Thursday, May 31, 2007


FUTURE SHOCK

So what do we think? Is this a new ATWT supercouple in the making (remember, when Luke's parents, Holden and Lily, were Luke's age, they'd already met and pledged undying love)?

Noah (Jake Silbermann) and Luke (Van Hansis). Should we call them Nuke?

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: MATTHEW BOMER (EX-BEN; GL)

The boy who killed a mere few in Springfield is now a young man suspected of having murdered hundreds.

Read all about Matt's role in the summer series, Traveler, here.
ACTOR APPEARANCE: ATWT

Alexandra Chando, (Maddie), Elena Goode (Jade), Van Hansis (Luke), Jennifer Landon (Gwen/Cleo), Jake Silbermann (Noah) and Jesse Lee Soffer (Will) will appear at an autograph signing on Saturday, June 9 from 10 AM – Noon at the Grand Country Square in Branson, MO.

For more information please call Concept Marketing Inc. at (417) 339-4555.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

HE TALK LIKE A SOAP ACTOR

Actor Joseph C. Phillips is probably best known to prime-time audiences for his role as Martin, a.k.a. The Guy Who Married Denise, on The Cosby Show.

He is known to readers as the author of a memoir, He Talk Like a White Boy, and to daytime viewers as Justus, a.k.a. Another of Edward's Many, Many Illegitimate Descendants, on General Hospital.

But, before he was Martin or Justus or a popular political pundit on the state of America (Black and otherwise), Joseph was a young actor making his major television debut by playing Cruiser McCullough on Search for Tomorrow.

With his SFT episodes currently airing on the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel, The PGP Classic Soaps Blog thought it was a great time to catch up with Joseph and find out what this Henderson alum is doing now!

PGP: How did your SFT role come about? Do you remember your audition?

JCP: I had done commercials and appeared in a small role on another soap (it has been so long that I do not even recall which one. I am getting old!), but Search was really my first major television role. It is funny to remember it as major since when I got the job I was told the show could be cancelled at any moment. It was at that time a dinosaur, but I do remember it as a cuddly dinosaur. I still recall the thrill of seeing my name in the credits for the very first time. The role came about as I think most roles come. My agent submitted me and I was given an audition. I threw on my old high school letter jacket, jeans and high-top sneakers, tuned my hat around backwards and dove in. I walked in the room singing Cruising by Smokey Robinson. I really jazzed up the dialogue and I guess it worked. A few things I recall about that particular time in my career: In the beginning of October I returned from doing a play at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. Money was very tight and as December closed in I was feeling real blue – a kind of recurring theme in the life of most actors. I went in for this audition really needing money – I had no winter shoes – and even more needing a boost to my confidence. At the same time I auditioned for a scholarship to Shakespeare and Company. I had wanted to be a part of their program since graduating from school two years previous. I received the scholarship, but had to turn it down in order to do Search for Tomorrow.

PGP: What was your SFT storyline? Which actors did you work with and what are some of your favorite memories of those days?

JCP: Oh, you are really testing the old memory. I came on the show along with Adam Storke. He played Rider. He was a street kid and the two of us were best friends, making money fixing up old junk and selling it. Jane Krakowski had run away from home and I saved her from being roughed up by some street thugs. She stays with us. I don’t recall much else. Jane and Adam fall in love and about that time my sister came on, played by Angela Bassett. Then, the executive producer was fired and I was cut when the new producer took over. I think what I loved best was just getting a steady check. It wasn't much, but it paid for new shoes.

PGP: How did you feel about the quick pace of daytime work and did anyone offer you any advice on how to survive it? How did it help prepare you for any other type of acting?

JCP: The pace was not that quick at Search. We rehearsed in the morning and then shot in order. I recall one episode, I had a phone call and was there for 12 hours. It was terrible just sitting around waiting and waiting. The pace was much faster and I think better on General Hospital. We shot based on what was on a particular set. It was possible to come in, in the morning and be finished by lunch. Of course there were also 12 hour days (and longer) at G.H. The key to survival is preparation. If you show up and your stuff is not together you will be swallowed up and frustrate everyone. Eventually you will be passed by i.e. replaced by someone that can keep up.

PGP: What prompted you to write He Talk Like a White Boy, and what do you want readers to take away from it?

JCP: I really hope my book can inspire dialogue and get people talking and thinking about moving beyond labels, beyond race. I would like to get people talking again about how to raise our children, honor our wives and husbands, how we love god, love our country and how we define ourselves as individuals and as Americans. Honestly, I didn't start out to write a book. I love talking to people and sharing ideas and wanted to do more of that…speaking in front of groups and that sort of thing. I have always believed that when you see successful people you ask them what they did to find success, so one day after cutting some commentary for Tavis Smiley, I sat down with him and asked what he did to reach his level of success. The first thing he told me to do was write a book. He laid down the gauntlet. He didn't believe I could or would do it. To make a long story short, I completed my manuscript, a publisher picked it up and once that happened I began the process of writing a real book.

PGP: Daytime television -- all television, frankly -- is always making noises about encouraging and portraying diversity. How would you evaluate the state of the industry in that regard, starting with your SFT days twenty years ago, to now?

JCP: Honestly, things are much better. Let me paint for you a picture of what the world was like when I entered the business. Eddie Murphy had just hit it big and break-dancing was the new, hot thing. I came out of acting school completely unprepared to be an actor. I was asked if I could rap and break-dance or I was asked to do “Eddie.” It was terrible. Now of course, there are programs all over television depicting black families of all stripes and economic classes. There are black characters all over nighttime dramas and cable television. Unfortunately, daytime television has not kept up. There are painfully few black characters on daytime television (Y&R is an exception) and the experience I had on G.H. was sadly typical. A wonderful and popular black family, the Wards, was introduced to the program by the beautiful Claire Labine. Once she left, the family was slowly dismantled because the new writers “didn't know how to write for black people.” Those are not my words; they are the words of the Headwriter. For some reason, Claire was able to write for the Wards, yet the new writers could not. More honestly -- they would not. When I was hired for G.H. the staff had a commitment to the characters and to including us in the storylines. The audience responded quite favorably. It is not rocket science. There is no special talent a writer needs to write for black actors. I do not mean to single out G.H. They are not unusual. The result is that while there is increasing diversity on nighttime television, there is not much on daytime.

PGP: It seems to me, even when shows hire actors of different colors, genders, religions, their characters all still think and behave the same way. What are your thoughts on whether there is diversity on television of another kind, that of people who have different, possibly less politically correct, opinions? As a corollary to that, having written a conservative book, have you felt a backlash from the entertainment industry?

JCP: I think you are correct, but I don’t think it is specific to black characters. One of the reasons I have turned off so much of network television is that all of the characters have tended to blend into one homogeneous glob. They all speak the same, behave the same and the programs all tend to be similar. Hollywood is a very incestuous -- I believe that is the word I am looking for -- place. We have a tendency to view Hollywood as a bastion of creativity, but the truth is, it is more “business” than it is “show.” Creative network execs tend to replicate formulas that have had success. The views of the characters also tend to reflect the politics of those folks producing the programs. This is a question I am frequently asked and my response is always the same: The answer is to offer an alternative product. I have grown rather tired of conservatives or traditional family groups complaining about what is on television while they refuse to jump into the market and compete. There is a great deal of money and power in that particular community and if they were really concerned with the images on television they would produce alternative, family friendly programming. Instead, we are encouraged to boycott and complain and pray in church…but don’t get up off any dollars! It is odd that as I continue to write and speak on various radio and television programs, I am being labeled a conservative. I will admit to that only if I get to define what that means. But I digress. To my knowledge I have not been blacklisted or denied work because someone didn't like something I wrote or said. Most often I hear people tell me that they appreciate things I have said or that they are reading me. I think that is proof of a couple things: first that the ideological lines that we tend to see as black and white are not nearly so stark and that there are a lot more people in Hollywood that believe in faith, family and freedom than you would ever believe.

To read more by Joseph, please visit his website, www.JosephCPhillips.com. And to watch him (and Jane Krakowski and Angela Bassett) on classic episodes of Search for Tomorrow, check out the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel, here!
SPRINGFIELD ADJACENT ROMANCE

From The New York Post.

Monday, May 28, 2007





THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES....

In honor of Memorial Day, the PGP Classic Soap Blog takes a look back at some of our favorite Oakdale and Springfield citizens who've faced memory... challenges... over the years:

1) GL's Beth (Beth Chamberlin) was presumed dead in 1986 (a boat, a shifty-eyed professor and, as always, Alan, was involved). True love Phillip (Grant Aleksander) grieved. Three years later, Beth returned. Alas, suffering from amnesia and mute, to boot. Phillip's then-wife, Blake, stumbled upon her husband's ex-fiancee. Realizing that the minute Phillip set eyes on his soul-mate, Blake would be, well, a mere memory, she kept the discovery to herself. It didn't do her much good. Phillip saw, Beth remembered, and Blake was out. That's how it goes.

2) It was summer of 2004, and ATWT's Jack (Michael Park) was feeling pretty darn good about his life. He and Carly (Maura West) had remarried the previous year and were raising their daughter, Sage, along with Carly's oh-so-cute son, Parker. Yup, life was going great. Which, if either Jack or Carly were Jewish, they'd know meant something horrible was about to happen. And, right on schedule, it did. Policeman Jack was transporting a criminal across a bridge when the thug attempted to escape by grabbing the wheel. Both men ended up in the churning water. Jack was presumed dead. He woke up in a strange hospital with amnesia and, before regaining his memory, picked up a new wife, Julia (Sarah Brown), and an equally cute stepson named JJ. Even after remembering his life in Oakdale, Jack still cared for Julia and, for a while, vacillated between the two women. But, in the end, his going back to Carly was inevitable. Other women may be capable of making him happy, but Carly is the only one who can make him truly, heart-churning miserable. And if that isn't love, what is?

3) After driving off a pier in 1990, GL's Reva (Kim Zimmer) first returned to Springfield in the form of a ghost only her widower, Josh, and his fiancee, Annie, could see. Her corporeal self made its presence felt when, while living in Indiana as an amnesiac Amish woman, Reva ran down Alan (Ron Raines) with her buggy. Reva returned to Springfield and tried to stay away from Josh. Reva failed.

4) ATWT's Holden (Jon Hensley) went to New York City in 1993 and lost his mind. Literally. A mugging injured his brain, requiring surgery to remove the damaged part. It was, apparently, the Lily (Martha Byrne) part. Holden forgot the girl he'd gone through so much to wed, and they divorced. However, since anyone with even half a brain could see that they belonged together, the couple eventually found their way back to each other.

What are some of your favorite amnesia stories? Tell us below!

Friday, May 25, 2007


CHEMISTRY TEST

Who has more of it? GL's Josh (Robert Newman) and Reva (Kim Zimmer), or Josh and Cassie (Nicole Forester)?

Tell us below!

(Granted, neither image is exactly minister-to-be-appropriate, but, heck, the original -- we don't know abut the current -- Reverend Rutledge never had two hot blondes after him....)




THAT WAS THE SOAP YEAR THAT WAS: ALEXANDRA CHANDO (MADDIE; ATWT)

It wasn't just her prowess with sticks that earned Alexandra Chando a 2007 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Younger Actress.

Here's a photographic look back at Maddie Coleman's 2006. Do you think it was enough for Alex to bring home the gold?

Thursday, May 24, 2007



GL: TRIPLE THREAT

Which of the above trios is poised to go triangular this summer?

Is it Gus/Harley/Natalia or Mallet/Dinah/Matt?

(With the latter, you know the old soap trope about a clueless dude sleeping with his true love's twin/lookalike and being unable to tell the difference? Maybe Dinah will get Mallett and Matt confused since they have so many of the same letters in their names).

Watch Guiding Light and find out!


ATWT: FLASHBACK FUN

Emily (Kelley Menighan Hensley), Susan (Marie Masters) and Alison (Marne Schulenberg) in 2007...

And back in 2003 (with Jessica Dunphy as the first, teen Alison).
AROUND THE TOWN

Looking to catch your favorite ATWT stars when the show shoots in Branson next month? Here's where you can start looking:

“What we know right now is that there will be some filming done at Grand Country Square one morning, Silver Dollar City one afternoon and at Andy Williams’ theater one night,” Reinke said. “There will also be a scene filmed at the Branson Police Department and in downtown Branson.”

Read entire story here.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007




GUNFIRE! BABES BEHIND BARS! ODD COUPLES!

Surprise is the word of the month on Guiding Light in June, as Harley (Beth Ehlers) gets (physically) between Rafe (EJ Bonilla) and Gus (Ricky Paull Goldin), Ashlee (Caitlin Van Zandt) and Daisy (Bonnie Dennison) plot an escape and Cyrus (Murray Bartlett) turns the charm on Alex (Marj Dusay).

Can any of this end well? Turn on the Light this summer to find out!


MADDIE LIKES STICKS

That's it.

That's the whole post.

I just saw the above photos and thought, "Boy, Maddie sure does like sticks...."

(PHOTO #1: ATWT's Alexandra Chando with stick. PHOTO #2: ATWT's Alexandra Chando with stick.)

IT'S RAINING MEN or WELCOME BACK, KEVIN

ATWT's Luke (Van Hansis) goes from back-burner famine to front-burner feast next week.

Karl Girolamo returns on Wednesday, May 30 as Kevin, the boy who mocked Luke's feelings for him, called Luke names, then fell in a lake and almost drowned before Luke pulled him out.

Then, on Friday, Jule 1,
Jake Silbermann debuts as Noah, a young man destined (really, it's in the script) to catch Luke's eye. This time without the name-calling and the near-drowning.

Make sure you tune in!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007




PREDICT THE FUTURE!

Which of the above couples -- Marina/Cyrus (Maus - with apologies to Art Speigelman), Alex/Buzz (Bux) or Natalia/Dylan (Dalia) -- are headed for a hot romance?

See if you can predict the future by checking out these spoiler pix of the next few weeks of Guiding Light.

And let us know what you think!

STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY, BUT....

When I first wrote this item last week, I didn't even know what to title it.

I still don't know. But now I have a picture to go with it.

Let's presume it really is worth a thousand words.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW: ATWT

Parker Posey (ex-Tess) and Kristanna Loken (ex-Dani).

Monday, May 21, 2007

DAYTIME DARNELL

Darnell Williams first made a daytime splash on AMC in 1981, playing the role of street-tough-turned-cop Jesse Hubbard alongside love interest Debbie Morgan (Angie) through 1988. He won two Daytime Emmys for the groundbreaking role.

Williams appeared on As The World Turns in 1994 as the man who befriended Shannon while she was presumed dead (and head-shrunk), and on Loving/The City in 1995, where he was reunited with Debbie Morgan. She was still playing Angie, but he was now Jacob, a man who happened to look an awful lot like her late, Pine Valley husband. It happens.

A decade later, Williams comes to Springfield as Driggs, a mysterious man who wants some answers from Mallet. Now.

Watch for him this summer, only on Guiding Light!
NUMBERS GAME

An article on Tonight.co about the Emmy nomination process makes the following point:

"No disrespect to the CBS soaps, but it is completely unfair for them to garner more votes just because they have more shows. The Emmys need to revamp the (selection) process, perhaps have a select group of people who are intimately involved with the daytime industry, yet not affiliated with any show or network, to select the nominees," a fan commented on the TV Guide Editors' Blog.

This sentiment is repeated over and over again. And it sounds good. Except for one tiny detail. It makes no sense.

When it comes to voting on nominees for Outstanding Drama, production personnel are not allowed to sit on panels featuring their own shows or even shows from their own networks. The three years I served, the East Coast groups were split into two: The folks from P&G viewed the ABC shows and Passions, while the folks from ABC viewed the CBS shows and DOOL. Then all the votes were tallied together. (At the pre-nominations, shows are not ranked against each other, so you can conceivably give the same score to every single show. The numbers are then averaged). So how does having more shows on CBS help the CBS shows garner nominations?

(P.S. Up until a few years ago, ABC had four shows on the air as well, and the Emmy nomination results weren't markedly different.)

Arguably, having a smaller number of voters makes it easier to fix the results your way. After all, it's much easier to organize 20 people to vote as a block, than 200.

Let's say actors from the NBC shows want to give their soaps a boost. All they'd have to do was organize their members into giving the CBS shows very low numbers in the voting process, in the hope that other, more fair-minded voters would give the NBC shows higher scores and thus secure a nomination.

Also, the NBC shows are located together on the West Coast, while the CBS and ABC ones are split between two coasts and two different voting sessions. Another reason why organized cheating should be easier for the NBC shows.

Finally, the third accusation leveled against CBS is that, since they are sister shows, ATWT and GL vote for each other, as do Y&R and B&B. But those are only two shows a piece, while ABC has three sister shows, AMC, OLTL and GH. So their alleged block should be even bigger.

Now, I'm not suggesting that any of the above tricks are employed by any of the shows. In fact, in my experience, I haven't seen cheating or block voting going on at all. Every actor and producer I've ever spoken to, from all three networks, has taken their role as part of the nominating committee very seriously.

But that doesn't make nearly as interesting of a story, does it? What do you think?
HENRY HOPES

What does Trent hope for Henry's future in Oakdale? "Let's make him the next Craig (Montgomery) and take over the town! When Henry first came to Oakdale, he wanted power and money. It's fun to be in that position. Someone suggested I go to the The Intruder and be the Food and Drink Critic. I'm just excited to see where this is all going with Henry and Vienna. I'm just waiting to see what happens next."

Read complete interview here.

Friday, May 18, 2007

DUMMY DOWN

ATWT's Roger Howarth (Paul), Scott Bryce (Craig), Marie Wilson (Meg) and Elizabeth Hubbard (Lucinda) are in Poughkeepsie this week. They're shooting a climactic fight scene where, just like in Thunderdome: two men enter, one man leaves.

Publicist Lisa Lugassy summed up the scene, which is scheduled to air in June and July.

"Paul and Meg are romantically involved on and off," Lugassy said. "Craig has been interested in Meg. Craig recently sold Lucinda's company. Paul, Lucinda and Meg have teamed up to get the company back for Lucinda. This is a climax of a big plot that will result in great turmoil for one of these characters."

Complete story, here.
FUN IN THE SUN

GL's John Driscoll (Coop) and ATWT's Alexandra Chando (Maddie), along with a dozen other stars from both their shows, look forward to spending the weekend in Florida meeting and mingling with their fans.


Read all about it, here.
FROM CLONING TO CASHMERE

Peter Hermann, the fellow who can proudly say he performed daytime's first cloning on Guiding Light (well, if you don't count stories that get cloned over and over and over again -- whether they were a hit the first time around or not), will be featured in Cashmere Mafia, an ABC show coming next year from Sex & The City creator Darren Star.

Hermann played Dr. Michael Burke, the scientist who convinced a grieving Josh to clone his beloved Reva (Kim Zimmer(s); above) in 1997.

In real-life, Hermann is married to Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay (who did a soap stint of her own on primetime's Falcon Crest). They have a son, August, who appears in those milk ads with his mom.

Thursday, May 17, 2007




GIRL DETECTIVES

On the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel's broadcast of The Edge of Night, in Episode #6129, Chief of Police Derek Mallory (Dennis Parker) laments the addition of women cops to the force. He doesn't believe they are physically up for the job, and assumes that Detective Deborah Saxon (Frances Fisher) rose in the ranks due to political correctness (it's what he implies anyway, obviously the term had yet to be coined in 1979).

In the almost thirty years since, soaps have become rather enamored of women police officers. Most recently, we've seen Margo (Ellen Dolan -- originally Margaret Colin, who also appears in the above episode of EON) on ATWT, Harley and Marina on GL, as well as GH's Anna and Fancy on Passions (to go from the ultra-competent to the... less so).

But have we really come a long way, baby? What do you think of daytime drama's portrayals of the women in blue? Are they realistic? Would you like to see more female characters in positions of law-wielding authority?

Let us know in the Comments below! And, to check out the attitude towards "girl detectives" in their infancy, watch The Edge of Night, here!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007




NEXT WEEK ON AS THE WORLD TURNS...

It's family drama galore!

The Snyders have a junk-food fueled pow-wow (and actually eat!), Margo lays down the law to Katie (who actually listens! Kinda...), and Carly finally has (some of) her kids back in her arms.

Check out our spoiler photos, then make sure to tune in for all the action the week of May 21!
MARLER KARMA

For a man everyone agreed was a super-nice guy, GL's Ross Marler sure did like the bad girls.

His widow, Blake, was an undisputed hellion in her past (and possibly her future, as Dinah and Mallet are about to find out). Ross' first love, Vanessa, was no angel. Holly, Nadine, India, Alex, Amanda, Claire, Tory -- not a sugar-sweet ingenue in the bunch. (Trish Lewis was okay, but then she never had much of a personality to begin with).

And then there was Calla Matthews (Lisby Larson). She had the surface potential to be a nice girl. She was Lillian's sister, after all. (Though, to be fair, I never bought the whole Lillian-is-a-saint scenario. The woman allowed her husband, Bradley, to beat her daughter, Beth, for years, and pretended she didn't see. And she had an affair with the married Ed Bauer. Not very saintly).

Calla came to Springfield in 1985. She and Ross became engaged but, in 1986, he and Vanessa embarked on a search for their long-lost daughter. Calla knew what happened to the girl -- her ex-husband's sister and brother-in-law had adopted baby Dinah, then died in an accident and Calla's ex placed the tot in an orphanage. Fearing that Ross would leave her for Vanessa once his family was reunited, Calla kept the info about their child to herself.

Ross eventually realized that Calla wasn't just an unapologetic social climber (that he could live with), but also a liar (that, apparently, he couldn't) and broke up with her.

But Calla couldn't help being the way she was. Like Jessica Rabbit, she was just drawn that way. Previous to playing Calla, actress Lisby Larson graced another PGP show, Texas, as Paige Marshall.

Paige came from a wealthy family. But she wanted to be much, much wealthier.

Which was why, when she found out that her sister's boyfriend, Dennis (already rich due to being the grandson of Another World's Mac Cory and son of Iris Cory), had just come into several hundreds of millions of dollars due to the death of Alex Wheeler (who happened to be Dennis' biological father, but Dennis didn't know that), Paige decided that her baby sister didn't really deserve all that money. Paige did. (And so what if she had to shatter Dennis' universe to get it?)

Will Paige succeed in stealing Dennis from Dawn -- and cluing him in to his birthright in the process? (Silly Dennis is actually considering rejecting his inheritance, since he has no idea why Alex left it to him).

Find out -- and check out Larson's Calla-in-training -- on the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel's broadcast of Texas, today!
PLAY BALL!

Stars from As The World Turns and Guiding Light will participate in the annual celebrity softball game on Saturday, June 30th at the Midwood High School field, located at Avenue K and East 16th Street in Brooklyn, NY. Gates will open at 11:00 AM.

For tickets, please send a $20 check or money order to:

Shorefont Friends for Hospice, Inc.
C/o Jodi Waxman
61 Bay 35th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11214

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

MANAGING THE WORLD

A Today stage manager reveals his top secret, soap opera past, here!

To watch his work, check out the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel's broadcast of Another World, here!



BEGIN AGIM

Summer is coming. And while ATWT has romance, drama, adventure and many, many hot guys on the menu (Grayson McCouch and Austin Peck, above, to name just two), the show felt that what they needed to make the season perfect was... one more hot guy.

On Friday, June 15, Emmy nominee Agim Kaba returns to the role of Aaron Snyder, which he previously played from 2002-2005.

The son of Holden Snyder and Julie Wendall was born in 1991, a red-headed tot with jug ears. He grew up quickly off-screen, living with his mom and her husband, Holden's brother, Caleb, in Seattle.

When the hunky eleven... uh, eighteen year old returned to Oakdale, he first became involved with sweet and innocent Lucy Montgomery, before ultimately falling for her more wacky friend, Alison Stewart.

Aaron left for Seattle to take care of his ill mother, eventually inviting Alison to join him. Since then, Ali's taken a dip into Internet porn and drug addiction. Which really makes one wonder what Aaron's been up to....

Make sure you tune into As The World Turns this June to find out!
A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

GL Casting Director Rob Decina, who is dealing with autism in his own family, brings the cause to Springfield, via the organization Autism Speaks.

Last Wednesday, Frank Cooper wore their blue pin on-air to raise awareness, and tomorrow, Wednesday, May 16, Billy Lewis will do the same. The Autism Speaks blue puzzle piece represents the missing piece of the autism puzzle and symbolizes the search for answers.

In addition, co-star Beth Chamberlain (Beth) spoke about the cause in her My Light segment of the show.

Autism awareness is scheduled to play a part in GL's on-air story heading into summer. Make sure you check it out!

Meanwhile, would you like to see soaps deal with a topic such as autism or another childhood disability? (Yes, I know, AMC's Lily is supposedly autistic. But, like her aversion to the color red, it tends to come and go at storyline whim. Kind of like Stuart Chandler's retardation and psychosis). Let us know in the Comments below!

Monday, May 14, 2007

AND JUSTUS FOR ALL

Before he was GH's Justus (the umpteenth lost Quartermaine), before he was The Cosby's Show's Martin (the umpteenth addition to the Huxtable household), actor Joseph C. Phillips was Cruiser McCullough on Search for Tomorrow.

The 1985 contract role was among Joseph's first television appearances. Angela Basset played his older sister!

Read Joseph's reminiscences about his days in Henderson in this excerpt from his 2006 memoir, He Talk Like a White Boy.

Then, watch him alongside Jane Krakowski (30 Rock) on the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel's broadcast of SFT!

WOULD A STINK BY ANY OTHER NAME STILL SMELL?

From DailyCamera.com: In case you missed it, Mark Schlereth is apparently adding soap opera star to his rsum. That's right, the former Denver Broncos offensive lineman is joining the cast of "Guiding Light" in a recurring role as Detective Rock Hoover. Guess they figured the daytime crowd wouldn't go for his nickname "Stink". ...

More details at 9News.com.
DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO TITLE THIS....

Tommy Griffiths and Rick Rumble of the WNOR-FM (98.7) morning show each wrote $1,000 checks to a local charity, For Kids Inc., after Frank Dicopoulos of "Guiding Light" sported a Sanjaya Malakar "faux hawk" hairdo on the soap.

The FM99 team promised a cash gift to charity if a cast member copied the former "American Idol" contestant's look on "Guiding Light."

More here.