Celebrating Agnes Nixon

The great and the least,

The weak and the strong,

The rich and the poor.

In sickness and in health,

In joy and in sorrow,

In tragedy and triumph;

You are ALL MY CHILDREN.

VOTN!

And that poem 😭

Phil Brent is not dead because they never found his body! He and Tara will get back together!🤣🤣

Sadly, the true Phil -Richard Hatch - has been dead for several years.

[quote]Phil Brent is not dead because they never found his body! He and Tara will get back together!

Check the cabins! And the brackish water!

I'll help!

....and then Brians Frons and creepy Chuck Pratt came along and destroyed everything. The ABC soaps went from being character driven to plot driven. The "bible" for each show went out the window.

We can't help but shedding a few tears when we hear that theme.

I missed the Phil and Tara years. Reading summaries, it sounds like they were written out as a happy couple and then he died in a crash when they were off the canvas. Widowed Tara returned and married the person who would be Kelsey's dad and they left the show. If that is accurate, I wonder if the long-term plan was for Tara to be on longer and Phil return from the dead again with Tara yet again marrying someone while he was dead. His death really does seem like it was not meant to be permanent.

When Erica was briefly dating Charly, I wish they would have dug a bit deeper into that history, but it was basically just Ruth disapproving for a few months before they dropped the storyline. They did not even bring up the fact that she was involved with Nick until the very end when he showed up which made her realize this was a mistake.

Somebody has posted full episodes from the first season on YouTube.

Was the show ever live or was it always done on tape?

I got hooked on AMC around 1973 by some lesbian coworkers who watched it religiously. I was in college at the time, but continued to watch it through the '70s. It was the only soap I've ever watched.

R11 I couldn't find a definitive source but most shows were taping by then, sometimes "live to tape" but taping all the same.

AMC was such a uniquely wonderful show in its heyday. Had a great mix of quirky character types and compelling stories, not to mention the broad comedy, that you just didn't see on any other soap, esp the P&G soaps where are the characters seemed interchangeable and cliches. Agnes Nixon was a genius, and she and Wisner Washam, and IMO to a lesser extent Lorraine Broderick, were gold together. Washam doesn't get nearly enough credit for the success of the show. It all started to go to hell during McTavish's first run, but was still recognizable and salvageable through the early 2000's until Frons get his grubby little hands on it. Fusion? The unabortion? Positioning the awful Alicia Minshew as the central heroine and on five days a week? Dismissing Julia Barr, and without even an exit story? Poison pancakes? Madden buried alive? I mean, what were they thinking? It was just one bone-headed decision after another.

.....

The Madden being buried in a box and then trying to make us feel bad for Tad while having him face no consequences might have been what put the final nail in the coffin for me - along with Babe is Love. I also saw the preview of upcoming stories was reigniting the Greenlee/Kendel feud again involving one of their babies and decided it was time to part ways.

Pine Valley seemed like a real, quirky little town.

I loved the 82-84 period-Erika/Kent/“Silver”! Jenny/Greg! Liza the cunt! Tad the Cad! Opal/Langley/Phoebe! Daisy and Palmer!

I read a Patrick Mulcahey interview where he describes meeting Marcy Walker in New York before Santa Barbara premiered. They were talking on a sidewalk when some cab driver rolled down his window and yelled “YOU’RE A BITCH LIZA!”

AMC was the best. I watched from 1986-2000ish. I was bummed to miss the Jenny and Greg era but I was legit 6 when they started their run. I was so excited when Marcy Walker returned as I knew Liza was a bitch for the ages. Her first couple years were amazing but they really softened her to the point of being a simp. I loved how she broke up Tad and Dixie and tangled with Erica at WRCW. My all time favorite character was Natalie Hunter. My favorite storyline was when Adam gaslit Dixie and Tad came to her rescue. Adam could be so evil. I miss those days.

The Ray Gardner story followed by the introdcution of Opal was my favorite Agnes story. Also the Kitty/Kelly/Eddie/Brooke story - too bad zero of that is on YouTube.

The show was amazing from 1977-1984.

She wrote a perfect combination of melodrama and comedy. But a lot of the P&G Queens here at DL think Agnes was corny.

Agnes really was a trailblazer. Ignore the P&G queens. They take this shit way too seriously and tbh some of them are a bit scary in their need to turn those characters into their surrogate family and friends to replace the family and friends that rejected them IRL. Of course Agnes had very successful stints on AW, TGL and SFT, so it's not as though the more provincial taste of the average P&G viewer was lost on her.

Careful, or you'll wake the Beverlee McKinsey Troll.

I’d take Agnes Nixon over Bill Bell any day-at least AMC had humor.

[quoteHer first couple years were amazing but they really softened her to the point of being a simp.

Yes, Liza was great on her return with the Tad and Dixie and was initially a great match for Adam. If they would have kept her as the female version of Adam instead of turning her into another victim, I think she would have surpassed Brooke as the love of his life. They were great together when they were equals. I remember reading an interview with her where she wanted Liza to be more like Brooke, which was a mistake since it completely watered her down. Not to mention probably not a smart thing, because they were foolishly starting to backburner Brooke by that point.

These are delicious between La Looch and Marcy. I have to wonder how Susan felt having Marcy back after her Santa Barbara triumph. Susan saw a lot of marquee actresses who had huge roles on other soaps come and go- Genie Francis, Finola Hughes, Marcy Walker, Robin Mattson.

I don't care what anyone else says, if DL ever had an official soap, it was OLTL.

the 84-90 period was great. AMC was always very "New York". It was taped on the UWS and it had a NY sensibility, unlike the CBS soaps and even GH.

I loved when Erica lived in her Manhattan penthouse and went to the cub "Nexxus (sp?" and Tad and Jenny were trying to be models with Erica's agent.

The early days of Adam Chandler and Jackson Montgomery. Lots of studs on AMC

^^ Donna Beck (the whore) had a brother Mitch .. I can't find a good pick of him online, but he had a body that was sex on a stick.

To a non-soap watcher all of these soaps looked the same. Turn any one of them in the middle of a typical stage-bound scene and you’d be hard pressed to identify which one you were watching. At least set it in a women’s prison or in a trailer park or actually film something in the out of doors. No disrespect to Ms. Nixon, but the entire genre needed fresh air and never got it.

I loved All My Children. I watched it with my mom in the 80's home on my lunch hour from school.

Phoebe Wallingford, Erica, Cliff'n Nina (one word: dumb hets).

I scoffed at them at the time but in retrospect ...

I read a Patrick Mulcahey interview where he describes meeting Marcy Walker in New York before Santa Barbara premiered. They were talking on a sidewalk when some cab driver rolled down his window and yelled “YOU’RE A BITCH LIZA!”

I fell in love with Marcy Walker as Eden Capwell on Santa Barbara and followed her to AMC when SB got cancelled. Talk about night and day, Liza was a bitch on wheels whereas Eden was Mother Theresa. She was a great actress. Too bad she retired.

Like others here, I have a fondness for AMC from the early '80s. I started college in the all of 1980. The TV in the dorm's lounge rec'd one channel - an ABC affiliate. I'd meet another guy from the dorm in the lounge around 1pm (after lunch before 2 o'clock classes).

We started watching AMC - were hooked. Am I right that during that time, Ellen's daughter Devin (or Devon?) got pregnant, became an alcoholic, left Pine Valley with husband Wally and the daughter. Tad started smoking pot he'd chow down on Grandma Martin's chocolate chip cookies). Dr. Joe almost had an affair with the new neighbor Lenore (who was a battered wife). Palmer's first wife/Nina's mother was in town to stir up trouble and didn't Langley arrive to woo Phoebe (Myrtle knew him from her carney days). And yes, Jenny, Greg, Liza, and more...

I missed the early 80's golden age - although there is a fair amount of that on youtube. I started watching in 87 when I think it was slowing improving after a mid-80s decline and then from about 89 to 95 it was pretty good. Late 90's it started it decline although thought there were times when it showed signs it was going to have a bounce back, especially around 2000 with the introduction of pre-Ryan Greenlee (who really should have been the recast Kendel), David, Vanessa when she was an amoral socialite and not a drug lord, and Leo. I think by 2005 it was too far gone, although I heard it was a little better the last 6 months or so and the online version was heading in the right direction. I was going to try out the online version, but within about a week of airing they announced they were reducing the episodes and the writing was already on the wall.

I wish there was more on youtube from the 70's to see more of Phoebe when was more of a force than comic relief (although good comic relief), pre-stardom Erica, and some of the forgotten Tyler family etc. It makes sense that there is less of it, because people were not recording it on their VCRs - too bad the original tapes were destroyed.

I know the scenes with family members or friends talking about recent events were just a way to repeat the plots for people had VCRs and became less necessary, but I think they added some depth to the people and made their relationships more real. Erica's bickering scenes with Mark and Mona recapping her recent disasters added something to the show and the characters. Natalies scenes talking with Donna helped bring out the other sides of her etc. When they cut down on some of that stuff, the show started to lose some of its character.

Doug and Aggie clashed on Loving. Would've killed to have been a fly on the wall during their shouting matches. His name was eventually stricken from the "Created by" credit. It must've been bad. I love Ag and am not the biggest of Marland champions, but I have to say that first year or two when he was HW was the only watchable era for that mostly awful show.

My older sisters, 16 and 17 around 1971/72 loved AMC and particularly loved the 1st cute Phil Brent, not the ape man who later replaced him. They got a kick out of Erica, and thought Judith Barcroft was beautiful as Ann Tyler. They thought Tara was dopey., though they cried when Tara and Phil couldn't find a priest to marry them during a blizzard, and Phil was being shipped off to VietNam the next day. They also loved Somerset when Jill and Mitch were a couple, and Renee Jarrett was their Erica, Ginger.

[quote]Doug and Aggie clashed on Loving. Would've killed to have been a fly on the wall during their shouting matches. His name was eventually stricken from the "Created by" credit. It must've been bad. I love Ag and am not the biggest of Marland champions, but I have to say that first year or two when he was HW was the only watchable era for that mostly awful show.

I'll say this much: towards the tail end of its run, Loving had one of the best teen/young adult casts of any of the soaps--Rebecca Gayheart, Amelia Heinle, Laura Wright (back when she was still Laura Sisk), Michael Weatherly (pre-sex pest), Paul Anthony Stewart, and Roger Howarth.

I also REALLY loved The City, even if it was about a decade ahead of its time.

r31 By Jove!

[quote] Devin (or Devon?) got pregnant, became an alcoholic, left Pine Valley with husband Wally and the daughter.

OMFG Now I remember that dry-ass homely Devon bitch! Wally? Lol. What a dweeb.

[quote] Tad started smoking pot he'd chow down on Grandma Martin's chocolate chip cookies).

Remember Tad was a dorky high school nerd. Then he was replaced with a different actor who was a Romeo lady killer. Funny how a new actor could create an entirely new persona for the character!

[quote] didn't Langley arrive to woo Phoebe (Myrtle knew him from her carney days).

Yes, originally, Langley, aka The Professor, was a con artist who was gonna scam Phoebe out of her money. Then he actually fell in love with her, they married, and he became Pine Valley royalty.

I was home for a week with the flu in 1977 and started watching AMC and never looked back. Erica has just married Tom Cudahy. Ellen Shepard. Devon, Wally Brooke.

Then Opal Jenny Greg Angie Jessie Liza Amanda.

It really was appointment TV.

r37 White trash Opal!

You guys are too modern for me! I'm still trying to catch up with "Portia Faces Life."

R36, I am going to add more remembrances of AMC storylines without doing an online search... I think these are also part of my college viewing, but maybe not...

There was the conniving Sybil Thorne (well, Nurse Thorne). She wanted Cliff, we all know that Cliff wanted Nina, Nina's father Palmer did not want Cliff to have Nina. Then Sybil was dead! I think this was a big storyline - who killed Nurse Thorne? Am I correct that the murderer was Tom Cudahy's no good brother? I can't remember that character's name! I think tom's brother also toyed with the beloved (but later alcoholic/possible lesbian) Devon,

And, wasn't it Carrie Sanders and her no-good boyfriend who introduced Tad to the evil weed? And later, didn't Carrie marry Chuck? Did they depart Pine Valley together?

Oh, the years go by and the storylines seem to merge and character names fade... Jenny, Greg, Liza Colby, Jessie, Angie...

According to the Fall/Winter issue of SAG/AFTRA Magazine, Robert Gentry (Ross Chander, AMC) died on September 17. Thought I'd mention it because I didn't see it being discussed anywhere else.

R40, Sean Cudahy was Tom’s brother and Sybil’s killer.

R41- With his porn mustache and tight body, Ross Chandler made me feel things as a young gayling. His torrid affair with step aunt Natalie was an amazing storyline. It was too bad they made him a rapist because it shut the door on what could’ve been an epic love story between Ross and Natalie. Their chemistry was insane.

It’s been widely discussed on DL that Robert Gentry was a homosex. I wonder what his senior years were like. I picture him living in a rent controlled walk-up in the West Village and drinking at Monster or Julius in the afternoon. Not sure why but I picture this fate for all faded soap star senior citizens in NYC.

Yes, Robert Gentry sucked cock. They say he had the aids.

At one point they had Palmer, Ross, Andrew and Myra all living under one roof. The gay vibe was off the charts.

I love to look through an old DAYTIME TV magazine early-mid 70's and pick out the gay actors. John Colenback, Dennis Cooney, Michael Lipton, George Reinholt, David O'Brien, Peter Burnell, Tony George, Curt Dawson, James Mitchell, John LaGaio, Lee Patterson, Peter Kilman, Tony Geary (Bright Promise then), Jonathan Moore, Ron Tomee, Erik Howell, Val Dufor, Joel Crothers. This was after Dark Shadows ended, and before Y&R premiered.

R46- how do you know those actors are/were gay? Lee Patterson immediately jumped out. I was too young to watch him as Joe Riley but was obsessed with OLTL in the mid-late 80s in the Andrea Evans/Fiona Hutchinson era when he played Tom Dennison. He never pinged to me. Are we sure about that?

R47 - are you for real??? Lee was hopelessly in love with co-star Erika Slezak, and he quit One Life to move to Texas. after she married Brian Davies. It was in Rona Barrett's Daytimers!!

Three-quarters of that list at r46 are a joke. Ron Tomme? Seriously?!?! The man was not gay.

[quote] You guys are too modern for me! I'm still trying to catch up with "Portia Faces Life."

Another soap opera that began on radio.

I miss this show so much. Well, the show before Frons ruined it.

I loved Erica, Brooke, Phoebe, Jessie, Angie, Tad, Liza, Opal, Palmer, etc., but my favorite character was Natalie. Kate Collins was a goddess. Hard to believe she was only on for 7 years..she carried that show!

I also liked some of the “lesser” characters like Simone and Dottie.

Robert Gentry in shorts, if you’re so inclined.

Kate Collins when Natalie was a scheming sexpot, before they turned her into a frau.

I’d forgotten about that horrible redhead replacement Nina!

r40 Oh, I remember Sybil Thorne! It's funny because I haven't thought about these characters in decades. Haha.

Nina was such a pasty white wimp. But pretty and feminine, unlike Devon.

And oh yeah, I forgot about Jenny and Greg and the evil Liza Colby.

Tom's brother Sean accidentally killed Sybil Thorne.

But sorry, some of those plot lines are so entangled I can't make heads or tails of them at this point. Haha.

All of my memories of AMC are from 1990 to 1995. I think the earliest thing I remember is the Will Cortlandt murder mystery (?) and Janet throwing Natalie down the well. The tornado (summer of 1994?) was riveting to my teenager self.

Kate Collins sucked.

How did Kate Collins "suck" R56? The actress took the script written by others, and with members of the cast, created what has become a revered character for many viewers. She wasn't a terrible actress by any means, later playing two roles - there was Natalie's whacked-out sister, "Janet from another planet."

So, besides posting something stupid, how did she "suck"?

Oh and R54, I'm with you... storylines and characters get tangled in my brain as well. Anyone else remember Mark Dalton? He was Erica's half-brother, played the piano at Pine Valley's swanky restaurant, The Chateau - I think. He was married to Devon's mother Ellen. They divorced? I can't remember anything else... did Mark die on AMC? Did the character get killed off after leaving Pine Valley?

Serial Monticello sick bastard is here always defending the cunt Collins. She was a nasty piece of shit. Fuck off Nutjob Serial Monticello non scholar.

Mark and Ellen reunited and left the show together. He would still pop up every few years or so to see Erica. He was played by Mark LaMura, who died a couple of years ago.

When I first started watching, Mark was fucking one of his students who went crazy when he dumped her. Some of his other major storylines were his drug addiction, and when it was revealed he was the birth father of Ellen and Ross’s adopted daughter Julie, played by Lauren Holly.

AMC actresses won the Daytime Emmy for Best Supporting 4 years in a row:

1987 Kathleen Noone, Ellen

1988 Ellen Wheeler, Cindy

1989 Debbie Morgan, Angie

1990 Julia Barr, Brooke (she won again in 1998)

Oh yeah, Ron Tomee was a real pussy hound. Toni Bua and Sally Stark had to lock their dressing room door when he was on the prowl!

Julia Barr would go red when someone told her she and Linda Gibboney could be sisters.

Why did Ag ever take on McTavish and then allow her to quickly ascend the ranks? I think she joined the writing team after being an actress and script writer at GL for a year or two. What did Ag see in her?

I started watching during the summer of '87 (my summer job played during the lunch break). The build-up was starting up for Ross raping Natalie. She was trying to resist and remain faithful to Palmer and his marriage was falling apart. Palmer suspected there was something going on and was trying to set-up situations where he would catch them in the act, but Natalie wanted to make her marriage with Palmer work. Ross got angrier as the summer went on and his marriage unraveled, and Natalie did not want to resume the affair. Kathleen Noone really hit it out of the park as Ellen that and deserved that Emmy. It is too bad they completely put her on back burner when it was over and wrote her off the next year.

Erica was hiding the fact that she was pregnant, I think Cliff "died" and Nina rebounded with Matt, and Phoebe tried to break up Hilary and the Tad replacement Mitch who was good looking but probably not the most charismatic actor. They paired up Brooke and Adam and Tom and Skye. I wondered if at the time they were still thinking Brooke and Tom as the endgame with Adam being the heavy keeping them apart, but then Adam and Brooke really clicked.

I remember so many obscure details from about 1987 to 1997 -- and barely anything from about 2003 to 2008 or so when I stopped watching.

I never really got into AMC but I did appreciate that it incorporated more comedic elements than soaps up to that time via characters like Phoebe, Langley, Billy Clyde and Opal.

I was all about AMC from the late 70s thru early 90s. The stretches of 1978 thru 1984, then late 1986 (Jorn Winther's return as EP) thru 1988, and finally 1990-1992 (FMB as EP; Agnes as HW; Lorraine, Wisner, and Megan as assoc HWs) were really excellent. For me it started to lose that certain something when the Maricks and Santoses became the dramatic focus as the 90s progressed, but it was still good. I kept up with it and watched sporadically from the late 90s through the truly bitter end. If any show was the victim of network interference, it was AMC. Frons admitted that when he took over at ABC, he didn't "get" AMC, and thus started experimenting with different formats, such as trying to turn it into a Sex and the City clone. Big mistake.

I loved Robin Christopher’s Skye..loved when she pretended to be in a coma! Hated it when they made her NOT a Chandler and instead made her a Quatermaine on GH.

Robert Gentry was an early crush for me too. Something about his raspy voice and that stache made my pants twitch.

36 fabulous minutes of Erica vs. Brooke!

Whoever put this together is doing the Lord’s work.

Pilled out Erica eviscerates a good portion of Pine Valley at the Woman of the Year ceremony!

“Saint Maria of Wildwind, tending to the sick in a push-up bra.”

This was a good era for the show—the Kevin/Kelsey gay storyline, Liza/Tad/Dixie, the shooting of Laurel at the talk show taping….

Hiss! HISSSS!

I wonder if Susan Lucci is a "fag hag"? 😇

.....

I wish I'd know that what I was watching between about 1991-1997 was the best soaps were going to be in my lifetime. I think I would have appreciated them more.

[quote]I wonder if Susan Lucci is a "fag hag"? 😇

Well, you're half right.

I am ERICA KANE, R74, and YOU are a FILTHY beast!

Does this answer your question R71?

Or maybe this?

Susan is a republican. So is Slee. They must be the fiscally conservative yet socially liberal type. For the life of me, I cannot see Slee voting for Trump atall.

AMC's best years IMO were 1977-1984. The show was firing on all cylinders and just about everything clicked, save for clunkers like Brooke's drug lord mother and the Devon/Wally/Betsy snoozefest. Just a wonderfully entertaining and intelligent show. Even the so-so 1984-1986 period, which was when Agnes took a step back to concentrate on Loving, was miles better than anything on now. The show started running into trouble in the mid-90s IMO when they tried to give the show a more urban feel, to compete with the increasingly popular Days. All of a sudden Pine Valley had a skyline! I don't recall if that was Francesca James or the tail end of FMB's reign, but I'm guessing that was network dictated. I remember FMB's exit interview with SOD at the time, and she said that network wanted changes made that she didn't necessarily agree with.

R78- Slee was disgusted by Trump and actually hinted at this in her newsletter..

Susan Lucci mocking Ivana at Celebrity Autobiography

Oh man, celebrity autobiographies are hysterical. There are videos online showing other reads - the Suzanne Somers excerpts are crazy good for a live read. I wish I had been able to attend one of those evenings. But be careful Susan - if you've written an autobio, someone else just might on stage reading what you've written!

Does Sleestack’s son have a job?

I don't think Susan 'wrote' anything controversial in her book or anything really to mock. She didn't even say anything bad about Sarah Michelle Geller and it is well known they didn't get along at all. She has always tried to keep her public image looking good.

Has Looch talked to Liza lately?

Did Liza get any of Helmut’s money?

.....

I know Brooke and Erica were not Dorian and Vicky, but they were great together (any combo of Erica-Brooke-Adam interacting was usually worth watching). The fact that they were not always in epic showdowns like Dorian and Vicky made their moments of awkwardly helping St other a bit more believable. Still, there dynamic was underused as was Brooke in general the last years of the show.

Lucci's reading of Ivana shows off a bit of her comedic timing. It is too bad Devious Maids did not last a couple more years. It was not a bad show and while not as good as Desperate Housewives in its prime, it was not in decline, and the last season was just as strong as when the show started.

Julia Barr is basically Slee without the histrionics. If Barr had been allowed to shine more, she'd also have 5 or whatever Emmys collecting dust in her basement.

.....

A poster on the current P&G thread thought that Doug Marland would've been a good fit at AMC. I can't see that at all. Marland's stories and characters were mostly humorless. Everything was deadly serious. AMC's forte was humor and lightheartedness. Although I could see him strengthening the family bonds, he could never have written characters like Opal or Billy Clyde or Phoebe or Langley. Those characters were pure Agnes! I forgot...did he do anything with the more Nixon-type characters of Billy and Rita Mae Bristow on Loving? Now, Claire Labine is someone who I think would've done wonders for AMC. I would love to have seen what she could've done there. I wonder why ABC put her at OLTL, to burn out her contract, rather than at AMC after she was ousted from GH.

,....

Did Kathleen Noone quit or was she fired? Someone upthread said she was let go, but I could swear in some exit interview at the time, she said that it was her choice, and that the show was changing and she felt she was no longer an integral part of it. She also said that Agnes told her she'd like her to return some day. I can't imagine what they would've done with Ellen at that point, except maybe to connect her to Erica's stories via Mark. By late 1989, both Ross and Julie were gone. They really didn't seem interested in writing for her once the rape trial was resolved, which was a shame. She always brought her A-game.

If not Claire Labine, then Pamela Long, R91. I respect Kathleen for rolling the dice (and winning -- remember, she moved onto Knots Landing), although Mark and Ellen could have hung around as the next tentpole couple after Joe and Ruth.

There were a lot of things that went wrong with AMC in the last few years, but the worst was making fucking Ryan Lavery the “hero” of the show and bringing in those Carey whores, Babe and Krystal. I hated those three characters so much.

The most popular storyline of that last decade was the “baby switch” where Bianca “lost” her baby. It actually was a pretty good umbrella story, and brought the show the highest ratings in years (briefly) but think how great it would have been with Brooke and her daughter Laura (the adopted one, not the dead one) in place of the execrable Babe and Krystal.

Around that time they also had the terrible stories like the unabortion, Tad burying Dr. Madden alive, the Satin Slayer (RIP SIMONE!!)…sigh..I try to block out the awful last few years, since I loved that show SO much starting from about 1981.

This is kind of cool…Lucci and Jackie Hoffman discuss Celebrity Autobiography, and at around the 15:00 mark, Jackie goes in about the legendary Erica moment at the Woman of the Year discussed upthread here.

Ellen Holly has a bone or two to pick with dear Agnes.

After the Loving disaster, old Aggie would have NEVER allowed that queen Marland near AMC.

Didn't Kay Alden ghost-consult at AMC for a bit write a bible for AMC, but Frons ultimately vetoed her?

Kay had early signs of dementia and sundowners.

My mom would’ve been 100 today!

Ellen was treated shabbily, but really her character was not that popular. Al Freeman Jr., on the other hand, had charisma with everyone but surprisingly they never paired Ed Hall with Julie Toland once the boring Leonie Norton took the role.

I began watcing AMC on the regular in the early 1980s, I have vague memories of Devon's dip into the ladypond, but it was Greg and Jenny who really drew me in. I was nine or so and thought they were the most beautiful couple I had ever seen, and to be fair Delaney and Lau were one of the best looking 'Supercouples' in Soaps. I also loved, Jessie/Angie, Tad/Hillary/Dottie. Nico/Julie/Cecily/Charlie and then Lanie/David/Trask which led to Haley and Brian which eventually led to Matteo. AMC did the juvenile love stories for summer ratings veyr well. I stopeed watching AMC regularly in the early 2000s, the last thing I recall enjoying were Greenlee and Leo (not together, just the two characters). I really had little interest in Minshew as Kendall or Ryan who seemed to be pushed a lot.

I did not like when Ryan became a central character on the show and even worse he became a hero to everyone.

But the worst development on AMC after 2005 was the Zach Slater character. He was shoved into the audience's faces as a man with no faults,that everyone loved him, that he was the smartest, most sucessful man. He was awful. And Torsten. Kaye is an awful and smug actor.

r104=Ronn Moss

meow

As the gayest boy alive in the 80’s and 90’s, I tracked soap opera Nielsen ratings like straight boys followed NFL team rankings. I was a hardcore AMC fan and thrilled at seeing them emerge from their mid-80s slump to become a juggarnaut- ranking #2 for years. At the time, there was no dethroning Y&R but AMC was a huge ratings success. Natalie in the well, Tad’s return from the dead, Who Killed Will, Wildwind Drama… all made the show massive.

R107, I could've written your post. That was me to a tee. Super AMC fan who scrutinized the ratings.

[quote]He was shoved into the audience's faces as a man with no fauts, that everyone loved him, that he was the smartest, most successful man.

And he was actually kind of bullying thug. The power dynamics between and Kendel were a bit off at times if I remember correctly where he came across as the controlling older man -- not this great partnership. I actually thought he had better chemistry with Lucci and Erica would have been more of an equal to him. Really the Cambias brother they should have kept was Michael. Devry was a better actor and instead of making him pure evil he should have remained the unscrupulous businessman to fill the void left by Palmer and Adam who was starting to show their age and had been mellowed.

I think Babe and Krystal had a similar problem. The actresses were good, and the show needed a new bad girl and scheming mother. However, shortly after they joined, someone decided they should be heroines and suddenly everyone was saying Babe was love and Krystal was this protective loving mother. Part of the problem is they did not change their storyline, so they were still having everyone praise and worry about Babe while she was stealing her second baby. If they would have kept her as the scheming vixen with moments of vulnerability instead of the constantly weeping victim she would have been a good addition to the show.

Ryan was not bad as a supporting character but should have never been a fulltime lead. It did not help that someone seemed to want to sledgehammer in Ryan and Greenlee as a great love and soulmates when that was contrary to their history and they had no chemistry (which he actually did have with Kendel before he went into his full superman stage).

R107 Are you MarkH the famous soap ratings blogger? LOL

(If you aren't, that person does in fact exist and does deep dives on ratings.)

The only time AMC made any sense in the years after the very good Lesbianca comes out story is the time where Lorraine Broderick was writing it again toward the end.

I was another AMC fan who obsessed over the ratings!

Eileen Herlie actually thought Erica Kane was a real person by the time she was in R70's video. Bless her heart.

OLTL was my show (and Y&R) and I obsessed about OLTL's ratings.

AMC was my mom's show and I hated it and found it boring and the "comedy" goofy and tacky.

Upon further review on youtube AMC in that 82-84 and 86-88 era was very, very good. It reminds me of my mom and grandparents and the show has this cozy quality that no other show had.

I remember when OLTL fell out of the top 3 in the late fall of 89 and AMC became 3rd for a time- then shot up in 91? 92? during that Natalie in the well storyline. Was Marlena and the devil around the same time? I recall Days and AMC getting that major popularity around the same time in 92-93 when I was in 9th grade.

AMC was my show too. I was a little soap gayling in the 80s and 90s, and kept track of most of the shows, but AMC seemed so unique and Pine Valley felt like a real small town with quirky, diverse characters balanced among the more standard stock soap characters. MARY! me, but you could feel the love that the actors had for each other spill over into their characters, and I think many viewers picked up on that warmth and friendship. Jane Elliot said in an interview that AMC was her favorite set, because the actors and crew mingled and were so accommodating. Evidently, they all ate lunch together or something to that effect. I think the show gets a bad wrap from some soap purists who take these shows so seriously, because at its best, the show never took itself too seriously. God forbid satire is allowed in daytime!

Lucci was great when she was playing a bitch or arguing with someone. The scenes with SMG were always dynamite (perhaps because the loathing was real). There was a great argument at Myrtyle's dress shop but I can no longer find it on YouTube. And Susan looked amazing from 1993-2004 - much better styling than the 1980s when her character was supposedly a supermodel.

You're speaking the truth, R115. Pine Valley always seemed so inviting and friendly, I guess because the acting and writing was just that good.

Lucci did get better after a while. She was always very good at that sort of bitchery and frippery. She got enough depth to play the stories where she was taken seriously enough to win the Emmy.

Speaking of....

23 years ago and that still brought a tear to my eye.

I always loved the Christmas episodes…especially the one where Kate Collins came back as an angel for Timmy…I had just lost my mom a couple of months before and I bawled my eyes out! Still makes me a little misty…

WHET Tommy J Michaels?

R122, Tommy and Kate did an episode of The Locher Room. He looks good!

Kate Collins carried AMC in 1986 and 1987. It's a shame she was never nominated for an Emmy. Her work during the rape storyline was truly sublime, and, though high camp, she was amazing as Janet. Why TPTB decided to keep Kiberd and let her go is mindboggling. btw, Kate said some gracious things about her feeble replacement Melody Anderson during her Locher interview. She is such a class act.

,,,,,,,,,

[quote]He looks good!

He does indeed.

Three-part interview with Wisner Washam from a while back. Apparently he hated Megan McTavish almost as much as the viewers did.

Kate Collins was so unique for daytime...there just was no one like her. Amazingly she was only 26 when she started AMC.

If there's one thing we usually agree on here, it's that Kate Collins is a goddess.

Natalie and Wilma vs. Enid Nelson. This scene gives me life! I like that they don't predictably play Myrtle as sympathetic to Natalie. Really well-written scene. High drama peppered with high comedy. Pure Agnes genius.

When did that old bitch ever celebrate ME?

Kare Collins is over rated on here. Rightfully, she was never Emmy nominated because she didn’t deserve a nomination. Plus the cast hated her. She was a nasty old cunt to so many. Fuck her.

'''

Well, now that we've heard from Susan Keith ...

....we should hear from Nancy Frangione!

^Who? I don't know her.

[quote] Who would have been 100 years old today.

But for the fact that her corpse is rotting under the ground

r137=the ghost of Doug Marland.

R137 = Faux Silver

[R137] = Juanita Ramsey

Has anyone met or seen any AMC actors in person? I met Ruth Warrick, Jean LeClerc and Kate Collins at a mall autograph signing event. I used to live near the old studio on 66th Street and I'd sometimes see the actors. I recall seeing MEK, Julia Barr, Dorothy Lyman, Ray MacDonnell, Mary Fickett, Candi Earley. I also saw James Mitchell walking in the West Village circa 1990. He was just as you'd expect...very handsome and very dapper. And I once witnessed what appeared to be a chance encounter between Carmen Thomas and Robert Duncan McNeil on the Upper West Side. They hugged each other and looked surprised to see the other. That was the mid-90s, long after they had left the show. I'm sure there were others, but those are the ones I best recall.

"Met" Candice Early, Richard Shoberg and Tasia Valenza at a fan event in the 80s. And separately Kelly Ripa at another event years later. Spotted Debbi Morgan on a flight. Josh Duhamel shopping at Urban Outfitters not too far from the studio (UWS) when he was on the show.

And the gold standard of sightings -- sat across from La Lucci at a restaurant with her late husband and son. Was impossible not to stare -- she radiates that glow in person too.

Were Agnes and Looch the inspiration for Whoopi's and Sally's characters in "Soapdish"?

It's EARLEY, you fat whore!

I’d love to hear the story of the falling out between Nixon and Marland.

I’ve always wondered why he was basically scrubbed from being co-creator of Loving.

I heard that Ag accidentally walked in on Doug giving Perry Stephens' toes a tongue bath. She reached for her smelling salts before fainting.

Not to devalue Doug Marland's contributions to early LOVING -- especially since he had the unenviable task of retooling the show throughout 1984 -- but I think that the project was always going to make it to air, with or without him. ABC seemed high upon having another Agnes Nixon show (especially since RYAN'S HOPE had pretty much peaked), so it might have been a case of get someone to write this thing, and if he's a "name," well that's a plus, too. I'm going to guess that Doug and Agnes' rift was based on creative differences. Maybe by the end he felt like a well-paid hired gun rather than a true crative force. Who's to say that if LOVING had been a Proctor & Gamble soap developed circa 1988, the shoe wouldn't have been on the other foot and Agnes would have been the odd one out?

Their shared goal was to create another AMC that would be devoured on college campuses, which is probably why Alden U was prominent in the beginning. I thought the first year was really good with Doug as HW. So many shows at that time, including AMC, were delving into action adventure stuff, while Loving got back to the roots of classic soap, and it was refreshing. It seemed like a hybrid of late 70s AMC and his GL tenure, and it all somehow coalesced to become an interesting show.

Something happened BTS in 1984. whether it was ABC's jettison of the incest story, or something else. I remember in 1985, Larry Lau was asked in an interview about the decline in quality of AMC, which was a valid point (SOD named AMC the most disappointing show of 1985), and he responded that the show suffered a bit because Agnes removed herself from the day-to-day in order to concentrate on Loving.

I think ultimately, Agnes and Doug were just two different types of writers. Her stories tended to be more fanciful, lighthearted, emotional, and tinged with comic relief. His, on the other hand, were generally very serious and humorless. She was fluid in her writing, while he tended to be very rigid. Honestly, I couldn't see them agreeing on anything. It's a miracle any type of collaborative effort actually made it to air.

R147 R148 - I think you’re both onto something, but wouldn’t it have have been hugely cataclysmic for Marland to be stripped of his co-creator credit (which would be somewhat ironic given Agnes’ not receiving credit for SFT).

Do you think he never actually created the show, but came in only as head writer?

I agree with the points about Loving’s origin stories being throwback and a refreshing change to the action/adventure plots many shows were aping from GH.

I am glad that Marland got to bring Jennifer Ashe to ATWT. I don’t think gets enough credit… for both roles.

I think Doug does deserve co-creator credit, since he was there at the beginning in terms of story development, introducing characters, etc*. Cutting his credit just because things changed so dramatically feels wrong. Look at how much ONE LIFE TO LIVE evolved, yet Agnes kept her credit throughout. *At the same time, I think it's been established that Doug was a replacement for Dan Wakefield.

[quote]I always loved the Christmas episodes…especially the one where Kate Collins came back as an angel for Timmy

Those were nice episodes but in later years that had a ghoulish Santa show spouting about Christmas miracles --- you will find your daughter someday Tad -- and bam -- a happy Christmas car accident that killed her adoptive parents to bring her into Pine Valley. I think ghost Dixie saw and recognized her in the hospital ER as she was heading to heaven after eating those pancakes, but I remember a lot more details about things that happened in 1987 to 1997 than anything from 2003 to 2008 or so.

One kind of cheesy Christmas story was Mrytle dating Santa. It could have been really painful but Eileen sold it and it gave her something to do other than try to talk sense into Erica. She also got to use her comedic chops as Mrs. Clause. Mrytle was a great character because she was not always saintly nice and could tell someone off if she had a mind to it.

Man, I forgot Dixie's death by poisoned pancake.

Myrtle!!! Loved Myrtle. When I first started watching, she was giving Langley hell because she knew his secret—he was really carny Larry Wlasuk.

Lenny Wlasuk is his name.

That’s right! Lenny! Not Larry. My bad.

Langley/Lenny was also fucking Opal when I first started watching.

Hilarious that anyone believed that Louis Edmonds was interested in one woman, let alone two.

I enjoyed Langley immensely, but I mean....the flames scorched our TV screens!

And for that matter, ditto re: James Mitchell.

Is it too late to puke all over this thread?

I'll eat another pie and drink four beers if it will help.

That actually reminded me of the homophobia storyline in the mid 90s. The writers had wanted Palmer out in front leading the charge against the gay teacher, and James Mitchell completely refused to do it.

Don't forget Lenny Wlasuk also had a daughter -- Verla Grubbs.

R157 = Michael Cambias

Lenny/Langley had TWO daughters! There was also Hillary, who was married to Tad for a while.

Hillary was Tad's first wife, correct? They never retconned that, like having him turn out to have a long-ago wife from before he came back to Pine Valley in 1983? I also can't remember if Tad was engaged to Dottie.

Yes, Tad was engaged to Dottie, even though he was in love with Hillary, because he had gotten Dottie pregnant..but she lost the baby. I liked Dottie.

Hillary (Carmen Thomas) and Tad married and divorced, then she was with Bob Georgia for a while, but eventually left town with Mitch, Donna’s brother. Around that time, Tad and Greg Nelson both had flings with Robin, played by beautiful blond Deborah Morehart, who morphed into plastic surgery victim Hunter Tylo from B&B. Robin’s brother Wade was married to Phoebe for a minute and tried to steal her fortune.

When AMC was in its death throes, Tad had a long lost son show up, played by future Ryan Murphy fave, Finn Wittrock. They retconned it that at some point, Tad had run into Hillary while out of town and they had a one night stand, “for old time’s sake,” and she got pregnant and passed the kid off as the son of whoever she was married to at that point. They kept mentioning Hillary, and Micheal E. Knight was hoping they would bring back Carmen Thomas for a bit, but they never did. Carmen Thomas is a yoga teacher now, and was never a GREAT actress, but I bet she would have done okay for a few episodes.

I can’t believe I remember all of this…I barely remember what I had for breakfast today!

Thank you, Pine Valley Historian! (Phoebe Tyler Wallingford would be so proud of you for having all of that in the record.) For some reason, I thought Hillary was with Bob before Tad, like that Bob was holding up the couple's (short-lived, as it turned out) happiness.

Wow, that retcon seems awkward. The way I remember it (which could be fuzzy), Hillary left before Tad, then Tad came back for the first round of his romance with Dixie before "dying." When he came back, it was time for the Ted Orsini story. That could have been an interesting thing to work in the retcon with Finn's character ... whether it was Ted or Tad that Hillary had slept with.

Whoops, sorry, that should be: "... Hillary left before Tad came back for the first round ..."

Pine Valley Historian, well done.

However, I trust you are leading a life of moral fortitude, and are not living in sin, without benefit of clergy!

Agnes Nixon's greatest creation, until she left and forgot all about it.

DL fave Geri Court played Bob's mother Mary Georgia for a while. I wonder if Geri ever properly "thanked" EP Jackie Babbin for hiring her.

AMC was Agnes's baby. She left OLTL in great hands with Gordon Russell and Sam Hall.

I worked on shows that Doug Marland directed in his hardscrabble years before he enrolled in the "writing for soap operas" course that eventually led to his TV career as HW.

It is not surprising that Doug had fallings out with Agnes Nixon or various actors, as he was a difficult man. At times, if you called him up, he would greet you frostily and get off quickly, and you knew he was mad about something, but you had no idea what it was that you did this time. Finally, I just gave up on him. But once he got big on network TV, he was popular with all the world, as you may imagine. Imagine the power he had over actors.

He also liked to fire someone in the cast early in rehearsals, on each production. Just to establish tone, I suppose.

But he was a good director of musicals, and I wonder how he would have fared if instead of getting into soaps he lucked into a gig on Broadway. He did, I remember, write the script for a musical based on Waterloo Bridge, but never found a composer he liked.

Many an actor got their job on a Marland show by sucking his toes.

One of the things I loved about AMC in the glory days was how characters would “rotate on the stove”…meaning a character might have a front burner story for a while, but then move to a back burner while they supported the main story of other characters. You still got to see them, but they weren’t leading the story every day.

Contrast with the later years when Kendall, Zach, Ryan, and Greenlee were on every damn day and everything was about them.

Very true, r172. In the show's heyday, even the most popular actors like MEK, Walker, Lau, Delaney, Bergman, Miller, etc. worked no more than three shows per week. Frons wanted Kaye, Minshew, Mathison, and Budig to be "the face" of AMC, so he mandated that they were shoved down our throats day after day, much to the detriment of the series.

I remember when Phoebe Tyler emptied her bowels on Mona Kane’s grave. Megan McTavish wrote that.

R172 we can thank Brian Frons for that. His belief was that people tuned in for only a few, and once a character got newly popular, he played them to DEATH.

I know that Frons is not a favorite, but I think his only goal was to keep the show on the air. He wanted to play the characters who spiked the ratings and who got the most online engagement.

Frons is a ok. Miss Viki Sleestack says that much higher ups cancelled AMC and OLTL. Slee is a fan of Frons.

I miss AMC.

And having soap boards here that were not polluted by The Loon

I wouldn't use Slee as the holy grail. She praised anyone who kept her front burner. In her archives interview, she practically fellates Rauch, JFP, and Frankie, and badmouths Linda Gottlieb. Surprise...the first three kept her front burner, and JFP even gave her a hot young stud bf. Gottlieb sidelined Slee and saddled her with old man Thinnes.

I recently rewatched some of the Gottlieb years. That background music, holy fuck. It was just too much. But from everything I've read she seemed to rub a lot of the cast the wrong way, so it wasn't just Slezak.

Agnes personally cast an unknown but talented ingenue named Kathy Glass. Miss Glass went on to become the face of OLTL during her 1975-1978 tenure at the show, earning the highest Q score among the cast and receiving record-breaking teen fan mail, a record she still holds to this day. Kathy made Agnes proud.

Funny thing is, the Gottlieb years were really the first time I noticed and liked OLTL.

It was just so OTT during some of the Rauch years. And OLTL had the worst and most unflattering overhead lighting for its sets (with AMC and GL a close tie for second or third).

R182- Rauch brought OLTL the greatest background music with the most over the top and brightest and unflattering lighting imaginable. OLTL was the yin to Y&R's yang. Fast paced, Excellent and contemporary 80's keyboard scoring, and neon lighting out of a Spencer Gifts. I think that's why Y&R and OLTL were my shows.

One of the magazines asked the Lighting Director once why the show was so brightly lit, and his response was that Rauch wanted the show to have completely upbeat look and wanted the actors eyes to shine.

And I have to tell you, if you watch the show, you can see that each actor's eyes glisten and glow- its like their key light was made to make you see their eyes very clearly.

I absolutely was NUTS for Rauch's OLTL until mid 1990 when the show lost all of its mojo

Upon review of Gottlieb's OLTL- which I liked at the time- especially the classy production values and lighting- the background music was generally horrendous (with the exception of Blair's early theme- yes, Asian Blair had a great early theme, kind of like Gabrielle and Tina did... and that special orchestra Gottlieb hired for Cassie/Alex at Loon Lake)

Gottlieb's OLTL sucked ass. Its EXTREMELY boring and stodgy, despite the contemporary stories.

The only stories worth watching were Marty's Rape, Todd terrorizing Nora, The AIDS quilt storyline (I respect that story, but even that one as an Afterschool Special vibe) and of course Viki's Alters- which came after Gottlieb, but the show still felt just like Gottlieb's. OH! And Alex and Carlo.

The rest was shit. AfterSchool Special vibes for days, TONS of shitty and boring/hokey supporting characters (Suede?? Fuck) and just a really meh vibe that has not aged well.

R181, You forgot to use the term "daypart". That's my favorite part!!

R183 I feel like the best of Gottlieb's OLTL was in that first year, and also revisiting the Viki/Dorian story and expanding Viki's alters, which came about 2 years into Gottlieb's regime.

For all her good ideas about how to improve the look of the show, she was one of any number of producers/writers who just didn't understand what a soap was, and tried to make it anything other than the very thing it was created to be. God...I mean, Irna knows, there were plenty of old hoary soap tropes that needed to be ditched, but story beats still needed to be played, pacing needed to happen to engage the viewer.

Too much of Gottlieb and Malone's time on OLTL missed some of those daily beats. Same happened during the time Claire Labine was at GL. That's when GL went from all plot and no character to the opposite extreme. *sigh*

Gottlieb was one of those people embarrassed by soaps, and wanted to reinvent the form to make them more respectable. I get where she was coming from, but anti-traditional soap doesn't need to be dull and pretentious, which I found her version to be. You could just feel her disdain for the genre. I've also gotten that vibe from Pratt and JFP.

;;,l,l,l,l,l,l,l,l

Get those black bitches out of my face!

Aside from Catherine Hickland, has Michael E. Knight ever been romantically linked to a woman?

R189 LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLLLLLLLLLMMMMAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOO

There’s a fun Instagram account by Adamtghani that posts classic soap clips. He does a great job of curating somewhat obscure scenes that aren’t easily found on YouTube. Over the weekend he posted a 10 minute vignette of Brooke telling The Martins and Cortlandts that Jamie was in fact Tad’s son. Tom and Jack joined her for moral support and it was so layered and rich. So NYC history in one living room. Cut to a stellar fight between Erica and Brooke. Erica was unraveling her new romance with Jack and it was such a fun scene. The show was firing on all cylinders at this point and leaning into history in a way that the best writers do. For fans, it’s worth checking out. Also, why didn’t I realize how hot Tom Cudahey was when I was a wee gayling watching this the first time?

Richard Shoberg was a very handsome man. Susan Lucci said that when she was first introduced to him, he was the best looking guy she had ever seen. She was bowled over by his looks. He was gorgeous when he was young.

ssshhhhh

Is Jacob Young gay? I remember a scene where hottie Justin Bruening, as his half-brother Jamie, burst into the Chandler mansion to confront JR, who was lying on the couch. At one point, Bruening's very ample crotch was eye level with Young, and you could practically see the drool coming out of Young's mouth. I know Young is married with kids, but does that really mean much these days?

ssshhhhhh

R194 that has to be dumbest post I've ever seen on DL and that's saying alot. You remember a scene? From 20 years ago?

R196 Geez, change your bloody tampon.

Yes, many of us remember scenes from long ago. I can remember a scene from the 80s where a Guiding Light actor was rock hard in shorts and they showed it on air.

And Jacob Young has long been the subject of gay rumors. There was a scene at GH with him and actor Coltin Scott. They played brothers but the rumor was that the two were having an affair. They sure had fuck-me energy in this scene.

Agnes was thick as thieves with Scoche Marin (Kay, Y&R). The two were travel pals. Scoche was devastated when Aggie died. Luckily Scoche could sink her teeth into her re-creation of the Katherine Chancellor role on Y&R. Her performances have stunned the cast and crew.

That clip is great R191. I like that all of the characters have history and use that in subtext in how they interact with each other, and while she was not exactly tactful, not sure what Erica said about Tom at the end was all that incorrect. They really were stunning when they were first paired up. Tom was always handsome, but by the time I started watching he was basically Ward Cleaver in his cardigans and khakis.

While it was good soap and Barr nailed Brooke going off the deep end when the marriage ended, I thought it was out of character for Brooke to eventually married Tad. She knew he was in love with Dixie and was more than competent and capable enough to know she could raise Jamie as a single mother, plus she really was not in love with Tad as it was.

That old pic at R167 of Gillain's Vicky gazing adoringly at her father is a bit creepy given how they rewrote their backstory.

Gillian Spencer made such an indelible impression as Daisy that I keep forgetting she had such an extensive soap background before AMC, with popular roles on ATWT, GL, and OLTL, not to mention her various HW stints. She was so good.

Tom WAS hot.

But he was, as a certain troll here would say, portrayed by a low energy performer.

[quote]there were plenty of old hoary soap tropes that needed to be ditched, but story beats still needed to be played, pacing needed to happen to engage the viewer.

I liked your post. There is nothing worse than someone who comes to a soap opera with the idea that they're re-inventing the genre. I call them the we're going to make this like primetime people. It never works. And they usually end up leaving.

Here's the thing, even when you can see them from a mile away, most soap tropes still work. Even if you're rolling your eyes while they're happening. A woman not knowing who fathered her baby is still fun story. Unplanned pregnancies, who shot someone, and all the others are still fun. Soaps are supposed to be slow, because they have the time to be slow.

To be quite honest, a lot of the things that we accept now as soap opera isn't really traditional soap opera. Those 30 second scenes, insta-romances and friendships, mysteries that wrap up in 6 weeks, the character juggling, that's not how it should work. But, we've accepted it, and now that's the way it is.

The reason why people got so caught up in these things is because it was like peeking in on your neighbors. That sort of got lost or it was replaced by reality TV.

[quote] The reason why people got so caught up in these things is because it was like peeking in on your neighbors.

This, a thousand times this.

If the storylines were really cooking and the show was just ON its game, it was like a very good book with multiple things going on. Or like watching neighbors fight!

My mother had a HUGE crush on Tom Cudahy.

No, R189. Cat Hickland actually knew she was married to a gay man according to a friend of mine who worked on daytime. Knight also suffered a brutal cock teasing by James Scott who toyed with him within an inch of his life and ended with a crushed heart.

The James Scott story is quite well known.

Not sure why MEK never came out. It's not like he's real busy and has to protect an image or anything.

The James Scott coming onto Michael Knight story is OLD NEWS. Been repeated on these soap threads several dozen times in the last 16 years since it happened.

All My Children had the gayest cast!

Dark Shadow and Edge of Night are the only shows that can give AMC any competition for the title of Most Gay Men in its Cast award.

Take a look at this list of gay or bisexual men in the AMC cast over the years

James Mitchell (Palmer)

Louis Edmunds (Langley)

Robert Gentry (Ross)

Dack Rambo (Steve Jacobi)

Peter White (Lincoln Tyler)

Warren Burton (Eddie Dorrance)

Darnell Williams (Jesse)

Michael E. Knight (Tad)

Jean LeClerc (Jeremy Hunter)

Larkin Malloy (Travis Montgomery)

Jonathan Bennett (JR)

Jacob Young (JR)

Larry Lau (Greg)

Ricky Paull Goldin (Jake)

I thought Peter White was straight? I thought I read somewhere that he was the only actor in The Boys in thr Band who wasn’t gay.

Jean LeClerc must have lusted after his “son,” Trent Bushey.

Laurence Luckinbilll (aka Mr. Robin Strasser) was the only straight man in the Boys in the Band cast.

Peter White is very gay, r209. No wife. No female romantic attachments.

Oh yeah I got them confused r210.

I loved AMC in the early 1980s. I would watch it in the summer and during winter break when I was in high school. The show did a good job of making Pine Valley seem like a real town. I liked when they did the exterior shots of homes and businesses before scenes would start. I wanted to live in a town like Pine Valley. I loved that it was a multi-generational show. I was crazy about the teen characters (Jenny, Jesse, Liza, Greg, Amanda, and Alfred). Jesse and Mark were cute, but for the most part, I was never attracted to the men on AMC. On the other hand, I thought the men on Edge of Night -- Preacher, Gavin, Damian, Brian and Owen Madison -- were gorgeous.

Early 80s AMC was great as it had a very quirky, comedic cast of characters. It did comedy well

I think Days of Our Lives, it's direct timeslot competitor, started copying off of AMC with the comedy and zany characters, we had Calliope and Eugene and a character named Leticia played Ruth Buzzi of Laugh In fame, she was similar to AMC'S Opal as she was wild and crazy and was the town fortune teller, DAYS had robots who kidnapped heroines etc

It all got very campy

I still remember seeing James Scott's first day on AMC. He was so terrible. It was as if someone was feeding him dialogue word for word.

But the casting director was smart - s/he saw something there.

Peter White is not gay. I'm 99.999% certain he and Francesca James were an item back in the day. Their chemistry was off the charts, and it wouldn't be too shocking if that had spilled over into real life.

Francesca munches the carpet.

R208- that is quite a list. However I’m not sure about Larry Lau. That’s been somewhat debated on DL, and I think he remains a question mark, if not maybe even straight…?

I’ve read in prior threads that Robert Gentry had a huge thing for young Robert Duncan McNeill who played his daughter’s boyfriend, Charlie. Robert was straight so that left poor Bob quite the blue ball.

Wait, Darnell Williams is gay? Is there proof? He never pinged my gaydar.

Oh R218 as Karen Walker says about Darnell Williams.

Ohh, honey, no one in the world would believe you’re straight. You’re as gay as a clutch purse on Tony night. And you fell out of the gay tree, hitting every gay branch on the way down… And you landed on a gay guy… And you did him.

Weren't Robert Lupone and Steve Caffrey gay? I know that Peter Bergman is straight, but he has to be the gayest straight man ever?

And didn't Robin Strasser once insinuate that Laurence Luckinbill isn't completely straight?

I think Darnell and Debbi dated. She ALWAYS tells that story of when they went on a date to the movies, and they were mobbed by fans in the theater.

Lau is not gay. Darnell is.

Is Kelly and Mark's Pine Valley reboot dead in the water? They were really enthusiastic about it when it was first announced, but I haven't heard much about it lately. The premise sounded dreadful, but I miss AMC and probably would have given it a try. Maybe it would've been better in execution than on paper.

Lau not gay? Really.....

Agree with most of R208's list but not sure about Goldin and Lau.

Goldin and Lau are not gay.

I think the reboot that Kelly and Mark were working on is not happening.

R227 like the Designing Women reboot, it was an idea in development that died on the vine.

Larry Lau was down on women after his 1st wife, and an actress, conspired with her mother to bilk him into joining some Amway kind of business.

Chris Holder (Wade Matthews), Jeffrey Byron (Jeff Martin), Alan Dysart (Sean Cudahy), and Antonio Fargas (Les Baxter) pinged to high heaven.

[quote] Not sure why MEK never came out. It's not like he's real busy and has to protect an image or anything.

I knew about MEK. The one I can't figure out is James Patrick Stuart (JPS) who played Will Cortlandt on AMC and now plays Valentin on GH.

MEK and JPS have been the best of friends since AMC. When MEK and Catherine Hickland got "married" she was unexpectedly cast in some Broadway show and couldn't go on their non-refundable honeymoon in some exotic location (Bali or Tahiti...) so JPS went on the honeymoon with MEK. Presently, JPS stays at MEK's home to lessen his commute while he shoots two shows, GH and some Disney show. In my opinion, JPS doesn't have any heat with the women's he's paired with and makes odd overexaggerated faces and voices when he's trying to be sexy. I don't know, I could be wrong. He's been married a long time, to the same woman, two boys, MEK is godfather to one of the boys.

JPS is hot as fuck and if he was inside of me I'd shoot across the room.

The idea of him fucking MEK back in the day....well, I have to lie down now.

Anyone remember the first Brian? His name was Gregory Gordon, and he was a twink with extreme gay voice and mannerisms. He lasted for about a minute before Matt Borlenghi was brought on to replace him. Borlenghi's eventual replacement, Brian Green, is gay too, I believe.

........

Christian Jules LeBlanc originally tested for Tad.

........

I adore JPS. I think he's the best thing on the GH.

His pairing with Nina never worked for me, but I love his pairing with Anna. I think the two are hot together. But then Finola Hughes has always had good onscreen chemistry with gay men.

And that actually reminds me that Ian Buchanan should be on the list above. He played Greg Madden on AMC.

As for JPS, no idea if he's gay or bi, but the friendship with MEK has always seemed to be an intense one.

Ian Buchanan is gay? Never heard that one. Many of these seem like wishful thinking. For example, I don't think Jean LeClerc is gay. That would be news to Kate Collins, with whom he was hot and heavy during their AMC days.

JPS seems like he'd have a nice big weiner.

Not too big, but a nice lollipop for sure.

You can definitely see the resemblance between JPS and his father, the late Chad Stuart from the 60s duo Chad and Jeremy.

Peter White's gayness can be seen from space.

Peter White kind of reminds me of the late David O'Brien. People said he was gay too, but he dated the actress Geraldine Court and once admitted to always having a crush on Jada Rowland, so the gay allegations are dubious.

Peter White was cute as hell, circa 1974. He gave a kinky interview back then to Daily TV Serials, where he talked about some guy breaking into his apartment, sticking a gun in his mouth and tying him to his bed. Even then, I was 12, read gay gay gay hookup gone wrong!

Mart Crowley said all but two of TBITB cast were gay. Assuming the straights were Larry Luckinbill and, strangely enough, Cliff Gorman, and the rest, including White, were gay.

I met Peter White in a WeHo supermarket and complimented him on his TBITB performance - which I'd just seen on DVD - and he couldn't get away fast enough.

That guy will die closeted.

Yes. Going on "dates" with actresses and talking about your "crush" is certainly proof of ones heterosexuality.

I thought he had died! Shocked he is still alive at 85

[quote]Going on "dates" with actresses and talking about your "crush" is certainly proof of ones heterosexuality.

Acting clueless is that poster's schtick, R246.

Indeed, R248. Among many other things that poster thinks is hysterical but no one else in the known universe understands or finds funny.

[quote]Ian Buchanan is gay? Never heard that one.

What are you, headless?

Ian was long rumored to be gay, and was never really "in."

His partner (as of 2018) is shown here.

[quote]Going on "dates" with actresses and talking about your "crush" is certainly proof of ones heterosexuality.

All Rosie had to do was talk about her crush on Tom Cruise -- her "Tommy" as she called him -- and America was satisfied she was a heterosexual female.

WHET Trent Bushey? His character, Jeremy’s son David Rampal, was boring as hell, but he was HOT.

Trent Bushey ? Wasn't he rumored to be horse-hung ? Any confirmations out there ?

Trent was so gorgeous. I saw him on the street a few years ago. Still a handsome guy. The most gorgeous soap actor I saw in person was Jason Shane Scott, from OLTL. He was just breathtakingly beautiful. Saw him on my way to work a good 15 years ago. Just a stunningly beautiful man.

Ian has been married to his partner Antonio Hendricks for years now.

They don't really make a secret of it.

What about Colin Egglesfield or Sam Page? I such a crush on Sam. Hot hot man! Wasn't there a rumor about him and Jonathan Bennett? Or am I thinking of Bennett and somebody else?

When I lived in Weho in the 90s I used to see Ian Buchanan, Ingo Rademacher and John Wesley Shipp hanging out (not together) at the big Starbucks on Santa Monica Blvd across from 24 Hr Fitness.

[quote] All Rosie had to do was talk about her crush on Tom Cruise -- her "Tommy" as she called him -- and America was satisfied she was a heterosexual female.

The masses, maybe, but dumb fraus who barely know how to spell their own names were the only ones she convinced.

Most of America didn't want to think about her having any sort of sex life.....

R258 We know Ian and John are gay; there's long been rumors about Ingo and his "friend."

Hard to believe the weird right turn Ingo's made in the last few years.

Is JWS top or bottom? He terrified me as a kid when he was Carter Jones on AMC. I remember hating the storyline because he was tied to that boring DA Galen Hendeson that FMB and McTavish were trying to make happen, and also because it was during that time that Kate Collins was replaced by the inferior Melody Anderson.

Sam Page was hot! They could have done more with his character, Trey, who was David and Leo’s long lost half brother. I know he’s been on a lot of series since AMC, but the only thing I saw him on was MAD MEN, here he played Joan’s rapist husband.

WHERE he played, ooops.

Trent Bushey.

Trent Bushey had all kinds of star potential when he started AMC, and then he made some odd choices. He grew his hair very long, IIRC, and began acting in kung-fu-themed projects. He had so much appeal as a hulking all-American jock type which was all lost when he made that drastic change in his persona.

Is he even acting any longer?

Dack Rambo was sex on a stick during his AMC run as Steve Jacobi.

Dack and Taylor Miller

Didn’t Kate Collins and Jean LeClerc date? That proved he’s straight. Just like our beloved Geri Court and David O’Brien and Joel Crothers and Velekka Gray. So many behind the scenes soap romances.

Kate and Jean’s faux real life romance was all generated by ABC Publicity. It was so old school the way they tried to make middle America think a straight girl and a close gay male friend were hot and heavy. I remember so well an Oprah show they taped about soap stars and their fans. They were very coy about their off set romance, and the audience of fraus just lapped it up.

Jean and Kate WERE an item. If he were gay, why would he lie about it and why would a classy woman like Kate go along with the lie? They had a romance. Why is that so hard to accept?

Speaking of All American hotties, let us not forget one of Agnes' finest contributions to the oeuvre.

Thank you, r271. He fueled my JO fantasies for years. One of the most beautiful men ever from head to toe. The definition of "walking sex."

....

I forgot if it was Cameron Mathison or Josh Duhamel, but one of them said that one of the older gay cast members made a pass at him when he first joined the show. When the gay actor realized that the pass would go incomplete, he quickly and politely backed off. So who would that actor have been? I'm assuming either Louis Edmonds or James Mitchell, or possibly even MEK.

I have a vague memory of hearing that about Mitchell and Duhamel. Leo was Palmer's stepson when he showed up looking for Vanessa. I think Langley was off the show by the time Leo and Ryan showed up. The last time I saw him was an appearance at Mona's funeral and he was clearly not in good health.

Anyone remember Brooke's real mother Jane Dobrin played by Sasha Von Schuler, who was the wife IRL of Ryan's Hope co-creator Paul Avila Mayer? They wasted her, but the show was going through a transition when she arrived, so she got lost in the shuffle. I think the last mention of her was at Laura's funeral a few years after she left, when Brooke mentioned that she was in Paris and couldn't get a flight.

R270- I’ll ask you the same question. Why do you find it so hard to believe that in a notoriously homophobic decade and AIDS-panicked environment, a popular soap couple would be asked to have a little fun with the public and fake a romance? Jean Le Clerc was a gay man. You sound like an out of touch rube unable to believe this. Are you drying your tears with a well thumbed 1988 copy of Soap Opera Digest?

Again, R277, you're replying to someone who's doing a schtick.

R277 Don't respond to that poster. That's our resident totally loony tunes soap board poster.

It has several accounts and several "shticks" as R278 accurately describes them, including:

(1) Mentioning obviously gay/lesbian performers and insisting they were in a heterosexual relationship with a costar.

(2) Discussing how XYZ actress clogged the studio's toilets.

(3) Various snatches that have or have not been eaten among the female cast members.

(4) Pretending to be someone or something called Scoche Marin, who claims to have replaced the long dead Jeanne Cooper as long dead Katherine Chancellor on Y&R

(5) Insisting that several of the classic NYC soaps should have hired performers such as Shannon Tweed (and other C listers) to replace more quiet, traditional actors/performers.

(6) Discussing other obsession with various things, including but not limited to: whether someone is using the "The" for Guiding Light, calling everything "fat," or low-energy, complaining about any performer who ever said they were overworked, and so on.

And last but worst:

(7) Carrying on detailed, lengthy and repetitive posting about posters at Soap Opera Network's message board, even though none of those people post here and absolutely no one in the history of ever cares even a tiny little smidgeon about any of them or any of the board drama there. He seems to be especially obsessed about someone who is "in the biz" and a poster who is chronically ill with a neurological condition, and obsesses about them at length.

It would not surprise me if this poster is in an institution.

Anyway, save yourself the frustration and block/FF them. You'll be glad you did.

The poster that r279 is talking about has at least four screen accounts here at DL. Best to block all four. That way the posts don't even show up in your feed. The DL soap threads become significantly more pleasant once you do that.

Thanks to r279 for providing such a detailed post. That took a lot of work. One other "shtick: is complaining that Guiding Light and Edge of Night dropped the THE from its name, along with claiming that Another World once had a THE in its name.

R276, I remember Brooke's mother. I thought the character was a terrible idea because it undercut the much more interesting mother-daughter dynamic Brooke had with her Aunt Phoebe.

She didn't last long. I think her last scene - and I cannot believe I remember this, I'm such a freak - involved her getting a mysterious phone call that shook her.

We never saw that character again. Her storyline was dropped and forgotten.

I think the idea of Brooke's mother was also to add some conflict to the Phoebe/Brooke relationship, but I don't think the writes were invested in that. They also toyed with the idea of a Phoebe/Langley/Jane triangle, but that never went anywhere. Most of 1986, when Jane first arrived, was a transitional year for the show and really uneven, as Jackie Babbin departed as EP in August, and Jorn Winther returned to take the reins. Julia Barr said at the time that Jackie had become lazy and wasn't really making any firm decisions, and that Jorn had the unenviable task of coming onto an inactive show and get things moving. I can't believe I remember all this, but as a troubled and confused gayling, I lived and breathed AMC for all of the '80s through the mid-90s.

Benny Sago was the town bicycle in the 70s and 80s. Brooke, Estelle, Edna, Nina, Donna-everyone got a turn.

Amazing since most of this story was played by Ray Romano lookalike Vasili Bogazianos , not the hot 1st actor to play Benny.

I loved Estelle played by Kate Dezina. She and John Danelle's Frank Grant were the first two people Jackie Babbin immediately fired when she joined as EP. Agnes move John over to Loving to play Art Hindman. Gloria Monty hired Kate for her short-lived prime soap The Hamptons, but she disappeared after that.

Larry Fleischman was the 1st Benny, and he was a riot. He had a great rapport with Ruth Warwick. "BENJAMIN!"

^That's WARRICK. r285 must be that illiterate Donna Beck creature.

Ruth Warrick was fucked by any straight man in Hollywood. Now there’s a story.

Did Amanda Bearse ever diddle lesbian producer Jackie Babbin? Or the other lezzie Francesca?

Despite being mannish, Jackie Babbin was not a lesbian. Per an online check, she had been married to, and divorced, from a man named Alan Shayne years before she started on AMC.

There is no way this woman was straight r289.

Why can't a masculine looking woman be straight? Are you saying that hormones influence one's sexual orientation?

^ We know. Jackie hired Geri Court to play Mary. I suspect that Geri diddled Jackie’s twat a little bit.

Jackie Babbin was a cat lover too. You know lesbians and their cats.

There’s masculine, r291, and then there’s looking like Peter Graves’ long lost twin brother

Jackie Babbin’s cat “played” Daisy’s cat, Bonkers! When Bonkers died, Daisy was devastated, and it was an actual storyline for a few days. I don’t think any other soap ever touched on the loss of a pet. It wasn’t some major storyline, but I can’t imagine any other soap other than AMC (back then) devoting air time to the death of a cat!

They really did try to push Kate and Jean as a couple…I can remember in high school a friend swearing up and down that “Natalie and Jeremy” were married in real life, because she saw them talk about it on tv..sweet girl, but not too bright…

What a “romance”…

Anyone want to take a weekend away to Pigeon Hollow?

I hear Pete Cooney was quite the pass around bottom back in the day.

Lottie Chandler was the slut of Pigeon Hollow!!

Silver Kane is a human roach nest!

I just loved petting Jackie Babbin’s pussy, Bonkers. It made me moist.

How about Shannon Tweed as Natalie? No offense to Kate Collins, but she could sometimes be low energy.

Did Aggie Nixon have a fan bench placed in Central Park?

One of the fat soap twitter queens sat on the THE ANOTHER WORLD bench and it snapped right in half. There’s nowhere for soap fans to sit in NYC!!!

I'll bet over in Pigeon Hollow, the Cooneys are known more by their nickname, the "Do Me"s.

It was pretty genius of Agnes—or whoever—to tie Adam Chandler’s history to Palmer/Pete. I really liked their rivalry over the years.

The only thing that used to confuse me was how Ross was Palmer's son, but had the last name "Chandler."

Maybe the proposed re-boot of AMC should be "Pigeon Hollow"... it could be all about Palmer and Adam's families before they left (was it?) Tennessee.

[quote] it could be all about Palmer and Adam's families before they left (was it?) Tennessee.

West Virginia.

Ross was the child of Pete Cooney (Palmer Courtlandt) and Lottie Chandler (Adam's sister).

Palmer didn't know of the existence of Ross until he was an adult.

I like Agnes Nixon. I'm not a fan of social issues stories, but she had a way of weaving them in that didn't hit you over the head. I always thought it was a little sad that Pine Valley was supposed to be like Peyton Place, but turned into a metropolis. Like many soaps, it lost it's charm in the 80s. I wish I could find or remember that infamous quote from Mary Stuart about Agnes. I don't think Mary liked anybody.

R304 That fat fucken pig, twitter queen CaseySHutch snapped all soap benches when he sat his fat carcass on them. It’s a shame. He ruined all of our benches.

I never forgave Agnes and Doris Quinlan for going along with ABC's demand that they replace "The" with "My" in the proposed title. "All The Children" is a far superior and more appealing title than "All My Children." Agnes and Doris has no spine.

And Aggie wanted to name it The One Life to Live.

I have a book on All My Children trivia from the 90s and when developing the show in 1969, Agnes Nixon really wanted Frances Reid (matriarch Alice Horton on Days of Our Lives) as one of the main cast members, they didn't mention what part. Frances thought about it as her DAYS contract was up in 1969, and she was offered a then very large sum of money to join AMC at that time, she also still had her NYC apartment as she was a Broadway and theatre actress and had done NYC taped soaps like Portia Faces Life prior to Days

In fact, Days was supposed to be a NYC taped soap until NBC decided to move the show out to the West Coast last minute, the Corday family who created DAYS were all born and bread New Yorkers and Ted Corday was friends with Agnes Nixon and worked with her on As The World Turns and Guiding Light

Any guesses on what role Agnes wanted Frances for? I'm thinking Ruth Martin

[quote] I don't think Mary liked anybody.

Mary was a bit of a cunt.

I could see Frances playing Ruth, although she would have been a decade older than Ray MacDonnell. Is it too much to hope that Agnes was cosndering Frances for Phoebe?

I think Agnes would have perhaps wanted Frances for Kate Martin, not Ruth.

Was Mona one of the original characters?

I think Frances would've been too old to play Ruth or even Mona. Both were parents of teenagers, whereas Frances was playing the mother of adults on Days. I'm guessing it was Phoebe or maybe even Kate Martin. Agnes said they had trouble getting the right actress for the role until Kay Campbell became available. Interestingly, Patricia Barry, who played Frances' daughter on Days, would later play Phoebe's sister in law, the evil Cobra.

R319 yes

Original characters:

Charles Tyler Phoebe Tyler Ann Tyler Lincoln Tyler Amy Tyler Chuck Tyler Joe Martin Kate Martin Tara Martin Jeff Martin Bobby Martin Ted Brent Ruth Brent Philip Brent Mona Kane Erica Kane Nick Davis

shhhhh

Thank You DL (OP or Muriel.) Whoever for reminding me about Daisy Courtlandt cat Bonkers (that Palmer gave her). I forgot it was a storyline for a week on AMC(Bonkers death-I cried). I named one of my found cats on the beach Bonkers (other ones Daisy& Palmer). I loved AMC for their storylines in the late 80's-the 1990's

The Palmer Courtlandt-Adam Chandler feuds & the fact that they tied the families together by Pigeon Hollow WV(I thought it was Kentucky).It was smart of AMC to do that(I loved it).

Thank You Op-Muriel for reminding me of these good memories...Merry Christmas!!

I was really young when I started watching AMC..like 11 or 12, and I remember evil Ray Gardner raping RuthMartin and I was scandalized!

Did the Gardner family come from Pidgeon Hollow as well? Man wouldn't that be the retcon of all soap opera retcons! Cooneys - Chandlers - Gardners in early 20th century feuds!

Even the Gardners did not come from Pidgeon Hollow, maybe the retcon could come from a neighboring hollow.

I had forgotten all about Ray Gardner - he was an awful person, wasn't he?

I loved Dorothy Lyman as Opal

I had no idea she did so many other soaps besides AMC

Prior to AMC, she was on A World Apart, The edge of Night, One Life to Live and Another World

Post AMC, she was on Generations and The Bold and the Beautiful in the 90s and played a countess (!) on Days of Our Lives in the 2000s, her last soap role

She's widely remembered as Naomi on Mama's Family too

r327 she was hilarious as Elly Jo Jamison on EDGE. Elly Jo was an early take on Opal, she was a cousin of Orin Hillyer's late wife, and plotting with Mike Minor to bump off Liz Hillyer Fields, the obstacle to her marrying Orin. Elly Jo was fond of milkshakes, and somehow Richard Shoberg played her brother, the straight laced Kevin Jamison.

From 1986, the cast of AMC wishes us a Merry Christmas!

Now I want to see a clip of how Shoberg looked in his mid-twenties on Edge of Night. For someone who was not part of a core family - just having a brother show up on occasion, he really did last a long time on AMC.

What did dear Mary Stuart say about Agnes?

I bet Shoberg had a nice ass, bush and cock. At least back in the day.

Is there video out there of Dorothy Lyman on Edge ? I've found her work on AW and gone back to re-watch her Opal (thanks YT).

Tom was always so boring and barely registered. He must've attended the Peter Simon School of Low-Energy Acting. Now if Tom had been played by someone with a personality and a high Q score, like the highly charismatic Drake Hogestyn, then the character might've had some longevity. They should've considered the charismatic John Callahan as nuTom, rather than bring on the new character of Edmund. I can't deal with low-energy actors.

.....

One of the times Tom had a bit more energy, although he should have questioned how effective the pill really was since his acting partner is about 8 months pregnant.

Julia Barr was so frumpy and also low energy. Would you have accepted a sexpot like Shannon Tweed as nuBrooke? A hot blonde with great tits and legs for days might just have been the ticket for Frons to keep Brooke around and active.

Agnes and Wisner win for best writing in 1985. Scroll to about the 1 hour 16-minute mark for MEK and Krista Tesreau presenting. Gillian Spencer looks sincerely thrilled for them. Of course, she would join the team the following year after her HW stint at AW bombed.

[quote]Is there video out there of Dorothy Lyman on Edge ? I've found her work on AW and gone back to re-watch her Opal (thanks YT).

Dorothy Lyman played Ellie Jo in 1972-73. Doubtful there are any Edge of Night videos available from that time period, but maybe you can find a couple if you hunt them down.

Ellie Jo was my introduction to Dorothy Lyman. So, when she came to AW playing Gwen Parrish, it was a total 180. Her Opal on AMC was much closer to Ellie Jo.

Lyman excelled as white trash characters.

Agnes never had Bev McKinsey cast on one of her shows. There was a good reason for that: Bev constantly demanded hours of breaks during taping and you couldn’t write a story around all of her vacations, which she needed because she was so “exhausted.” Not to mention that Bev would still complain to the press in spite of all the perks she got. Aggie had no time and didn’t want to deal with a cast demoralized by Bev’s antics.

Mary “Stewart” Stuart was such a cunt about everyone and everything. She hated Agnes for whatever reason. Probably just for being. She hated everyone. Marcia McCabe tells a few Mary Stuart stories and they are a roll your eyes hoot. The ultimate kick in her face was after she passed, she had been recurring on Guiding Light for a few years and on her tribute, they didn’t even bother to check that they spelled her name as Mary “Stewart”. So fitting.

^^ This cunt who hates Bev above is also the Toilet Clogger Troll and the Snooch Marin troll or whatever the fuck it is.

Lyman wins the Emmy for Best Supporting in 1982 (around the 15:00 mark)

Oprah goes behind the scenes at All My Children during Greg & Jenny wedding

She also sits down for an interview with James Mitchell & Louis Edmonds to ask about their love-life with women

That is no joke

I know Rosie was *the* ABC soaps fan to end all ABC soaps fans, but it would be interesting to figure out which show really did the most (or most effective) cheerleading for daytime: Oprah, Live with ... or Rosie?

I would say Regis & Kathie Lee did more cheerleading for ABC soaps - because Regis & KLG was part of the ABC family. So network executives tried to create synergy with Regis & ABC Soaps

Rosie is a close second

Oprah is third, despite being an ABC Soap fan, once she became OPRAH she would only a show on soaps maybe every two or three years,

Sally Field watched OLTL and GH, I always thought that was cool. I think Stevie Nicks did as well..

Carol Burnett was All My Children’s biggest cheerleader.

Unfortunately, this The Edge of Night website has not been updated since 2017. I discovered it years and years ago - it was so much fun to read through.

Did the P&G soaps ever have the celebrity fans that ABC soaps did?

Aretha Franklin dug Y&R (and B&B I think?).. other than that I don't recall many vocal celebs about CBS shows...

ABC had its highest ratings in urban markets- I recall NYC, Chicago, LA, and Boston were particularly hot.

Snoop Dogg loved OLTL - guested and even wrote the theme for the reboot.

I think ABC also led in Philadelphia. Supposedly, CBS led in the south and midwest, with NBC leading everywhere else (the central and mountain zones?).

R351 - I believe the P&G shows did.

The P&G shows never seemed to promote/cross-promote, seek the limelight in the ways the ABC shows did in the 1970s and 1980s, which was likely a mistake.

Bette Davis wrote a fan letter to Lisa Brown. I am sure there are other examples.

Speaking of promotion and cross-promotion, I know that Loving had it both ways with All My Children. They had some crossovers, but they could have things like characters referring to AMC as a show. I bring this up because during the mid '80s, it seems like they missed a trick not having Erica and Lorna Forbes from Loving cross paths in the modeling world.

[quote] it seems like they missed a trick not having Erica and Lorna Forbes from Loving cross paths in the modeling world.

At that time (1983 - 1985) they didn't do any crossovers in soaps.

Lorna Forbes was a great character, and I really did like Loving for the first couple of years. Susan Walters was great as Lorna—isn’t she on a soap now? They recast her when she left and that replacement was a frump who didn’t last long. I don’t think they ever brought Lorna back, which was strange, since they kept the same boring Stacey and Jack for almost the entire run.

Susan Walters is on The Young and the Restless, yes, as Diane.

R343 we could fill an entire thread with the things that loon obsesses about.

I seriously believe they are deeply mentally ill. Until Muriel blocks them, it's best to FF and not engage.

[quote] Did the P&G soaps ever have the celebrity fans that ABC soaps did?

Not really. P&G soaps had a lot of fans and when actors showed up for appearances they'd get big crowds, but ABC was very good at promotion in the late 70s/early 80s, and captured the youth market in a way no one had before or since.

Luke and Laura obviously helped, but the "Love in the Afternoon" campaign predated them by a few years.

Isnt the first soap crossover Mike and Hope Bauer from Guiding Light to Another World? Or am I forgetting an even earlier one?

Mitchell Dru was on ATWT, AW and The Brighter Day

I remember Delilah from OLTL popping in on AMC for an episode in the early 80s…I think her scene was with Adam. I wasn’t sure exactly who she was since I wasn’t into OLTL then…or ever, really.

Some lovely memories of AMC in the "olden days." I started watching the show as a nascent gayling with my mother during summer break from elementary school. I remember the Tara/Phil love story as *the* story, and agonizing when Phil was reported MIA in Vietnam and Tara married Chuck Tyler to give her baby a "name."

Agnes Nixon must have hated hookers, because no hooker on AMC ever got a break: Estelle died (I forget if it was at the hands of Billy Clyde Tuggle); Donna survived getting beat up and even fell in love with Chuck Tyler, but was opposed by Phoebe. I forget how many other husbands she had -- at least Palmer Cortland and Benny Sago. When her one-night stand with Chuck resulted in a baby when she was married to Palmer (who at that point was said to be infertile), that baby died in a fire and she went crazy for a while.

Loved evil Natalie, not nicey-nicey Natalie. Was Erica her main rival? Whoever they had her go against, it was hilarious.

I watched up through college (mid-80s) and remember how one of my female floormates and I cheered when Nina and Cliff got back together. By the time Kendall showed up and both Dimitri and his brother were afraid of her, I was kind of over it, and by then, most of the old guard was gone anyway.

I can't find the website now, but some fan maintained an entire website of Pine Valley storylines and connections between characters. Wasted quite some time going through and reliving some of those stories.

Was it this one r365?

Marcy Walker is on Twitter. According to her bio, she’s a breast cancer survivor. I always wanted her to get back into acting. She was fantastic.

R366 - Yes! That's the one. Thank you!

So who were the show's most popular couples? Tad/Dixie? Greg/Jenny? Cliff/Nina? Phil/Tara? Zack/Kendall? Jack/Erica? Ryan/Greenlee? Mateo/Hayley?

In the 80s, I vaguely remember some stars from Another World coming to my small town Nova Scotia mall for an event.

Another World was always the most popular soap in Canada, even up until it ended. Mostly because it aired on CTV, the biggest network. They also had General Hospital, and then dumped that for Santa Barbara. The public broadcaster CBC had AMC and OLTL until the late 90s.

Tara/Phil, Jeff/Mary, Ann/Nick, Linc/Kitty/Kelly, Nina/Cliff & Greg/Jenny.

Remember when homely Devon went vag crazy and couldn't keep her tongue off anyone's pussy? Pretty sure she even tried to tongue-bathe Enid Nelson at one point. That girl was possessed by the devil.

Nein, loon.

Greg/Jenny

Cliff/Nina

Angie/Jessie

Trevor/Natalie

Tad/Dixie

Tara/Phil

Jack/Erica

Zach/Kendall

Greenlee/Leo

Adam/Brooke

Chuck and Donna were extremely popular in the late 70s and early 80s. And I think Tom and Brooke were more popular than Adam and Brooke. Tom and Brooke seemed end-game throughout most of the 80s, but the writers got bored with Tom. Wisner Washam said that the network at some point wanted to fire Richard Shoberg because his Q score had fallen, but he and Agnes fought to keep him because they deemed Tom a useful character.

Didn’t that hag Felicia Behr fire Peter Bergman and Richard Shoeberg?

.......

In FMB's defense, the audience hated Cliff/Angie, and only wanted to see him with Nina, but by that point Cliff/Nina were beyond played out. At that point too, FMB had just come on and her charge was to decrease the number of storylines and make the show feel less fractured. With Nina gone, Cliff was no longer tied to a major family, so I could see her reasoning for thinking be was expendable.

......

R374 Jeff/Mary were huge. Cruelly killing her off was Nixon's fuck you to their fans, because Charles Frank and Susan Blanchard wanted to move to LA.

Harding Lemay is one of my favorite soap writers, but I'm not sure if people give Agnes Nixon enough credit for laying the foundation that allowed Lemay to flourish. She really put Another World on the map. We were, mostly, an NBC house. The few times I sampled AMC, as a kid, it just didn't look "right" to me - whatever the fuck that means. Maybe because it looked kind of washed out compared to bright NBC soaps. Who knows.

I get what you mean about a soap not looking “right”—I guess I was used to the way AMC looked and to me it was fine, but I couldn’t stand how Y&R because it didn’t look “right” to me. HATED the way it was lit. The P&G soaps looked different too, but they didn’t put me off like the Bell soaps.

[quote] Jeff/Mary were huge.

MARY!

Its still so sad that Kay Campbell died in a car accident.

I totally hear everyone on weather shows “looked right” or not.

We were a CBS household, but as a kid I didn’t enjoy YR nearly as much as GL and ATWT. YR seemed so dark (the way it was lit) and the stories seemed to drag.

You fuckers are insane? Y&R was stunning and looked better than many films. The camera work, the lighting- was cinematic quality. Also, if you watch episodes from 1984 or 1986 today, other than the hairstyles, the shows look modern- they almost look timeless. Its almost creepy to think that the show was filmed 35 years ago.

OLTL on the flip side was so brightly lit and it really is a great 80's time capsule. Tina's Salmon Colored 1986 era condo/apt is epic to me.

These were my shows.

I'm a little bummed that this thread is only about AMC. But AMC was my late mom's show, so its kind of nice..

R386 - I agree with your comparisons of mid 1980s YR to today’s.

When I was a kid watching in the mid to late 1970s it appeared darker than GL and ATWT.

I do remember noticing the way they staged the shots (camera pushing through fresh flowers or a chandelier, actors posed one in the foreground and one in the background, etc.) and thought it appeared more artistic, but also more static.

By 84/86 YR was lit like most other soaps. From 73 until about some point in the 80s, it had very dark, focused lighting.

The ABC shows had a different kind of lighting. The ABC shows also didn't use background music in the same way CBS and NBC did. ABC was still big on scene setting music and your end of scene stinger, especially AMC and OLTL.

AMC did use popular music really well there for a while—I wish I could find the episode where Nina is daydreaming and there is a sexy montage of her affair with Steve Jacobi set to “Love is a Stranger” by Eurythmics.

R386 It was meant to be about any and all Agnes shows including OLTL...?

Except for Cortlandt Manor, the AMC sets looked cheap and washed out.

Compare the Chandler or Tyler Mansion to the Cory Mansion, for example; or The Chateau to Tops on ATWT; or even The Boutique to Fashions on ATWT.

Y&R and OLTL were basically polar opposites in the 80's..

Both also had the BEST background music- one orchestral and cinematic and the other synth driven Miami Vice style/ horror film style music.

Bright lighting/dark lighting.

R388- You have got to be kidding me. Y&R was not lit like other soaps in the 80's... Go check out ATWT, OLTL, GL, I can go on...

Y&R was on another level for more than 30 years... That Cassandra Rawlings house in 89-90 was like something out of Sirk film from the 50's..

I found it really cool when Doug Davidson mentioned it a year or so ago on his Twitter that it was the most expensive set ever built on daytime.. It had this amazing staircase- I wish there more episodes with this home on Youtube. I think Brad and Tracy owned it later.

Back to AMC- a show I always found to look the cheapest of all the shows. Upon further review- it actually had a really homey and comfy vibe. And it was actually lit really well in the late 80's (I am unsure who the producer was) But my god, early 90's AMC looked so. fucking.cheap. And this is during its PINNACLE ratings wise with the Natalie in the well storyline. (I even watched this storyline- and I forgot that!)

I also vaguely recall (mid 90's?) Brooke having some MASSIVE home with stain glass windows?? It looked like something from Wizard of Oz or something, I remember being shocked and impressed, as I had always thought AMC looked like shit. It was huge and a lot of depth, and on par with a Y&R set.

I also dug Erica's digs generally- also late 80's on AMC... They always gave her a set worthy of her popularity-

I always find it interesting that the conversation does tend to drift to and stick with AMC as opposed to OLTL. It's like Marcia and Jan Brady, I suppose.

I think since Agnes really put way more of her stamp on AMC it has made sense for this thread.

As I started visiting this site in 2001 DUE to OLTL, I am a little surprised that no one talks about OLTL anymore here. (It was definitely DL's soap)

However, I have to admit that when you think of Agnes, you think of AMC. So this thread is cool.

I never looked at OLTL as the red headed stepchild, but that really crazy sibling who ran off to Europe and had all sorts of whacked out adventures instead of going to college. Its highs to me, were higher than any soap- ever. Its lows- could be lower than any soap ever. It was that mentally ill sibling who was medicated as well.

R396 your summary is in its own weird way super appropriate - since Viki/Niki/Jean et al was in fact medicated and had high highs and low lows.

R397- That crossed my mind as I typed that. So yeah- it was really a show about mental illness (if you look back on it)

I once read that OLTL was a Psychological soap- and it REALLY was. Even the campy 80's had a series of mentally ill villians-

At its most campy and its most deep- OLTL was about the sickness of the mind/maybe even the subconscious..

[quote]By 84/86 YR was lit like most other soaps. From 73 until about some point in the 80s, it had very dark, focused lighting.

That's because John Conboy was the Y&R executive producer from 1973 to early 1982.

He left to go to his Capital, a soap he helped create which also had his signature moody lighting.

R399- I found the Wesley Kenney years even better looking than Conboy's. (and I am not surprised that GH looked so good under Kenney as well- it never looked like that again)

But ultimately I know that Y&R's look was all because of Conboy.

I did a little deep dive on AMC Christmas episodes today…some wonderful soul has uploaded almost every year to the YouTube… and they are really fun. Phoebe was the main character of most of the 80s episodes. She seemed to have some sort of crisis every Christmas! I don’t know if it was because Natalie wasn’t tied to any major families, but Kate Collins wasn’t featured in many of the Christmas episodes—I looked!

In the Christmas 1987 and 1988 episodes, Ellen and Mark were doing the same thing—worrying about Julie! I really thought they were gone by the end of 1988, but I guess not. For the life of me, I can’t think of any storyline Ellen or Mark had from 1987 to 1988, other than his coke addiction or them worrying about Julie. Pretty sure the both of them, and Julie, were gone by the end of 1989.

R398 Yes!

And that was part of the high highs and low lows, for sure. When it was done well, looking at Viki's mental illness (especially the Malone look at why Viki's alters appeared) was so very good.

At its worst, it made a joke of the mental illness. (Bess/Tess/Jess?)

I can’t say much about the stories, but GL looked good when Conboy was there. I watched all five years of Capitol (though much of it is like a fever dream), but I don’t remember that show as being particularly darkly lit the way I think of early YR.

I too loved the Rawlins house set (and the story) on YR. I had no idea that set was the most expensive. I know very early into its run YR’s Chancellor estate was the most expensive set in daytime. They sure got their money’s worth out if that.

I agree with an above poster who mentioned AMC’s Pine Valley feeling like a real small town and loved all the establishing shots that were used in the 1980s. By the 1990s (maybe the mid 1990s) it became seemingly bigger and more metropolitan that Philadelphia.

I used to work and drive around Agnes Nixon’s home in the early to mid 1990s. All of the street names had influenced her creations of Pine Valley, Corinth, and Llanview.

You always knew a character was in trouble if they ventured onto Locust Street!

R403 All soap cities did, and that became part of the problem - it stretched credibility that a multimillion dollar company would be in little Cooter Holler or what have you, for one.

And then when the budget cuts came, it was hard to make the sets look as nice as they had been. Which is why so many shows had their residents living in hotels. Almost no one could have their own set any more.

R405 - totally agree! Along so many fewer sets came sofa sex. So much couch crotching.

One thing that I don’t thing is discussed much is how all of the budget cuts must have hugely impacted all the people who work/worked behind the scenes.

I also think that when more soaps were being produced in L.A. than New York (which happened in 1997 with Port Charles), that was something of a point of no return.

R406

I think there was a real resistance to change. Many shows kept on staff in front of the camera and behind the scenes much longer than they should have. What became a permanent change was thought of as a temporary one. After all, most shows had ebbed and flowed before, and the money/sponsors had always been there.

AW's cancellation in 1999 didn't seem to make a huge impact, but when GL started really hemorrhaging money they were the first to get significant cuts. We heard about the 15 percent pay cuts for actors but most of the behind the scenes folks - directors especially - lost their jobs. Some of them had been there for 30+ years. They canned Bruce Barry in a year where he'd won either an Emmy or a DGA award. They cut so many of these positions around 2004-2005 (this was also when Mickey Dwyer Dobbin was fired and the whole PGP liasion position, which had been Ed Trach for many years before MADD, was eliminated - which should have been the sign the PGP shows were on borrowed time).

The new production method in 2007 was at least in part an attempt to use fewer camera crew members and also allow the show to film with nonunion crew when they filmed in Peapack. I think. (One of the locations was union, one was not, I think Peapack was the non but I may have those reversed. Anyway.)

I think one of the main things that impacted New York based soaps (eventually it got to LA) was real estate. Leasing studio space and set storage space got more and more expensive. Regarding studio space, production models changed so that shows were no longer filming 5 days a week/52 weeks a year (with the exception of holiday dark days or a dark week). This meant that sets had to be taken down and put back up more often, which increased storage costs and personnel cost to take down and put back up.

This also meant that shows, when in production, were limited to only certain sets to keep personnel costs down. The way most of the shows handled this (and the way the LA shows handle it now) is that they've shrunk the size of sets so that they may have more sets standing all the time and more people are living in hotels or mansions.

Gone are those spacious mansion sets and hospital sets, because they just don't have the room. Everything has been shrunk down. The hotel sets and mansion bedroom sets are easy because they can just redress the same room a hundred different ways.

I don't understand why GH looks better than the other shows. At some point I read that they shoot by set, but I think all the shows shoot that way. So I'm not sure what they're during differently that allows them to have all of these sets, but you can tell that even some of their sets are smaller.

R409 Yes. It seems insane to think about but storage costs ended up killing most of the NYC shows, because they couldn't store the sets at a cheap/reasonable cost.

That was the big driver behind the whole Peapack experiment.

GH has a lot of random sets like the axe throwing one but they look cheap for the most part. And terribly decorated. There’s a coffee shop set with plants jumping out of the wall. Even the beloved nurses station looks cheap and the hospital room set has a patient bed awkwardly placed right in the middle. The updated Q mansion set is the worst of it though.

Cliff catches Nina FUCKING Steve Jacobi!

I had just really started watching AMC (I was 11 or 12) and I remember thinking this was all very racy.

How is Cecily related to phoebe?

Phoebe was her godmother, but like everyone, called her Aunt Phoebe.

R412 It should have been Nina catching Cliff and Steve Jacobi fucking!

R415, That would have been hot!

Very hot indeed.

I'd like to watch Mr. Delaney watching those other men.

The Kevin and Kelsey storyline was so good, with his coming out, his parents trying to convert him, etc. It’s the storyline that one AMC the writing Emmy that year. Then new producers or writers came in, and Kevin just sort of vanished…

Oh my, that should have been “WON AMC the Emmy”…

Juanita Ramsey would be appalled by my mistake.

[quote]The Kevin and Kelsey storyline was so good, with his coming out, his parents trying to convert him, etc. It’s the storyline that one AMC the writing Emmy that year. Then new producers or writers came in, and Kevin just sort of vanished…

Whatever became of that cohort of teens? I know Brian Gaskill went on to Port Charles and Guiding Light, but what about the rest of them?

Ben Jorgensen (Kevin) played Chris Hughes for a bit on ATWT, but didn’t really click. I think he died last year.

TC Warner (Kelsey) never did any other soaps, I don’t think, but I believe she still acts.

Darlene Tejeiro played Anita the longest (even though Jordana Brewster was in the role for a bit and went on to semi-fame) but I can barely remember her.

Scott Chandler was also around for that, but I hardly remember the kid who played him before Scott Cosgrove took over.

My mom and I were ABC soap watchers and really just "Ryan's Hope" and "AMC" at that, so we came late to "One Life to Live." I think by that point, the Buchanans were part of Llanview, Victor Lord was long dead, and Judith Light no longer on the show. Still, there were good years.

There is a reason Susan Lucci never won a Daytime Emmy until she finally got the pity award one year, and these two women were why: Robin Strasser and Erika Slezak, who were soap opera divas extraordinaire.

In this part 2 of four clips, Dorian finally tells Viki she knows that Victor Lord sexually abused her as a child, causing Viki to split into multiple personalities and hold Dorian captive. I forget how long that storyline lasted, but it was awesome.

I think Viki’s split into 6 personalities in the 90s was one of the last great soap storylines. It was a slow build over a few years, involved a lot of the cast and relied on the show’s history. It also finally gave a logical reason for Viki’s DID.

The show should have been done with it after that, but unfortunately they went back to that well more than once.

It was sad that they couldn't let the DID go, especially since everything after Malone was just a cartoon version of DID.

IT'S NIKI SMITH TIME!!!!!

[quote] Scott Chandler was also around for that, but I hardly remember the kid who played him before Scott Cosgrove took over.

Daniel Cosgrove.

The reason behind Jessica’s DID was one of the worst stories on OLTL. I still can’t believe how terrible it was.

What was the reason?

[quote]Scott Chandler was also around for that, but I hardly remember the kid who played him before Scott Cosgrove took over.

Shane McDermott. I think he's a realtor now, and I believe he made a statement when Ben Jorgeson died.

SEVEN personalities- Viki, Niki, Jean, Tommy, Tori, Princess, Victor.

I loved Dorian’s reaction as she met them.

You drugged TORI. You didn't drug me, you stupid bitch!

The first soap role for Forbes March was as one of the Scott Chandlers, playing him for about a year 1999-2000.

Forbes went on to play Nash Brennan on OLTL from 2005 to 2008.

Forbes sure was pretty. He had that toothy kind of smile that just bones me up when I see a hot young guy with it.

Jessica's DID came because she was molested by a barfly at a place Viki-as-Niki took her too. I can't remember if this was before or after it turned out that Clint and Viki weren't Jessica's biological parents. Je-sus, OLTL in the '00s was just nothing but retcons, wasn't it?

Here’s an OLTL thread.

Thought this was an Agnes Nixon thread on my end…

It is.

I'm the OP of this thread, and it is intended for **BOTH** AMC and OLTL discussion.

I don't care for any advice to the contrary. I don't like it atall.

I heard that in Phoebe Tyler’s voice, OP/r438

LOL....I was spoofing Victoria Lord's "atall" but Phoebe works too.

"How DARE you live together without benefit of clergy!"

YOU IMPETULANT LITTLE SNIP

I loved when Phoebe called someone a “strumpet”!

Liza and Amanda serving BIG LEZ energy!

R438, What about "Loving" or its sequel "The City," which were Agnes's also? 😉

Loving was really fun the first couple of years, and had its moments when Gwyneth and Tricia came on, and The DL has well documented the attributes of one Robert Tyler (Trucker). That said, it never was GREAT.

I remember getting really sick of that “Thornbirds” storyline with Shana and Father Jim.

IMDB says that Christine Tudor (Gwyneth) and Tricia (Noelle Beck) are only one year apart in age, despite playing mother and daughter. There is no way Christine Tudor was born in 1967!

Christine has a LinkedIn account that says she has a bachelors degree issued in 1976…

Which would make her more like 70.

The original young cast of Loving was really good. I had a huge crush on the original Curtis, Christopher Marcantel. Maybe because he wasn’t your typical soap heartthrob?

I hear you, R448. Marcantel was cute, and didn't look too bad in his '90s return, either.

Chris Marcantel always looked like he had a Big One.

I first noticed Chris when he played Pete Shea on Another World. Marcantel has what I call thick dick face.

He wasn't super soap star hot but on the other hand, he struck me as someone who might have been in an 80s porn.

The full Guiding Light episode where Nola loses Kelly for good used to be on YouTube. I mention it because it includes Chris, playing T.J. Werner (Kevin Bacon's old role), looking pretty good in some preppy summer wear.

R453, like this?

I had forgotten about him being on Guiding Light. I was pretty young, but I did watch it with my older brother during all the Kelly/Morgan/Nola stuff.

He was also Michael Learned’s son on her series, Nurse.

YES! That's what I'm talking about (in more ways than one),

Ellen Holly started out liking Agnes Nixon.

But then one day, the laughter stopped.

AMC 20th anniversary episode-I remember watching this in 1990.

The 53rd anniversary of the debut of AMC is January 5.

Sobs at R457's post....

Realizing that Mary Fickett, Ruth Warrick and Ray McDonnell are all no longer with us.....

Grandma Kate 😢😢😢

Thanks DL(OP) for the AMC-Agnes Nixon thread,

My favorite Characters were Palmer Courtlandt& Phoebe Tyler Wallingford. I watched the Palmer funeral on Youtube& the Palmer destroying Adam at his party by stealing his company was priceless. I have a Bonkers the cat story too that involved a client of mine.

Phillywhore, what can you tell us about the Philly suburbs that Aggie sort of based Llanview and Pine Valley on?

Not Phillywhore, but Pine Valley is based on Rosemont, PA.

1984 AMC episode.

Ruth appears around 5:50, and Mary Fickett’s hair and clothes make her look like post 2016 Hillary Clinton.

Happy 53rd birthday, All My Children!

On the 20th Annivesary:

30th:

Seen in a comment thread on another site, regarding Anthony George.....

"When Anthony George was on One Life to Live I worked on it and told him I watched him on Dark Shadows. I am a big Dark Shadows fan. He asked me to come to his dressing room and help him "run lines". I went but I was not interested in his advances."

Dorothy Lyman gives you a history of soaps and introduces LOVING.

OMG LOVING was stale white bread. Boring as shit.

Agnes Nixon discussing her writing process and the creation of Loving, the interviewer is Marlena DeLaCroix (Connie Passalacqua).

She looks annoyed and pained when Doug Marland’s name came up. I really want to know what went down between those two.

Doug had no problem telling the world how he felt about Gloria Monty but I don’t remember an interview with him discussing his exit from Loving.

I’ve been watching old episodes from the summer of 1981. These episodes are gold. When Opal and Jenny showed up. Brandon Kingsley and Erica were together. Devon McFadden who you can’t help but hate. Donna married to Palmer. This was such a great period of AMC.

Devon sure was a big loser, wasn’t she???

I was kind of angry that this thread was only about AMC but when I though about it Agnes threw away OLTL pretty early, and AMC is her baby.

That being said, I think I said above that AMC was my mother's soap and I never vibed with it, other than a brief period with Natalie in the Well..

That being said, I agree with R472- When watching these shows on Youtube, that 81-84 era really has a homey, comfy, yet classy vibe.. I can see why so many people loved this show now.

OLTL was definitely a psychological soap until around 1982- and then to me it has ZERO identity until 1985... Those 83-84 episodes of OLTL are straight ups pedestrian and boring.

^^ And I am sorry, I think I had a stroke while typing my lovely comment above^^ Jesus Christ.

"That being said! that being said! That being said!!!

Opal ordering sleazy Tad and old whore Marian Colby to stop fucking. “AND YOU, SLEEPING WITH A MAN A THIRD OF YOUR AGE!”

They were playing "King of the Road" at the end of the Tad7 Opal segment. Who did Marian Colby murder? I remember she played Bitchy Liza's mom, who was her husband again.

Devo, Ellen were completely forgettable characters, I didn't remember them in the AMC at all.

That is Devon& Ellen...Devo was 80's too! Mark was tramp Erica's half-brother. Married to Ellen. He was awesome looking, when did he become boring on AMC.

Devon was always a dud, but Ellen was a great character. Kathleen Noone deservedly won an Emmy for that role.

Marian killed Zach Grayson. There were lots of suspects, but it turned out Marian killed him. Zach killed Cliff’s sister Linda, played by Melissa Leo.

Here’s Melissa Leo in a cat fight with one of the fake Ninas.

Oh, forgot to add that Zach Grayson was played by Patti LuPone’s brother!

That murder mystery was fun, but 1985 wasn’t a great year for AMC. Dottie and Tad were involved in some weird adventure story, the aforementioned fake Nina, fake Liza, fake Greg, etc. Kate Collins injected some oomph later in the year, but AMC didn’t fully rebound until they righted the ship in the back half of 1986, made big umbrella stories, and moved Erica and Natalie out of the Jeremy orbit. I’d say the show was mostly excellent (there were a few clunker stories, of course) for at least another decade. There were many great stories in the late 90s, but Pine Valley had really started to change.

I think the last “classic” AMC story was Bianca coming out in December 2000.

If memory serves, LesBianca was a story Agnes had wanted to tell for a very, very long time.

R480 I don't remember which fake Nina that was but she should have turned in her SAG card in immediately after that scene. She is dreadful.

OMG Melissa Leo - did she ever play anything non dykey? I can't believe that scene. Taylor Miller would have NEVER agreed to play that! And darling Amy Steel was the original Linda Warner, I can't see her agreeing to play anything so campy, though her Trudy on GL got to slap Lisa Brown's Nola.

Amy Steel played Cliff’s other sister, Peggy. Linda was the bratty youngest sister. Peggy was really on for just a little bit, mostly to be a bridesmaid at Cliff’s first wedding to Nina.

Loved Amy Steel in the slasher movie satire APRIL FOOL’S DAY, which also starred Deborah Goodrich (faux Silver/Connie Wilkes)!

I started watching AMC in 1977 when I was in 7th grade. Back then we only had the 3 networks on TV and my older sister controlled it so I fell into AMC and General Hospital. I agree with the above poster who said the best years were from about 1980-1988. There really were some great stories. Although I do remember a storyline in the 1990's where the whole town of Pine Valley was on some sort of cruise and David Heyward had spiked the punch that everyone was drinking with libitizone which was some sort of Viagra that made everyone horny. At this point Liza was back on the show and shes at the punch bowl with old Dr. Joe drinking the punch and old Dr. Joe was getting his groove on hitting on Liza, it was pure gold...HaHa.

Yeah, those libidozone episodes on the boat were fun.

And for added humor, Mark Consuelos playing doped, horny Mateo as a neanderthal.

That wasn't acting!

They made a huge mistake letting Establish Terblanche go. Gillian was fun, and Ryan was only ever tolerable with her.

I wanted Mark LaMura in me quite deeply.

He looked like he had a Big One with huge bushy pubes.

I think you may be on to something, r491.

Mark LaMura used to date the late Andrea Moar, who played Carrie Sanders. I think they were engaged for a time. She died tragically about 10 years ago, in a swimming accident.

And later, he dated Marcia Cross.

I thought LaMura was of the homosex persuasion.

I think R495 that's what R494 was say'in...

I'd heard about this but never seen it. Am LOL'ing.

Is Erika Slezak on Cameo? Next Christmas, I'll pay to hear her recite the lyrics to "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

Ask her to talk about prunes.

She's on the toilet all the time, that's how she talks about prunes.

Moving on....

I remember being surprised to learn that Gillian Spencer was the original Viki on OLTL. She was so fun and vibrant on AMC, and Viki as played by Slezak…was not. Did Gillian leave OLTL to go to ATWT? Did she also play Niki, or did the multiple personalities stuff not happen until Slezak? I was never a big OLTL viewer, but I do remember in high school a bunch of us watching it and getting a hoot out of Slezak in the red wig and leather miniskirts.

I’m not bashing Slezak, she’s clearly a great actress, just wasn’t a Viki fan. When I *did* watch, I preferred Dorian.

Gillian was the original Viki and was the first to play Niki Smith. She left OLTL in 1970 when her two-year contract was up.

She joined ATWT in 1972 for three years.

She joined AMC in 1979, staying there for a decade.

Gillian was also a writer for various soaps over the years, handling both scripts and breakdowns, and occasionally serving as HW.

ATWT was no. 1 when Gillian Spencer joined, but her character - Jennifer Ryan - was a dud. Jen had 2 adult children, and Gill couldn't have been ten years older than the actors who played those kids. What a come down from Vikki/Nikki!

HOT!

This clip cracks me up..1984..fake Mike Roy, fake Liza, fake Nina..plus Melissa Leo and cutie Stephen McCaffrey as Andrew, and Tasia Valenza as Dottie, who I always liked. And William Christian as an under 5 before he played Derek Frye for many years.

Sorry, Caffrey not McCaffrey.

Stephen Caffrey was so cute as Fuzzy in Longtime Companion, especially lip-synching “Stop in the Name of Love.”

What a time!

Boy, R509, MEK and Lau were stunning back then. Now I know why my 9 year old sefl tuned in whenever I could.

Oh my gosh Gillian Anderson as Monique Jonviel aka Daisy Cortland who was also Myra's daughter and of course, virgin Nina did not know a thing! Oh, the golden age of the soaps.

Oh and how much Jessie hated Liza! Now there was a high school Jessie, Angie, Greg, Liza... l-o-v-e-d it!

Marcy Walker was damn good.

I hate that when they brought back Debbi Morgan, Darnell Williams, and (briefly) Laurence Lau, Marcy Walker had sort of retired from acting and gone into the ministry. It would have been so awesome to have those four back together…they brought on Jamie Luner as Liza, or should I say “Liza” since she was basically a new character. Liza is now a lawyer??? And a decade younger than the her former classmates?? Jamie Luner was not bad at all, but they should have made her Julie Chandler, who left Pine Valley…to attend law school! It was a missed opportunity. Julie was related to the Kanes, Chandlers, and Cortlandts; lots of possibilities there.

As for Liza, if they did want to bring her back, I would have loved to have seen someone like Beth Chamberlin or Eileen Davidson.

Watching AMC back then I didn’t realize how… YOUNG Cady was.

I think she was like 18/19 when she started on AMC.

I wonder whatever happened to the first Dixie, Kari Gibson? I know the first Will, Lonnie Quinn, went on to become a weatherman.

Will Cortlandt’s murder was a fun story but they should have kept him around. James Patrick Stuart had that menacing gothic vibe that Palmer had.

Or they should have brought Andrew (Preston) Cortlandt back-Palmer forgave Sean Cudahy for the Sybil Thorne mess, why not bring Andrew back.

Palmer needed an evil protege to keep up with Adam in the 90s.

Forgive me OP, but who was Andrew(Preston) Cortlandt and how was he related tp Palmer; who did he kill on AMC. Who killed Will Cortlandt and why? BTW I agree with the Will Cortlandt comparison to Palmer, he was really good at the "Palmer Cortlandt evil menacing, Gothic vibe" I I always called it"Palmer's controllrd madness" while Adam Chandlers was "over the top".

Andrew was the son of Cynthia (Jane Elliott) and she claimed Ross was his father, making Andrew Palmer’s grandson and Adam’s nephew. He had romances with Linda Warner and Dottie Thornton. I don’t think he killed anyone, but he was one of the many suspects in the Zach Grayson murder. (Marion Colby did it) Eventually it turned out that Andrew was really the son of someone else..maybe a stable boy? He left the show and was never heard from again.

Will Cortlandt was murdered by crazy Janet (Kate Collins) with a crowbar.

Andrew went to jail. It was discovered he wasn’t related to Ross, and he started competing with Ross for Palmer’s affection.

Eventually he decided to kill Ross. Palmer hosted a fox hunt and Andrew tampered with Ross’ saddle. Alex Hunter (Jeremy’s father) used the saddle instead of Ross and was killed. Andrew was convicted of Alex Hunter’s murder.

That’s right r519! I’d forgotten about that!

Stephen Caffrey was SO cute.

R516 through R520, you are why DL can still be fun. Those storylines sound great! What years are you typing about? I watched AMC during college, 1980 - 1984... so Will, Andrew, Ross, are all later than my viewing. Am I right?

Marion Colby - that old cougar - she murdered someone?! She was always a judgmental bitch, I hope she ended up in an Orange is the New Black ward and had to do the lez-lez for a ack of smokes!

Marian ended up fucking the warden to get out early.

R522, Andrew was on 1984-1986, Will came on in 88 or 89.

Ross was on about 1983-90.

OMG!!! I forgot, Palmer married Tracy Quartermain (Jane Elliott). I won 100 dollars in a bar in Chicago because of AMC, the question was "Name all of Palmer Cortlandt wives in order". All I remember was "Daisy,Donna, Daisy & Cynthia(now) Natalie???

Natalie (Kate Collins) was put in the well by crazy Janet(Kate Collins), who was fucking Derek? who was married to Natalie (Kate Collins) Correct??

Janet was jealous of Natalie and wanted Trevor, so she threw Natalie in the well and impersonated her. Trevor ended up impregnating Janet during this and that’s how we got Amanda.

Dimitri was introduced during the storyline as the man who rescued Natalie, and then that saga began.

AMC shot back up to #2 in the ratings as a result of this story, and other shows copied it, most memorably DAYS, whose ratings also shot up when Vivian threw Carly in the well.

R527- I was a Y&R watcher and OLTL FREAK (hated AMC) and even + I +watched Natalie in the well- I was addicted for a good 6 months! It was soap opera gold- and I really loved Kate.

In fact I have never even searched for this stuff on Youtube and cannot wait to check it out!

And yes, AMC skyrocketed in the ratings at a time when OLTL was sinking- OLTL could not even benefit from AMC's MASSIVE surge.. It was a crazy time.

Definitely the end of all of the soaps heyday. OJ destroyed it all soon after-

I know the 1970-89 opening is probably more iconic, but I love the early 90s All My Children opening. I always felt it was soothing and it really reflected the character of Pine Valley.

The falling pictures opening was the first one I'd ever seen, so the switch to the white background and beauty shots was shocking to me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I also kinda missed OLTL's porn opening after it stopped being used.

The well story went on for months and it never lost steam for me. These days, a story like that would end in a week.

Also, I cant believe Cady was 19-ish making out with David Canary. Current soaps are too scared to go there these days.

I remember when Barbara Montgomery was throwing shade at Erica’s name for a new perfume, and Erica retorted, “Why don’t we name it after you..Raging Bitch?”

Barbara WAS a bitch who let Brooke’s daughter get run over by a car!

I forgot that Barbara and Tom hooked up. As a kid in the 1980s I always found Tom to be a bore, but recently upon looking at pictures of him from when he was married to Erica, turns out he was a stone cold fox, though, I think he was always a bit of a bore as a character.

The actress who played Barbara always reminded me of a classier version of Stepfanie Kramer, like if she played DeeDee on Hunter, she would NOT have worn jeans and pumps together.

[quote]The falling pictures opening was the first one I'd ever seen, so the switch to the white background and beauty shots was shocking to me.

Not just the switch to that, but the change in the music. When they finally brought back the same melody, it was good.

Today I watched last night’s SNL and host Michael B. Jordan played a clip from AMC when he was 16 and playing Reggie. I also just started Shotgun Wedding with Josh Duhamel on Prime. I can’t think of many other actors who “made it” outside of AMC, but they did have a lot of actresses who went on to bigger roles outside of daytime…Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amanda Seyfried, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Ripa, Melissa Leo, Lacey Chabret, Lauren Holly…

I thought Michael E. Knight would have had a more successful career outside of daytime, but it never really worked out for him and he was wise to go back to AMC.

Oh, and Josh Duhamel is still scorching hot.

I'm honestly surprised Marcy Walker didn't go on to bigger things. I know it didn't last, but she was the lead in a primetime series.

Yeah, it’s surprising Marcy Walker didn’t get more chances in primetime. Plenty of less talented stars get chance after chance with failed series, but when Marcy’s one primetime series flopped, it was back to daytime. Maybe it was her choice to get off that train and return to the security of daytime. It was really great when she returned to AMC. H

Marcy Walker got divorced around the time she left Santa Barbara. She had a small child and she was over 30, so maybe she went back to daytime for the financial stability.

A shame she never won an Emmy for AMC. She did thank the cast when she won for Eden’s rape story on SB though.

I hated when they started dressing Liza in huge blazers and cowl necks. Marcy was not a huge woman, but it was like they were trying to cover her up since she wasn’t a size 2.

Kim Delaney is another AMC alum who did pretty well for herself on primetime...for a while...

The early 80s AMC teen set was probably the most charismatic, best written teenagers on soaps. The only other soap teens that came close were The Four Musketeers on Guiding Light.

I loved Kim Delaney(she was from Roxborough-grew up there)

Seriously nice young girl in the late 70's-early 1980's. Very pretty, down to earth girl.

God, years ago a man who played Robin Strasser's father on AMC, Dr. Karras, the actor's first name was Chris came to our high school in Brooklyn and yapped about getting fired after being promised a long contract. He was working as a drama coach. He was supposed to romance Phoebe, and Ruth Warrick didn't care for him or something.

As a gayling of 9, I thought Kim Delaney as Jenny was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. She and Lau were just a beautiful couple.

I understand Kim Delaney wanting to leave, but fuck, they kept Jenny and Greg apart for so long and then she blew up on that goddamned jet ski right after they got married.

Greg & Jenny had an eventful three years, that's for sure.

Nixon was an old hand at handling the killing off of a young bride. Meredith Wolek and Mary Kennicott Martin come to mind. Then we have the grieving, sexy young widower for storyline possibilities for years. Larry Wolek and Greg Nelson were sexy sufferers. Jeff Martin was written out shortly after losing his tv (and real life) wife, so Charles Frank and Susan Blanchard were off to LA.

But the problem R549 Greg Nelson was never the same after Jenny was killed. The character floundered for a few years on screen and eventually left. It seems like they couldn’t figure out what to do with him. I wonder why?

Speaking of grieving, sexy young widowers, Trucker on LOVING.

Trucker was YUMMY-Best eye candy ever on "LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON" ABC TV.

Seriously Good Looking Robert Tyler!! Also Walt Willey& Larkin Malloy (Loved Travis and Jackson Montgomery)

What was Jackson’s introduction story?

I could be wrong, but I think Jackson first appeared to help Travis with his political campaign.

And Barbara was also part of the campaign, although she and Travis were already divorced, which is an interesting twist on the usual political story in soaps. Who knows, maybe they figured Erica was past being the other woman in her love stories. Pine Valley Historian, was Barbara introduced before or after the Gary Hart-Donna Rice scandal?

Hmmm, could be r555. That sounds about right. Barbara was a good character. Bitchy, but also had some good qualities. They kind of ruined her character in the 2000’s when they brought Sean, Barbara’s son with Travis, to Pine Valley, and revealed that Barbara was a terrible, absent mother. That went against her last major storyline…having two babies (Molly and Sean) she loved very much..so much that she had one to “save” the other via bone marrow.

But that was pretty par for the course the last decade or so of AMC…having characters behave like they absolutely would NOT (see Tad burying a man alive, Janet killing Trevor, Liza becoming an attorney, etc., etc.)

Seems like Barbara showed up in 1987 or so.

I wish they had found a way to keep her, she was a good sparring partner for Erica.

This was way before my AMC time, but I’ve always been fascinated when I read about the Margo Flax character, who had one of the first facelifts in daytime. Storyline-wise, that is.

Barbara being a loving mom to Molly and Sean also probably helped take some of the stain off her for her role in Laura Cuddahy's death. And I like that she had a similarity to Erica (who also did some -- *some* growing up with Bianca's birth). Plus, it's better than AMC's all-too-frequent use of redemption by rape.

How many husbands did Erica have& how many wives did Adam have?

B4 my time in watching AMC, but who was Nick Davis...did Erica fuck him too? What did Nick do on the show, why was he on the show?

I was a baby when AMC premiered, r560, but Nick Davis was the catalyst for one of the first major stories when AMC premiered in 1970. From what I understand, Ruth Brent (before she married Joe Martin) was raising her sister Amy’s (played by ATWT star Rosemary Prinz) illegitimate son Phil as her own. Nick was his real father, and he had found out and came back to Pine Valley to be near his son. I think Erica found out the truth and tortured Nick with it, since she hated him and didn’t like that Nick was friends with Erica’s mother, Mona. In typical soap fashion, Erica and Nick eventually started fucking, even though he was old enough to be her father, and Mona caught them in bed together.

I *loved* Mona. My mother in law looks a lot like her!

I have been watching some 1989-90 episodes and I’d forgotten how Natalie became rich after her dud marriage to Jeremy. Old man Mason was her patient at Pine Valley Hospital and when he died, he left her his money and foundation, just in time for a newly poor Adam to attempt to worm his way into her fortune. David Canary and Kate Collins were Greta together! I wish they’d never put Natalie with that fat goof Trevor, even though even he was better than Jeremy.

GREAT together, not Greta, of course.

Erica fucked Nick, married his son Phil and fucked Phil’s son Charlie. Nick was Mona and Ruth’s good friend and Ruth brought him back to town when Erica sleeping with Charlie. Nick said, “she slept with me, married my son and is sleeping with my grandson-the lady hit the trifecta.”

Erica married Jeff Martin, Phil Brent, Tom Cudahy, Adam Chandler, Mike Roy (unofficial), Travis Montgomery twice (both were illegal because Adam sent Stuart in his place to the original divorce hearing), Adam Chandler (again), Dimitri Marick twice, and finally Jackson Montgomery.

Someone mentioned Margo Flax upthread. I was always curious about her daughter, Claudette Montgomery, who killed Eddie Dorrance. She wasn’t related to Travis and Jackson..

I mentioned Margo Flax. Love that name! I remember reading about Claudette, but she was also before my time. Interesting that she had the same last name as Travis and Jackson.

I guess it makes sense that a long running show would duplicate names. The also reused first names. Over the years, there were two different David characters, as well as Sean, Melanie, and Zach…

Of course they could never reuse the big name characters.

As a child whenever Erica came on the screen my cousin would wave her hand in front of her nost because she said that Erica must have a 'stinky pussy'.

Your cousin is a strumpet! A gutter snipe!

Ahhh, Dimitri. Beautiful Dimitri

You mean "COUNT DIMITRI MERRICK", I soooo wanted to be his "COUNTESS".

FUCK dat whore Erica, she couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag!!

I still remember that “SLUSHK” sound when Erica stabbed Dimitri!

She was out of her mind and thought he was her rapist and first baby daddy, Richard Fields.

Wasn't Kendall her second child, since we know the baby she aborted....well, let's not talk about that.

Tom Cudahy was hot, but he had a temper when he was married to Erica, so I often wondered if they would do a wife-beating story with him. I liked him and Brooke as a couple.

I think AMC always hinted that Nick Davis was the love of Erica's life.

Kendall came first when Erica was 15.

The unabortion was conceived when Erica was married to Jeff Martin, so when she was in her early 20s or so. That storyline, combined with Zoe/Zarf, caused me to give up on AMC.

If they wanted to give Erica another child, or give the Martins an extra grandchild, they could have dome a lot of other things. For example, maybe Erica and Jeff had a one night stand off camera and Erica gave birth to their child during one of Susan Lucci’s maternity leaves.

No, Erica was raped when she was 15 and had Kendall. Allegedly before the show aired.

It was really dumb. They could have made Kendall the daughter of one of Erica’s first husbands and maybe she managed to hide the pregnancy? I dunno. I liked the character of Kendall (both versions) so I just went with it.

Then the stupid unabortion son was younger than Kendall.

Physical spousal abuse on a soap usually goes two ways: characters are introduced and probably don't last that long afterwards (The Bartons, DOOL; Curt and Leora Sanders, AMC; that couple at around the start of Linda Gottlieb's run on OLTL) or they're going to write the abuser out anyway (D.L. on GH). Has a show ever dared to attempt it with a long-running character, or one that they were going to keep?

Maybe I am remembering it wrong-but I recall that Russ Matthews beat or slapped Sharlene in the 70s when they were married Nd he discovered she had been a hooker. I didn’t see it then but they showed a flashback of this when Russ was revealed to be Josie’s father.

Langley dreams of killing Phoebe

AMC had such crappy sets. Phoebe's bedroom set looks something out of the Sears catalog. Everybody had the same kind of fridge in Pine Valley, too. LOL. Cheap production.

I forgot how was Langley written off? He sort of just went away right?

In 1995, Langley's elder daughter, Verla Grubbs (Carol Burnett), came back to Pine Valley to seeking Langley's blessing as she was about to wed. Langley made his final appearance in December 1995, at Pine Valley Hospital where he was helping put up Christmas decorations in the halls.

Langley remained in Pine Valley for a while, but due to Louis Edmonds's health problems, he was written out of the show in April 1997 as being in Egypt on archeological digs. When Edmonds died in 2001, the writers chose to not have Langley die, but rather have him become an unseen character. He was last mentioned in a current context in August 2002, when he missed Brooke's wedding because he was on business in South Africa.

When Phoebe died in 2005, Brooke said that Phoebe's last words were "Langley is waiting for me." This confirmed that sometime between August 2002 and May 2005, Langley died.

R578- I always thought that AMC looked cheap as shit - it was its low point in that 91-92 era..

Yes, I have a penis, R573!

Susan Lucci interviewed by Roger Ailes, in 1995, discussing their mutual love of Rudy Giuliani.

R583 = Dierdre Hall

Do you mean Deidre Hall. r584?

She's known as Dee Dee Halls on DL.

“I don’t need DNA. I have K-A-N-E!!”

I never realized how much her mannerisms resembled Marilyn Monroe’s until that interview at R583.

Whoops

Holy Shit, R588!!

Haha, I came here to post that. What a weird story.

I remember the very first time seeing the Palmer Cortlandt character, immediately recognizing him as the dancer who played Dream Curly in the movie version of “Oklahoma!” I was really young and it had been years, but his silhouette was distinctive and memorable.

Forbes March sounds like the spawn of nouveau riche arrivistes. Parvenu!

Jeez, now Jackie Zeman is gone. Is Susan Lucci going to outlive them all???

Hasn't Susan Lucci always been "Skeletor"? She may live forever.

I can remember a little bit of dialogue from an early scene with Opal and Jenny Gardner.

Opal was snooping and going through Jenny’s purse. Jenny said “mama what are you looking for“ and Opal replied “cigarettes, drugs, and birth control devices of any kind”

In this sketch from SNL Susan Lucci shows she is excellent at self parody.

OP, Why was Erica Kane the STAR of AMC, and not Brooke English. Brooke was "just a man-eater" like Erica? Why did she come to live with Phoebe Tyler in Pine Valley? Why didn't they like each other..what was "their back story".

Brooke is the daughter of Ed English and Jane Dorbin, but she was raised by Ed and his wife Peg. As it turned out, Peg wasn't happy about the arrangement. I'm not sure why Brooke ended up living with Phoebe back in the '70s, other than Ed and Peg might have needed some time away from the brat. Plus, Phoebe had plenty more years of meddling ahead of her. Brooke's maneating days pretty much diminished after she was raped. Then she was more of the responsible alternative to Erica.

Wasn't Peg the 'Cobra' or some such, a murderous drug dealer? She tried to kill poor Brooke. I remember Brooke being tortured in a basement.

Brooke, tortured in a basement? My prayers were answered!

LANGLEY!