North and South miniseries with Patrick Swayze

Virgilia owns this thread, just because that's her name.

Piece of garbage.

LOVED this miniseries!

Gone with the Wind meets Aaron Spelling.

One of the greatest bitches in tv history.

A blowsy, ridiculous mini-series. It was based on a trilogy of novels by John Jakes. They read like lame soap operas. Jakes makes a big deal about the "historical accuracy" of his trilogy, but his writing is pitiful and the characters are your standard Good and Evil soap opera cardboard cutouts. If you want an entertaining read about the old South, stick to Gone With The Wind.

It was no Beulah Land.

I loved it.

John Stockwell, James Read, and Lewis Smith were fucking GORGEOUS. But I got bored anytime they weren't on the screen.

I remember watching a series with Stacy Keach. In the 80s. Is this it?

I was young in this.

How come they never made the third book into a mini series? Weren’t the first two highly rated? Seems like they were rerun constantly on ABC back in the mid 80’s.

I watched it back then, but now I probably would find it incredibly cheesy.

Oh Do Shut Up R2.

Orrie dies in it, R13

Loved this shit

It really was pretty bad. But this kind of thing always has an audience. I thought the best performance was by David Carradine as Madeleine's much older husband Justin. For anyone interested in reading the trilogies, they're easy reads but bad writing. John Jakes actually named two of the main female characters "Brett" and "Ashton." Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Anyway, there's a lot of sex going on (several of his female characters fuck with impunity with no thought to pregnancy even though they aren't married) and Jakes uses purple prose to describe their encounters. "Ashton" the "bad" girl, is close to a nymphomaniac. And "Virgilia" , the unattractive Northern girl who is a rabid abolitionist, has a lust for black cock and carries on a torrid affair with a slave she helped escape. This might sound like titillating reading, but actually it's kind of laughable, like a bad soap opera.

I preferred the Blue and the Gray.

[quote]”Ashton" the "bad" girl, is close to a nymphomaniac.

Didn’t she fuck, like, the entire University of Virginia in one night?

I tried to read one of the books but it was just so bad. (And as if a girl would have been named “Ashton” in those days.)

It is a modern classic, it was very successful here in Germany, and a few years ago they started showing it every Christmas on a smaller channel, also some Easter; it has also been shown on a culture channel, it is relatively historical, it has historic qualities. The co-lead called it Gone with the wind for the TV generation, and he was kinda right. John Jakes won a relatively reputable award for best historic writing ever or so, not an artistic author, but he knows a lot about history and the historic and militaric content of the books is pretty good and has academic quality. He loved his work, and he was also quite involved in the miniseries, I think; often the authors don't like the screen adaption. High brow rarely films well. What a cast! Patrick Swayze, Teri Garber, the other co-lead, who wed his film wife, still together, Jonathan Wilkes, who wed Patrick Swayze's film sister, still together, Kirstie Alley, who wed the Northern brother # 3, Parker Stevenson, Jean Simmons, Johnny Cash, Lloyd Bridges, Kurtwood Smith, Anthony Zerbe, Robert Englund, Hal Holbrook as Abraham Lincoln, Michael Dudikoff, Jimmy Stewart, Wayne Newton as sadistic prison tyrant, Philipp Casnoff, Bing Crosby's daughter as enemy from within, David Ogden Stiers, Forest Whitaker, Mitchell Ryan, Liz Taylor, Linda Evans et al. . All of the Hazards were from the North and all of the Maines were from the South, not all east coast, but still.

It is a modern classic, it was very successful here in Germany, and a few years ago they started showing it every Christmas on a smaller channel, also some Easter; it has also been shown on a culture channel, it is relatively historical, it has historic qualities. The co-lead called it Gone with the wind for the TV generation, and he was kinda right. John Jakes won a relatively reputable award for best historic writing ever or so, not an artistic author, but he knows a lot about history and the historic and militaric content of the books is pretty good and has academic quality. He loved his work, and he was also quite involved in the miniseries, I think; often the authors don't like the screen adaption. High brow rarely films well.

What a cast! Patrick Swayze, Teri Garber, the other co-lead, who wed his film wife, still together, Jonathan Wilkes, who wed Patrick Swayze's film sister, still together, Kirstie Alley, who wed the Northern brother # 3, Parker Stevenson, Jean Simmons, Johnny Cash, Lloyd Bridges, Kurtwood Smith, Anthony Zerbe, Robert Englund, Hal Holbrook as Abraham Lincoln, Michael Dudikoff, Jimmy Stewart, Wayne Newton as sadistic prison tyrant, Philipp Casnoff, Bing Crosby's daughter as enemy from within, David Ogden Stiers, Forest Whitaker, Mitchell Ryan, Liz Taylor, Linda Evans et al. . All of the Hazards were from the North and all of the Maines were from the South, not all east coast, but still.

Didn't Jonathan Frakes and Genie Francis meet/marry on this set, too?

I watched this as a kid and loved it!! I’m going through an 80s miniseries tear right now...so far this summer I rewatched “Lace”, which I loved! It was so juicy when I was a kid. Now, I find it so tame. I started to rewatch “Hollywood Wives”, but I got bored after awhile...I prefer the book. Now, I’m watching “North and South” Book 1. Patrick Swayze is so beautiful... I still love this miniseries.

R22, Not only did Genie and Jonathan meet on North and South, so did James Read and his wife Wendy Kilborne. Do you know Wendy Kilborne is a lawyer now? Both these couples are still together! That’s amazing!!!

"Didn’t she fuck, like, the entire University of Virginia in one night?"

Ashton and her sister Brett were paying a visit to West Point, where their brother Orry and their cousin Charles were trained as soldiers. Brett was there to visit her True Love, Billy Hazard. Billy had a fling with Ashton, but after finding out she was "too accomplished" sexually (that would be considered a turn off?) he ends it (they have some hot make out sessions and she grabs his dick, causing him to blow a load, but they never actually fuck) and turns his attention to Brett, causing Ashton to hate him with a passion. At the West Point visit Ashton fucks one of the cadets there and tells him she hasn't nearly gotten enough so he brings his buddies to her and she fucked seven of them (one at a time). It's customary for a soldier to give a girl who catches his fancy a souvenir of their meeting, such as a button from his coat. Ashton asks for a button from each of her anonymous lovera: fly buttons. This is just one of the lurid scenes in Jake's trilogy. It's ridiculous, like all the sex scenes Jakes has dreamed up.

Virgilia! Ashton Brett!

Alley was awesome as Virgilia.

It had such a "Love Boat" cast: Genie Francis, Inga Swenson, Kirstie Alley, Terri Garber, Morgan Fairchild, David Ogden Stiers, Robert Guillaume, etc ... hard to take that seriously.

Rich Man, Poor Man and The Thorn Birds still goes down as the two best mini-series TV has ever offered.

Jean Simmons played in both The Thorn Birds and North & South. I think Stacy Keach was in The Blue an the Gray.

They did make the third book into a television version, but the bloom was off the rose.

Which one was Kyle Chandler in?

My mom bought this on VHS tape when I was a kid. I loved them!

[quote]hard to take that seriously.

I wonder if any of them took it seriously? Was Terri Garber's performance awful because she was awful or awful because she was hammin' it up.

There were so many cheesy mini-series back in the day. Most of them were pretty mindless entertainment. North and South is truly funny; the women are all wearing heavy makeup that didn't exist back then and elaborate hairstyles you would never see in that era. There was a whorehouse scene (I think Elizabeth Taylor was the madam!) and all the whores look like they're dressed up for Halloween as whores; so over the top and fake. Even the men look made up and blow dried. It's just too funny.

[quote]It had such a "Love Boat" cast: Genie Francis, Inga Swenson, Kirstie Alley, Terri Garber, Morgan Fairchild, David Ogden Stiers, Robert Guillaume, etc ... hard to take that seriously.

Didn't Elizabeth Taylor have a cameo as the madam of a brothel?

You just know that vile cunt Inga Swenson was on Cloud 9 since (alphabetically) her name came right before Liz Taylor's in the opening credits.

No bald shaved head men like you have today

I much preferred The Blue and the Gray with Stacy Keach and Colleen Dewhurst however, Patrick was hot in The North and the South.

Kirstie Alley was the best thing about it.

I preferred the craziness of Beulah Land.

[quote]Rich Man, Poor Man and The Thorn Birds still goes down as the two best mini-series TV has ever offered.

The Thorn Birds for the win. I loved everything about it, including the music.

Kirstie Alley stole the show in this.

Who would have thought back then that Kirstie Alley became a right wing nut case, David Carradine would choke himself to death in a cheap hotel in Bangkok for sex and Patrick Swayze would die of pancreatic cancer.

Live was a lot more simple back then.

*Life

I just bought the dvd because I love this miniseries so much.