Tuesday, September 30, 2008

ATWT: PHOTO PREVIEW!

Dusty's home!

Won't some of these folks be in for a surprise!









It all starts this week, only on As The World Turns!
LOVE & MARRIAGE: ATWT FLASHBACK

Back in 1979, ATWT's Helen Wagner (Nancy) and Don MacLaughlin (Chris) were asked why they thought it was that Chris and Nancy's marriage was the only working one in all of television.



Mr. MacLaughlin replied that "I suppose we're fairly unique that way. It's a good point for a soap opera to make -- that two people can be happily married. I spoke the other day with someone who is working on both our show and on Edge of Night and he said he felt that Edge of Night is built on hate because they're always out to get each other. He felt that ATWT was different because instead of animosity, it is based on love."

Ms. Wagner added, "He said that originally he had thought it was all romantic love, but over time he realized it was much more. It was caring for people, caring for friends, the kind of caring that shows in the way Nancy loves Chris. She loves him in every way it's possible to care for a person."

"It's a good object lesson for the public," Mr. MacLaughlin agreed. "To see a marriage that can weather the sorts of vicissitudes we have had to. It may be kind of corny, but I think it's a good symbol of what American life can be. We show the things that have to go into keeping a family together -- the love, compassion, tolerance and understanding."



Nearly thirty years later, it appears that Chris and Nancy's grandson Tom and his wife, Margo, have taken up the torch of ATWT's long-running marriage.



Wouldn't Grandpa have been proud!

THE STORY CONTINUES

As highlighted in the latest issue of CBS Soaps in Depth, today is the official publication date for the mass market, paperback edition of Jonathan's Story by Julia London and Alina Adams.

Featuring all of the material available in the New York Times' best-selling hard cover edition, the $7.99 reprint also boasts an exclusive, all new chapter updating Guiding Light fans on what everyone's favorite bad boy -- and his adorable little girl -- are up to now.

Jonathan's Story is available through Amazon, BN.com and at bookstores everywhere! (Watch for the special GL displays at participating Barnes & Noble stores October 1 - November 3 and at Waldenbooks September 30 - October 27!)

Monday, September 29, 2008

THEN AND NOW

Caitlin van Zandt (Ashlee; Guiding Light) Fall of 2007...



And coming in Fall of 2008.



Read more at Caitlin's MySpace page and at ETOnline!
ATWT: BTS

The beautiful ladies of As The World Turns... becoming even more beautiful!





BETWEEN THE EDS

Robert Gentry played the role of Ed Bauer on Guiding Light from 1966 to 1969 and then again briefly from 1997 to 1998.

He was the first adult Ed. The character, born William Edward Bauer Jr. on the air in December 1954, was aged to around 25 years old and a new med school graduate when Gentry took over the role twelve years later.

Gentry's tenure marked the end of "Billy," Bert's sweet baby boy, and the introduction of ambitious, judgmental "Ed."

It was this Ed who, after learning of his father Bill's affair, insisted that Bill confess all to Bert. Only Bert already knew and instead of sympathizing with her son's attempt to protect his mother, blasted Ed as "not being fit to shine your father's boots." She told Ed that Bill was a "big man" while Ed was "small." She told Ed that instead of blaming Bill for breaking up their home, she blamed Ed "for not being decent and loyal and loving enough to try to put this family back together again."

Bert's spirited defense of him prompted Bill to reconsider abandoning his marriage in favor of his assistant, Maggie.

Ed, however, took up drinking soon after.

With those kinds of mixed signals coming from his own family ("It's not your dad's fault he had an affair, honey, and its definitely not mine -- it's yours!"), who could blame him?

(Bill's magnanimous return to Bert proved to be short-lived. A few years later he was reported dead in a plane crash. Turned out Bill had been leading a double life with a Canadian woman and their two children and when the plane he was scheduled to be on crashed with him presumably on-board, Bill abandoned Bert, Mike and Ed for Simone, Hillary and Paul. But he felt kind of bad about it. Really.)

Rejecting Bill, Ed latched on to a new father figure, Cedars' Chief of Surgery, Stephen Jackson. Though Ed was really more in love with Stephen than he was with Stephan's daughter, Leslie, Ed went ahead and married Leslie, thus truly becoming the son Stephen always wanted.

Though married to Ed, Leslie soon found herself growing close to his brother, Mike, and Mike's daughter, Hope. A jealous Ed picked drunken fights with his wife, his brother, and his father, the latter causing Bill to have a coronary so severe he required a heart transplant. (In one of those fun, PGP facts, Bill was played by Ed Bryce, father of Scott Bryce, who would go on to play Craig on As The World Turns. Watch Ed introduce a tribute to Charita Bauer, here, including the iconic Bert berating Ed scene mentioned above.)

Wracked with guilt, Ed sideswiped a car while driving drunk. He was arrested and jailed, prompting Ed to slink out of town.

When Gentry returned to the role in 1997, he was confronted by the father of Michelle's boyfriend. Jack Blue blamed Ed for his wife's death, since she'd been Ed's patient. However, Ed had the perfect defense - when Jack's wife died, Ed had been under suspension for his drinking so he wasn't at the hospital. Her death couldn't have been his fault! (It proved to be one of the few documented cases of a doctor successfully using the "Hey, don't blame me, I was drunk!" defense.)

In between his stints on GL, Gentry appeared on OLTL (as Kim Zimmer's brother!), AMC (as Lauren Holly's father!), B&B, Generations and DOOL.

From 1979 to 1981, he played the role of Philip Lyons on Another World.

Philip initially arrived in Bay City at the behest of Iris Cory. Iris wanted her son, Dennis, to marry blue-blooded Cecile de Poulignac. Cecile, unfortunately, was dating Iris' stepbrother and Dennis' best friend, Jamie. Iris hired the perennially unemployed -- though devastatingly charming -- Philip to woo Cecile away from Jamie.

Philip did. He fell in love with Cecile along the way. They were engaged to be married (so much for Dennis) when Cecile found out about Philip's deal with Iris. She waited until their wedding day, then dumped him at the altar, changing, almost on the spot from the sweet girl she'd once been to the, well, bitch on wheels, we all grew to know and love.

Prior to reuniting with Jamie, Cecile, jealous of Philip's friendship with co-worker Pat, decided she wanted Philip back. Cecile had Pat fired from her job. For some reason, that didn't help her case with Philip.

Want to catch Robert Gentry between Eds? Check out the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel's current run of Another World episodes, here!

Friday, September 26, 2008


WHERE ARE THEY NOW: JEAN CAROL (EX-NADINE; GUIDING LIGHT)

Jean Carol will star in Larry Gelbart's Mastergate, to play the Actor's Group Theatre, October 3-November 2. Penny L. Moore will direct.

The satiric farce takes the form of a congressional hearing looking into shady doings between a film studio and the White House.

More here.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: MARK WESTON (EX-SCOTT; THE EDGE OF NIGHT & EX-JOE; ANOTHER WORLD)

For over 50 years, Hicksville resident Mark Weston has been contributing his artistic talent to society, first as an actor, then as a writer and teacher, and, most recently, as a playwright.

Greatly interested in acting, Weston joined the professional union in 1952 and, two years later, started studying under Academy Award nominated director and actor Lee Strasberg. In 1954, Weston became the original Brylcreem man in television commercials, speaking the memorable jingle "A Little Dab'll Do Ya!" He then went on to appear on both the Off-Broadway and Broadway stage as well as on such popular daytime soap operas as Guiding Light, The Secret Storm, The Edge of Night and Another World.

More here.

ATWT IN STRANGE PLACES

If nothing else, John Hanlon got to Yankee Stadium in style.

Hanlon was born in Chicago but moved to Tenafly, N.J., as a youngster after the death of his father. His mother, Virginia Maddocks, was a Broadway actress and friends with actor Santos Ortega, best known as Grandpa on “As the World Turns.”

Several times, Hanlon and Ortega’s son, Stephen, piled into Ortega’s Rolls Royce and headed off to the Bronx.

“When you’re 10 years old, do you know how incredibly cool it was to be taken across the George Washington Bridge to the greatest city in the world to the cathedral of baseball? I can still see the Rolls Royce, and off we’d go,” recalls Hanlon, 51, an attorney for the state appellate defender’s capital trial assistance unit in Springfield.

Days at Yankee Stadium meant watching boyhood idol Mickey Mantle — and some bad baseball, says Hanlon, as the Yankees had plummeted in the standings in the late ’60s.

More here.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

PHOTO PREVIEW

Next week on As The World Turns:

Katie and Brad.



Katie and... Mike?



Tune in to ATWT to find out what happens between the two photos!
THROUGH THE YEARS...

With the always lovely Maeve Kinkead (Vanessa; GL)...












DAILEY DRAMA

CBS Recording artist Will Dailey will perform at Metro for the Snyder Farm benefit on Friday, October 3.

The winner of the 2006 Boston Music Award for Best Male Singer/Songwriter has an album, Back Flipping Forward, hitting stores on October 2.

His music has previously appeared on episodes of CSI:NY, CSI:Las Vegas, CSI:Miami, NCIS, Kid Nation, Jericho, Y&R and The Hills.

Dailey obviously has a soft spot for the plight of the American farmer. In addition to helping out the Snyders, he has also played at Farm Aid!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

SOAPS IN STRANGE PLACES

Dan McCafferty and Kurt Monson had figured their days as rockers in the 1980s hair band Wild August were over for good.

That was before the two Traverse City natives' former group was rediscovered by Retrospect Records. The company now sells their old recordings on the Web and talked them into getting back together in July for the Rocklahoma music festival, where they played in front of tens of thousands of glam-rock fans....

The group had promise. It recorded on independent labels and opened for such acts as Slaughter, Warrant, Ace Frehley of Kiss and in what they said was a mismatch, Katrina and the Waves.

Yet just when they figured they were poised to break through -- they were talking to major record labels and they made an appearance on the soap opera "Another World," a performance that lives on through YouTube -- the entire musical world changed.

Read the complete feature, here.

Watch the Another World appearance, here.

And who might that be rocking out to their favorite hair band? Why it's Jenna and Dean! Otherwise known as Alla Korot and a painfully young Ricky Paull Goldin!



To watch the entire episode, make sure you tune into Hulu.com's broadcast of Another World. They are currently featuring the summer of 1991, and should be up to August 6 shortly!
WELCOME BACK, GRAYSON!



Co-stars Austin Peck (Brad) and Terri Colombino (Katie) welcome Grayson McCouch (Dusty) back to Oakdale.



Dude. Good to be back. Yo. Word.
GAL PAL

Beginning October 1, the entire female cast of Guiding Light joins thousands of women and men on a 31 city virtual walk across the United States to raise funds and awareness for the Gal to Gal Foundation ( www.galtogal.org ) which assists patients and families battling stage IV breast cancer.

Kim Zimmer (Reva) serves as team captain. The actresses encourage fans to register by creating their own “Team Guiding Light” gal who can walk alongside them.

GL cast members will also attend a New York City launch event at the showroom of eco-designer Robin Wilson on October 2.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

BLAST FROM THE PAST

Question: What daytime soap was the first to be featured on the cover of TV Guide?

Answer: As The World Turns in 1971!



That's Helen Wagner (Nancy), front and center, with Eileen Fulton (Lisa) right behind her. Henderson Forsythe (David) is in the striped tie, with Larry Bryggman (John) laughing behind him.

The ATWT cover paved the way for more daytime dramas to be featured in TV Guide, including the following:







ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON

In 1997, in an interview with Soap Opera Digest, Harding Lemay, former Headwriter of Another World, had this to say about Douglass Watson, the patrician actor who play Mac Cory on the show from 1974 until the actor's untimely death in 1989:

He was the most generous, sweetest-natured, empathetic man in the world and when he died it was so sudden. I thought he would always be there. He was a little older than I. He would call me after I had left ANOTHER WORLD, when I could no longer do him any favors as Mac Cory. He would come to town and invite us to have dinner with him and his wife and hear Barbara Cook. He would take us to the Plaza and spend hundreds of dollars. I would ask him why he was spending all this money and he would say "I wouldn't make this money if it weren't for you, so shut up." Another time he visited us when he and his wife were going to use our house at Fire Island for a weekend and he wanted to know if we had seen "Nicholas Nickleby." I said I wasn't going to spend a hundred bucks for a ticket. They left and when I went to empty an ashtray, there were two one hundred dollar bills under it. That was so typical of him.

Watson's generous nature and humanity were visible in every word he ever uttered as Mac. For a textbook example of how an actor can take the words on the page and transcend them, tune into this episode of Another World now playing on the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel.

Mac Cory is a man who doted on his grown daughter, Iris, as well as on his baby girl, Amanda. He was a loving stepfather to Jamie and Matthew. But Mac made no secret of the fact that he always longed for a biological son.

In 1981, he got one. Sandy Alexander revealed himself to be Mac's illegitimate child.

Mac was thrilled. Jamie, not so much.

To be fair, Jamie had his own issues with Sandy. Such as the fact that Sandy is sleeping with Jamie's wife, Cecile. (As time went on, both men would realize that Cecile was no prize and that, in fact, she only pounced from Sandy to Jamie when she realized that Sandy was now more likely to inherit Mac's fortune.)

Mac, however, doesn't understand his stepson's hostility. Watch how, in this episode, he reaches out to Jamie, trying his best not to judge or take sides, feeling for the boy he raised even as he disapproves of his actions, and doing his best to reassure Jamie that he'll always consider him a son -- even if Mac and Jamie's mother, Rachel, are in the process of getting a divorce.

It's an acting master class in subtext, subtlety and style.

Check it out, here!

Monday, September 22, 2008

FACE TIME

Cute, cuter, cutest...











The many faces of Marcy Rylan (Lizzie; Guiding Light).
ANOTHER WORLD: SECOND GENERATION

In case you haven’t heard, previews began Thursday night for the revival of Arthur Miller’s great play, "All My Sons," on Broadway.

In case you don’t know, Katie Holmes — aka Mrs. Tom Cruise — has a small role in the production which otherwise stars two-time Oscar-winner Dianne Wiest, Tony-winner and movie powerhouse John Lithgow and the up-and-comer Patrick Wilson....

By the way, Christian Camargo is in this production. He’s a fast-rising 30-something actor who’s also in a hot movie, “The Hurt Locker,” directed by Kathryn Bigelow. His mom is actress Victoria Wyndham, the star of NBC’s "Another World” soap opera for almost 30 years. The actor doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.

From FOXNews.com.

More on Mr. Camargo, here.
MUSIC MAN

Television's biggest stars receive their 2008 Emmy Awards on Sunday.

Mark Ross already has his.

Actually, Ross, a Stockton native whose music career began in local teenage garage bands in the 1960s, has two of them.

The 58-year-old Stagg High School and University of the Pacific graduate won his second daytime Emmy for "achievement in music direction and composition for a drama series" on June 13. He writes and records instrumental music for "Guiding Light," a CBS soap opera, at his home studio in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock.

Winning his first Emmy, in 2007, was a "great moment. Everybody went crazy. It was a really fun moment," Ross said.

More, here.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: ALLYSON RICE (EX-CONNOR; ATWT)

Making the leap from soap opera actress to life and spiritual coach might not seem a natural transition to some, but for Allyson Rice (ex- Connor Jamison Walsh, “As the World Turns”), that choice has made all the difference in her life.

Read whole article, here.

Friday, September 19, 2008


BLAST FROM THE PAST

A Time Magazine article on the state of soaps... circa 1976.

Read the entire thing, here.
TWO-FERS!

It's couple-palooza next week on Guiding Light!



Billy and Vanessa!



Tom Wiggin and Crystal Chappell!



Lizzie and Bill!



Buzz and Lillian!



Alan and Roxie?

Only next week, only on Guiding Light!
WE'RE SENDING OUR LOVE DOWN A WELL

(Bonus pop culture points to those who recognize the reference in the title.)

Some behind-the-scenes photos from this week's As The World Turns:













Plus a preview shot of things to come.



You can't miss today's ATWT!

(Answer to the post title's reference, here.)