. She had a lot of issues, apparently, stemming from her family background. She was conscientious about scene prep though

I agree that she looked really bad her first go round on AMC, so when she grew out her hair on Santa Barbara and dropped a few pounds, it was almost as if she were a supermodel (she was at least 5'9 though, I've stood next to her), but looking back she wasn't conventionally beautiful.

Nancy is the cunt supreme.

Wait - did someone just say Kim Delaney is gay, too? Is that why she became a dipso, drinking to hide the pain of being in the closet?

Nancy may be an opinionated bitch, but quite frankly, she's 10x the actress Marcy ever was.

Marcy had her strengths, but I never understood the major orgasm everyone had about her portrayal of Eden. She was better at playing Liza, but not my cup of tea. I thought every actress who played Kelly on SB was more interesting than Eden.

I LOVED Mason. LOVED. Even though I don't have a VCR anymore I refuse to toss my tapes of Mason and Julia scenes. I so hope Lane Davies is doing well wherever he is.

[quote]I wouldn't have pegged (A Martinez) as particularly having BDF, but there you have it.

Anyone who ever saw the man wearing jeans knew he had a big dick.

Did Marcy ever do the lez lez? Is that what she's repenting for?

I'm just....asking for a friend.

Marcy's first replacement as Liza on AMC, Alice Haining, was gay. There was a rumor at the time that she was executive producer Jacqueline Babbin's plaything.

I remember Marcy's family appearing on Family Feud and her father had one of the most butt ugly faces I'd ever seen. And they seemed to be extreme conservatives.

How did you tell they we're conservatives from Family Feud?

R76 No, NOOOO, I'M the Lane Davies troll! Pls don't take that away from me.

Waiting for GG to rerun Ebbitde: The Wrath of Stan.

Wasn't Alice Haining also on ATWT?

Alice Haining was on all the NY soaps.

She was on Loving, AMC, OLTL, ATWT, not sure about GL or AW.

Thanks, 83.

Loved Mason and Julia. What a spunky and fun couple.

I thought Kelly when young was gorgeous. She had natural straight hair-seemed to have no makeup on. Kelly's natural look was such a contrast to the standard 80s style- with the big hair, big jewelry, big makeup.

Loved this soap when I was in high school- recently watched a clip on youtube...and well, boy was the acting stilted, I guess soap operas are not ageless classic TV.

r42, Wright outed Whitherspoon's replacement Mark Arnold (also known from his work as Gavin Wylie on The Edge of Night) in an interview for a German SB site a couple of years back. She wasn't happy with the replacement and alluded to it not working beause the actor was gay.

Poor Robin. Couldn't sleep with her co-star eh? She hasn't aged well.

Loved Carrington Garland as Kelly. Where did she disappear to?

I actually knew a few people from SB - Marcy was great but could be a lil nuts.

A - he was fucking sex on a stick in person....he bulge made me sweat. He caught me staring at it once when I looked up at him he smiled and winked...

Didn't they have Mark Arnold and Lori Loughlin "date" off screen in their "Edge of Night" days?

[quote] A - he was fucking sex on a stick in person....he bulge made me sweat. He caught me staring at it once when I looked up at him he smiled and winked...

I would have been waiting as long as it took until after the taping for him to ravage my mouth and ass.

Melrose Place ripped off a lot from SB in terms of making soaps funny/camp. I loved Gina and Keith. I liked Mason and Julia eventually but it took me a while to get over Mason and Mary. It's funny how pretty i used to think Eden was back then and now I look back and I'm like : wow, she looked like Miss Piggy. But Robin Wright really was beautiful.

I have to make a plug again for Lane Davies - he deserved to become something major, whatever the happened to him après Good and Evil. Did he just quit?

Marcy and Carrington could have passed as real life sisters. There was even an episode where they used Carrington in the background as one scene appearing as Eden because Marcy was not available to shoot that day.

Carrington recently, hanging out with Connie Towers.

Marcy today - she does video projects with kids for her mega-church she's a part of. Looks pretty good for an former actress leading a post-Hollywood life.

Photo did not post.

She looks good.

She always seemed so sad. Whether for her role or in any interview I've ever seen her in. Just so sad. Looking back at AMC I can't remember a single instance when her character was ever happy or carefree. I've seen her in a couple interviews through the years too and she always just seemed inches away from gassing herself in the oven.

Marcy seems very upbeat, happy, and personable in this interview, R97.

Mark Arnold gave an interview years ago, where he talked about her having a bad attitude because he replaced her boyfriend.

PRAISE JESUS!

Thank you gays!

xo

Huh, R99? "Replaced her boyfriend"?

Funny how "iconic" Marcy Walker was in the 80s - even if you didn't watch soaps at all, ads and promos for Santa Barbara were everywhere & always featuring Marcy front-and-center. You'd recognize her. Fast forward 30 years and she looks pretty much the same, yet she lives in Oklahoma and works at a church.

I wonder if the OK churchfraus are secretly enamored to be rubbing elbows with the former "Eden Capwell/Liza Colby" or is she just another member of the flock. I don't watch much reality TV but I'd tune in for an episode if TLC did a show on her... actually I'm surprised they haven't already it hits all their check-boxes.

Cruz and Eden has the most explosive chemistry I've ever seen on daytime. They were just magic together.

Cruz was one of the best leading men ever to hit daytime.

Marcy vs. Goop

What's your point, R104? The only thing they have in common is blonde hair.

Are you face-blind, R105? Young Marcy looks exactly like young Goop in that photo!

R104/106 they don't look anything alike. Their facial features couldn't be more different.

And for the record, Goop was and is a lot better looking. Marcy Walker always looked like Miss Piggy.

Little Known Facts

A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

A duck's quack doesn't echo.

There are people who argue over whether Marcy Walker looks like Gwenyth Paltrow.

Marcy Walker was absolutely stunning in her day and far more distinctive than Goop. It was her glamorous and exotic look in large part that launched Santa Barbara as the first worldwide megasoap. She became a style icon in France in particular, where they know a little something about style and don't tend to gravitate toward "Miss Piggy" types.

Liza Colby was mutt ugly!

Liza was gorgeous.

The best thing about Liza Colby was that she used to let me go down on her.

I thought Marcy was hideous playing Liza. But once she started playing Eden, I thought she was absolutely stunning.

She was able to completely embody two such different characters, my perceptions of her beauty were influenced by her performance.

[quote] I thought Marcy was hideous playing Liza.

because hair & make-up were ordered by TPTB to make her look as terrible as possible.

She had long locks, but was ordered to have her hair cut in a buster brown mold.

TPTB wanted to contrast her as hard and severe against sweet angelic Jenny.

Marcy used to cry once a week on how she looked. Being in public was no picnic either. People used to attack her on the street calling her all sorts of names.

Marcy would always try to tell herself that these verbal attacks meant she was a great actress on-screen.

R114 - Do you know Marcy?

What the real deal about Santa CLAUS ?

R115 Marcy has spoken about her hair & make-up battles on AMC

Everytime she made the most 'beautiful' list in soap magazines, she would talk about how ugly she was made-up on AMC.

The Buster Brown hair certainly did her no favors on AMC. Didn't know TPTB were deliberately trying to make her look bad. thanks for the info.

Was very glad they let Liza be glamorous when she returned to Pine Valley in 1995.

Her hair was amazing here. 1989

It's absolutely true that Marcy was made to look as sexless as possible so there was never any possibility that Greg would be tempted to fuck Liza and thus be unfaithful to Jenny. They put her in horrible preppy sweaters in the winter and boyish Izod Lacoste polo shirts in the summer. Jenny got to wear frilly, attractive frocks. Poor Marcy/Liza.

It is weird because TPTB tried to make Marcy Walker look like a dyke, and they had one playing her best friend!

Amanada Bearse.

R119 that bleached all one color white blond? How quaint.

Hair that long well cared for is rare.

Cruz and Eden were magic on the show. Lightening in a bottle, if you will,

This was the look ABC inflicted on Marcy at its worst. No wonder she bolted to Santa Barbara over on NBC.

Here is what she transformed into on NBC's Santa Barbara - what a difference!

She always seemed so mannish next to Robin Wright, but as Robin grew older her features turned distinctly masculine too. I remember thinking the Capwell sisters were the ultimate in glamour.

Robin always could have passed for a dude.

Todd McKee is gay, right? I heard he had an affair with Lane Davies. Quitting SB at the same time, they traveled around the world for a year. After their trip Davies returned to TV, tried primetime, got married, then quickly divorced. He now works in theater somewhere in the South. Todd has never been married. Does anyone here know them?

And she still could:

I always thought one of the requirements for playing the character of Mason was being gay. I mean all three actors to play the part were gay IRL -- Lane Davies, Terry Lester, Gordon Thompson.

I was quite surprised when Lane Davies got married. Have never heard that he divorced, but IMDB says he is. He also has two sons.

Marcy was one of the best actors on daytime. Even though they were completely outlandish, her last scenes as Eden (as a multiple personality disorder masquerading as her dead brother Channing in which she shot their mother Sophia) were absolutely riveting. I watched them again not so long ago on YT. Soaps used to be interesting and worthy to watch. SB really innovated camp and satire in the soap world, but it never forgot the genre's importance in drama.

BEST PATRIARCH EVER: Jed Allen's CC Capwell.

BEST MANSION SET EVER: the original Capwell Spanish-style atrium.

BEST PSYCHO EVER: Sherilyn Wolter's Elena Nikolas.

SOME OF THE BEST COUPLES EVER IN DAYTIME: Cruz and Eden, Gina and Keith, Mason and Julia, Augusta and Lionel, CC and Sophia.

BEST USE OF HUMOUR EVER IN SOAP: SANTA BARBARA.

R132 yeah I've said this before but Melrose Place owes a big debt to SB.

Marcy Walker as Eden had the perfect look for the mid to late 80s - which is probably why I thought she was so pretty and glamorous as a youngin. But if you really look at her face - piggish nose, no cheekbones - she was never all that pretty. She just was made to have the right "look" at the right time.

Robin Wright was always much prettier - the classic beauty of the show. But she had the opposite problem: her features were/are SO sculpted that as she got older she got too harsh looking. She should have lent some of her "bone structure" to Walker and then all would have been perfect.

LOVE Lane Davies - not at all surprised to find out he is gay, though (or at least bi from what is described here). Have never known anything about his personal live. But he was a major talent. He should have gone places. R133 you forgot Mason and Mary as a major couple. It actually took new long time to get used to idea of Mason and Julia. I couldn't stand her for the longest time.

I wonder if his retreat back to Georgia was a choice or not.

Anyone remember the storyline where Gina got Santana hooked on crack? Does anyone remember Santana?

There were several actresses who played Santana, but one of the most notable was the last, Wanda de Jesus.

Apparently, she and Jed Allen detested each other to the point that he included an entire chapter in his memoir about how much he despised her (he did not use her name in the book, but by all accounts she is the actress in question).

This is all the more notable because de Jesus has a widespread reputation as being difficult and as recently as a couple years ago, she had to be replaced on Law and Order: LA for unspecifed reasons.

R134 - Her nose is cute. Longer hair and slimmed down helped her.

Todd McKee recently got married.

Marcy hit it big (on soaps) precisely BECAUSE of her unconventional look, not in spite of it. Especially back when there were 12+ soaps on the air, it was important to have a recognizable face to go with the brand and Marcy was the unmistakable face of SB - so much so that when the time came to find a better Kelly recast they went with a Marcy look-alike (Carrington Garland, who turned out to be a very talented performer in her own right).

R133 oh yes Lionel - I always loved Nicholas Coster; I've always had kind of an older man crush on him (which I guess is kind of wacko, considering I was like 9 when I first started watching SB). But he popped up in so many movies and TV shows. I loved his transatlantic accent.

For years (ie before google) my mother (who loved him, too) told me that he was Art Carney's son. I don't know where the fuck she got that idea from, but one day (many years ago) I looked him up on either imdb or Wikipedia, and I found out that was most patently...not true. I have no clue from where she got that idea.

R135 Wanda de Jesus? That sounds like the name off psycho right there. Was she the one who played Santana when she got hooked on crack?

Wanda de Jesus has been Jimmy Smitts' main squeeze since 1986, R139. Most recently she recurred on Sons of Anarchy.

I don't think she was the Santana who was hooked on crack, but I may be mistaken (there were four of them).

During her first AMC stint, they did start letting her be sexier and sex kitten-ish when she was with Tad and then sleeping around town after finding out he was fucking Marian. She looks pretty good here:

And then, r141, she was punished for being sexy by getting raped in an alley.

Gina Gallego played Santana during her drug addict phase, married to Cruz and cheating on him with Keith Timmons.

She was as close to a good Santana as they had. The first - Ava Lazarr - was ok, but she couldn't act. The second - Margaret Michaels (infamous for being a stand-in for Victoria Principal in an episode to write Pamela Ewing off on DALLAS)- was just horrible and had absolutely no sexual chemistry with anyone. GG was the third and had the most fun - adultery, drug addiction, annual cat fights with Robin Mattson (remember when Gina stole Santana's cookie recipe and marketed a successful new business called "Gina's Cookies"?). Her Santana was just a jittery ball of sexual energy and Mexican spitfire. The forth - Wanda de Jesus - was the most mature Santana, stronger after years of being in a mental hospital. Funny to hear that Jed Allan despised her so much, because the romantic chemistry between them was affective but perhaps de Jesus' difficulty led to the eventual abortion of this recoupling and her exit from the canvas. Her Santana was part of the Dobsons' attempt to take SB back to its original conception after they had been locked out of their show for so long.

It's too bad they had such difficulty finding a permanent actor to help develop the character of Santana Andrade. She could have been the Latin Erica Kane, or the show's Jill Foster, a woman working her way up in her own passionate saga.

We never did find out who Warren's and Cassandra's fathers were.

Iconic Santa Barbara moment starring the wonderful Robin Mattson:

This thread brought back memories of a girl I went to school with who had the last name "de Jesus". While it was pronounced de-HAY-zeus, we always called her de-GEEZ-us. Good times.

Jeez R56 .... is McKee shaved in that clip ? (bad vision/not a great clip)

He had a perfectly nice hairy chest. Shame.

He was always hot .... I guess once you've got it and know how to keep it going, looking that good at 50,60,etc might be easier.

I wouldn't know.... HA.

Todd McKee out of the business and still has a fabulous body at age 50

In this clip from B&B when he made a guest appearance.

Santa Barbara was so good for so many years. The show was cutting edge. The initial storyline of the show was the murder of bisexual Channing Capwell. This was 1984.

The show used humor and camp so well, but didn't lose its heart. Not under the Dodsons anyway. So many great couples, so many great actors...Marcy's Eden was great. Such a wonderful actress in the perfect role.

I would love to see it back in a telenovela format. The show could focus on Adriana, the beautiful Latina heiress who has never felt loved due to the abandonment by her parents. You could do an arc where Cruz finds Eden and they reunite.

Enough of my fan fiction.

I didn't know Todd McKee was gay. His body is incredible for a guy over 50.

He works for Merrill Lynch these days. One of you LA-based DLers must need a financial planner. Go take one for the team.

R150 bet he's a Republican.

Would the DL be ok with that?

There aren't many of these soap stars that manage to transition to better things in the film industry. I mean, they may not be the best of actors but I guess you could say that about many film stars.

R152 - A lot of film actors started in soaps.

I used to Love watching SB during my school days.....really those were the days...Infact think the only Soap I ever was hooked on.

EDEN and CRUZ wat a couple they were...havent come across such scorching chemistry before or after them...

Think Marcy was a perfect EDEN a bit imperfect...and had a great sense of humour.. liked the fact that she was not always serious about her existence and had an excellent comic timing. Keep re-visiting them on YT...my all time favourites & yes EDEN def was the better half in that relationship.....

DL fave Marcia Cross was up for the part of Eden on SB

She could have gotten it, if she didn't have cold feet and bolt from the audition.

"There aren't many of these soap stars that manage to transition to better things in the film industry."

A lot of stars started on soaps.

R152, I think back in the day, it was a great way for people to spring board into primetime or films. However, over the last 10-15 years, there has been an obvious lack of talent and that is why people rarely make that leap successfully.

[quote] She could have gotten it, if she didn't have cold feet and bolt from the audition.

I doubt Marcia cross would have gotten the part over Marcy Walker. Marcy Walker was an established soap star and soaps were very competitive back then - in launching a new one I'm sure they were very happy to have a recognizable face and known commodity as their star.

Marcia probably would have been a decent Eden, but no way the role would have become iconic the way it did under Marcy. As someone mentioned above, Marcy has some very unique acting qualities (a sense of humor, a sultriness, the ability to do high drama, a maternal quality, a sense of adventure, etc.) that along with her look really defined the role. Marcia's iconic characters (Kimberly and Bree) have struck a chord because of Marcia's uncanny ability to bring a realness to pathological characters - but those characters were not well rounded in the sense that Eden was.

[quote]I think back in the day, it was a great way for people to spring board into primetime or films. However, over the last 10-15 years, there has been an obvious lack of talent and that is why people rarely make that leap successfully.

I would add to that:

-fewer people acting in soap operas these days since only 4 remain on the air

-fewer opportunities to make the jump to primetime since half of network tv these days is reality based (AI, The Voice, DWTS, etc).

I wonder if soaps are much less of a learning experience than they were in the past. They have always had a more hectic filming schedule, but it sounds like now to save money they basically run through things once and go with it. In the past I think they did a little more rehearsing. Plus the way they are written you don't have as many long, meaty scenes on which to cut your teeth. It is more heavily based on shocking plot twists than building on real human emotions.

R160 soaps used to have a table read the day before the script was shot, a run through (dry rehearsal)in the morning, a camera rehearsal, and a dress rehearsal.

Now all most soaps have is a camera rehearsal so that actors will know where to hit their marks, but this is done before the actual scene is filmed.

But it is also important to remember that most soaps used to film the show in script order. So it was easier to do all of those full rehearsals.

Then soaps switched to filming scenes by characters so that those other rehearsals fell by the wayside.

Soaps are made fun of and aren't well respected, but soap work is hard. Most actors can't do it, it requires a special set of skills.

A typical soap films about 7 episodes a week.

A movie shoots 2 pages a day.

A primetime show takes a week to film.

Marcy was once ubiquitous on the TV-movie circuit, yet a glance at her IMDB shows that the only thing she's done in the past 20 years in All My Children. And NOTHING in the last 10 years. Yet, she still looks great for her age. So here's my question: why isn't she popping up in these "faith-based" films that are becoming popular - God's Not Dead, Kirk Cameron's Christmas etc. Has she just not got the acting bug anymore? She used to love the spotlight, it seemed. Is being the "star" of her mega-church community enough for her? So many questions, so few answers.

From imdb

"Marcy Walker had been married and divorced 3 times, all by the time she was 30 years old"

Such a great actress. Sorry she's not on our screens anymore.

Marcy has always fascinated me. She deserved a movie career way more than Robin Wright.

lol @ Gina im r165's pic. Best cunt face ever.

She is a fundie now. Church going Christian

Her son should be around mid twenties now ............any pics ???

I loved when Liza came back in the 90s and was producing Erica's talk show. It was fun seeing two pros like Walker and Lucci playing off each other.

Love the shot of Marcy crying tears of joy when Lucci accepts her Emmy.

AMC botched so many returns in the later years, but they did a good job with bringing Liza back onto the canvas. She was great and still clicked with Tad and Marion and worked well against Adam and Erica. I think there were a number of people cheering for her against Dixie (who was pretty self-righteous at the time).

I remember when they initially brought David Hayward on for a short stint to torment Jake and Ali (completely forgot about her), and did not think much of him. The right before he left he had some scenes with Liza, and it was amazing how much more interesting and better Vincent was when playing against a pro and sparring with a character who was his equal. They really sparked, and when they brought him back a few months later, I thought they might do an Adam-Liza-David triangle, but never went in that direction. They remained adversaries with no romantic entanglement..

If somebody like Meryl Streep can have a movie career, why didn't Marcy Walker?

Bump for ole Ede and Lize. Classic soap characters, both played beautifully by ole Marce.

Marcy can be seen in this vid participating in church activities.

Marcy looks good. Still,has that great hair. Nice that she has found her "calling" but I hope she's a "good" Christian and not one of those anti-gay ones.

r174, did you watch to the end of the vid where Marcy was skipping down the hallway? That was hilarious.

Never mind. Her church is "Evangelical Presbyterian "--they don't "condone" homosexuality. CYA, Marcy. Good luck on marriage #5.

Maybe they don't condone anal sex r176, that doesn't mean they don't condone gay PEOPLE.

I love her. It all came natural to her. I don't ever remember her giving a clunker of a performance. I fucking hated Liza on AMC with a passion when she first came on. That means Marcy was getting it right. I'd love to see her regularly in something. She looks great.

I worked w her back in her ABC days. She was actually pretty cool.

What R171? You're comparing her to Meryl Streep? You can't be serious.

I Knew Marcy in the 90's - yeah she was nuts.

I'm not COMPARING her to Meryl Streep you fuckwit. I'm saying Marcy is BETTER than Meryl.

American Justice, who always does great work, has an episode about Betty. American Justice was the show True Crime lovers, like myself, consider the best.

OOPS

R179, any tea on Lucci and SMG?

[quote] If somebody like Meryl Streep can have a movie career, why didn't Marcy Walker?

In fairness she had plenty of opportunities in Prime Time. She could have worked alot, but the problem is the schedule. They don't cast guest spots until a day or 2 before filming. You could work one week, then nothing for a month. Then have three guest spots back to back to back. Then nothing for another three months.

Which is why she went back to daytime for the steadiness. Plus she would make more money in Daytime than doing Guest starring roles on Primetime.

because of her soap background the only film work she could probably get are b films that would go straight to video.

r186, but Robin Wright and Julianne Moore got to have movie careers and Marcy was more talented than both of them. Marcy would have been awesome in the Theresa Russell role in Black Widow.

The thing is it looked like Marcy lacked their guts to just cut the ties to daytime and prime time guest shots and go for the movie career. Did Marcy do that?

Agree ............... there are just some people who succeed in daytime that don't succeed elsewhere.

Marcy wanted the steady work/pay of daytime.

By her late twenties, she had a kid and three failed marriages. Possibly didn't have the savings to keep trying for the big leagues. She must've earned big bucks once she landed on Santa Barbara as the leading lady, but who knows.

'The soap curse' isn't always unbeatable ........... both Robin Wright and Julianne Moore (and Meg Ryan and many others) didn't settle in too long (or return to daytime once they left it) ........ that is probably the secret to success.

Marcy could've done guest star gigs and pilots ............. there were a lot of shows with ensemble casts that she could've landed. I see this more as her own life choice than a 'soap curse'. Nothing wrong with it .... if soaps were still a thing, Marcy could've had a Lucci-Sleezak-Strasser type gig.

If Santa Barbara was still on the air, somehow I don't envision Eden having stuck around for the last 30 years to become the 'Marlena' of that show.

She might not have gone for it but I would argue she's as talented as any actress out there.

Agreed r191. Meg Ryan, Jodie Foster, Michelle Pfeiffer and I genuinely think Marcy Walker could have been among their ilk if she had pursued a movie career. She was JUST as good as Jodie and Michelle and JUST as popular with her audiences as Meg.

I'm envisioning an alternate reality for Marcy Walker where she leaves Santa Barbara in 1986 to take the lead role opposite Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, from which she wins the Academy Awards. From there, she tops Kate Hepburn's record to win the most number of Leading Actress Oscars and the press begin pitting her in a playful feud against Meryl Streep.

After a humiliating experience of being fired from The Hours and replaced with Marcy Walker, Meryl decides to take her sister in law Maeve Kincaid's advice and go back to basics by taking a contract role on Guiding Light. The day after, in the press, Marcy Walker comments about soaps being a tremendous training ground for green actors.

R190 ...... Marcy would've totally played Eden as the grande dame of Santa Barbara ........she would've played all the middle age soap tropes ............ MILF stealing a younger female leads man, middle aged baby, 'fatal' disease, previously unknown grown twins, etc, etc, .......... And by the time she was an old woman, she'd be like Minx from the first years of the show.

I would have killed to see a casting of Laurence Lau on SB........

Marcy as Ashley Abbott: if only! Eileen isn't all that.

OH yeah ...Marcy would have taken Ashley to new heights.

Meryl Streep is pretty much the best actress there is, I like soap stars too and many are talented but still can't compare anyone to Meryl Streep. Just stop. You're taking it too far.

R179 here - nothing major. We were once doing an event in a space with BUFFY posters. We were urged to take them down before Susan arrived.

I LOVED Mark Arnold!

Even at age 15 in 1980, I KNEW he was gay on "Edge of Night!"

Hey bitches!

I ate your show!!!

(((((((((( BELCH ))))))))))

Marcy was very interesting to look at, like Barbara Stanwyck was, and that's a hell of a lot more worthwhile than being some conventional beauty.

There was always something interesting about Walker. It was just a different vibe from soap opera actresses. She was exciting to watch because she made such unconventional choices as an actress. She was likable but you still didn't trust her. She was vulnerable but would walk over anyone. One of the few soap actresses who added more to the script and character.

"Daytime on NBC... it will EXCITE YOU!"

One of the older posts here describes the soap opera shooting schedule totally wrong. There was never a table read and once they were taped (instead of live to tape or whatever the deal was in the Dark Shadows days), they weren't filmed in sequence.

In New York, quite a few of the younger actors on daytime already had influential agents who put them on the soap opera to get camera experience but made sure they didn't renew their contract - and tried to limit the length of the contract. For example, Marina Kanakaredes had a great agent that she got after Guiding Light, that I think had nothing to do w/Guiding Light. The agency just liked her look and her type and she must have been effective reading for them and on tape, because she started doing theatre in NY and that's how her prime time career started - not off the soap. When agencies have a younger actor with some competence and the right look, they started showcasing them around the city. A soap wasn't considered a showcase - nobody in the other side of the business watched them.

Tammy Blanchard's success and talent shocked the hell out of me. When she got on Guiding Light she played a nemesis/bitch to the current ingenue/heroine, and she couldn't act. Then one day she suddenly figured it out. It sort of unintentionally undermined her bitch character because she was naturally hilarious and it bled through on the soap. She must have done a hell of an audition for a great agent while she was on GL because she's done great since.

Marcy Walker, OTOH, got several high profile prime time opportunities due to the publicity she got on Santa Barbara and due to her Q rating which was a big deal at the time. And NBC was really involved in trying to promote some of its daytime stars into prime time. All the prime time projects bombed, including the one she transitioned into after she left SB "for good." I just don't think the prime time format suited her. She needed those long storylines.

Finally, a lot of the 1980s soap stars ended up in trouble because they didn't save their money. Soap operas were big in the 1980s and once you were an established "regular" on a soap, it was assumed you could go to another soap opera any time you wanted, and continue to make big money (some of them made a million a year). Very few of them saw the end of soap operas coming, the slashed budgets (good'by designer wardrobes, hello Loehman's) and the slashed salaries. It was the best job in the world if you weren't that ambitious and a lot of them lived it up - great homes, cars, vacations - and never saved a dime. Oh, and probably it went down the toilet on a lot of drugs too. I cannot believe March Walker ended up broke after Santa Barbara, but she did. Totally broke.

What happened to Lane Davies is when he got back from his round the world trip with Todd McGee, he thought he would be easily snapped up by a New York soap opera and from there have a career like Larry Bryggman, who did As the World Turns regularly but also Broadway and off Broadway regularly. I can't remember the order of his post-SB projects, but his long term plan was the east coast and theatre. I think he did two tv shows - one also had Evan Handler in it and the other had Teri Garr in it and both bombed. Then he did a stint as Ronn Moss's temporary replacement on the Bold & Beautiful and was so horribly miscast I think it hurt him. He struggled getting work after that. He "had a theatre" in Georgia (his home state) but I don't know what that means or if he actually earned a living with that or worked for or with his family somehow - he has siblings in Georgia. He did a stint on General Hospital opposite Nancy Lee Grahn but it was completely sabotaged by TPTB and never got off the ground before they killed him off (for example, the first time his character kissed hers, her character was in male drag, and this was after delaying the start of the "romance" repeatedly).

The actors on the UK soaps have the best deal of all... the format is identical to the daytime soaps, but the UK ones air in primetime and have triple the budget, huge outdoor sets, incredible production values, huge salaries for the actors and shows which give their networks their biggest ratings.

Also, R207, they don't tend to keep actors' contracts going on for as long as they do in the USA. That's why you had so many people leaving Downton Abbey after 1 or 2 years.

[quote] Todd McKee recently got married.

To a woman, or a man?

To a woman. Todd was married probably about 5 years ago, because his daughter is about 3 years old. (Well, if he got married before the birth, that is.) There are a bunch of home videos of him and the baby on Vimeo under his dad's account (Ron McKee).

Huh.

Marcy is married to Jesus now and she's happy. She makes dolls at the church she joined and she does not talk of her acting career at all. She made an egg/potato/sausage casserole for our last potluck and it went quickly. Leave her alone.

I ate Marcy's cunt back in the day.

And R213 they considered your then roomate Sandra Bernhardt for the role of Anne Tyler Martin.

Marcy found Eden, for real LOL

That Bridget Dobson seemed like a real cunt!

She could have had a huge film career. She was internationally famous for playing Eden. She could have done international box office with a Hollywood film career.

I'd really like to know about her time at GL. How she got (mis)cast there, and if the cast hated her as much as it seemed on camera.

r218, I don't think they hated her. She had earned her stripes. If anyone at GL hated anything, it was probably the character she was playing who had no roots or connections to anyone. They should have cast her as Hope Bauer.

I thought she was perfect as the mean ugly Liza Colby. Perfect next to innocent pretty Jenny Gardner.

I am disappointed by the comparative lack of swing and floof in Tom Eplin's hair in R205's GIF. It does not excite me.

There's a lot of swing in my dick, R221.

R206- I remember Lane's stint on GH. Fans were all excited about the reunion of "Mason and Julia" but the writers deliberately tanked the whole thing from day one. I never understood why. They dressed him like some crappy looking lumberjack and there wasn't a line of dialogue that the two of them could rub together for a spark.

[quote]I thought she was perfect as the mean ugly Liza Colby. Perfect next to innocent pretty Jenny Gardner.

She was great when she returned to AMC after her GL stint causing havoc for Tad and Dixie and then her later pairing with Adam. Somewhere along the line she lost her edge, and became more of a simpering victim - just another wife Adam steamrollered. I remember reading an interview she wanted Liza to be more like Brooke. I wonder if her christian views made her not want to play Liza mean or amoral and causing the watering down of her character. If that is the case, it is too bad, because the neutering of Liza made the character disposable. Semi-related, I grew to dislike Stuart and Marion, because Marion went from fun and a wild card to judgmental and domesticated.

She should have been a huge star. There was something captivating about her.

She is missed in daytime!

She looked better on Santa Barbara than she did on All My Children

I thought she was gorgeous on SB. I love watching Cruz and Eden scenes on YT.