All My Children News & Gossip
News for the week of 07-Apr-2008
ABC Daytime’s AMC and NBC’s DOOL were hit with arbitration filings against them by the Writers Guild. The Writers Guild of America East charged the ABC network and DOOL’s Corday Prods. with violating a February 11th strike termination agreement when they wouldn’t take back nine of the 20 of their writers following the strike. Instead, according to the WGA, they’ve chosen to retain replacement writers that worked on the two soaps during the strike. The WGA made the announcement April 1st that it made the filings for the cases and that TPTB involved must make an acknowledgement and take some action in 10 days, as well as choose an arbitrator both sides can concur with. According to the strike agreement, “No replacement writer hired during the strike period shall be retained on a show over a striking writer who offers to return to work on the same show on which he or she was employed when the strike began.” While an ABC rep, Julie Hoover, said, “We are in full compliance with our contract,” as a defense, nobody from Corday Prods. made a comment in response. A rep from the WGA East organization, Sherry Goldman, asserted that the nine writers in question were fully interested in going back to their jobs. “The only way that [the agreement is] not applicable is if the production has been canceled or completed,” she continued. –Variety, last week
It took some doing before Billy Miller (Richie) tried acting for real. His parents weren’t all for it, they had banked on their son getting a degree in something solid he could find work at, as they’d never attended college themselves (but they’ve since come around, especially his he-man Texan dad, now turned soap fan). Miller had fooled around with the thought of acting as a profession, but wound up in L.A., in a production management firm’s mailroom, following college in Texas, where he’d gone from business to film. Before quitting, a manager there suggested he go full throttle with the acting, and he tried out a few commercials under the Wilhelmina agency. He didn’t get on well with one manager, and contemplated an end to the thespian life altogether, which lasted about two years. The career he turned to turned him on—erecting nightclubs in his 4M company—a passion he started as a 17-year-old. Once he did go back to acting, too, the September 17th-born Miller went and auditioned for a role on AMC, under a more harmonious-type management, a sure confirmation he was on the right track. A callback later, he was on the next plane to New York City for a whole new life and a whole new batch of friends. He had to warn his L.A.-based art director girlfriend on the fateful Tuesday that there wouldn’t be a Friday night dinner going on, though. His cross-country relationship hasn’t always been easy, but Miller joked around that, “at least when I get yelled at now, it’s over the phone!” –Soap Opera Digest, April 8, 2008
You’d think Jill Larson (Opal) would know by now that even Cortlandt Manor would be back in fashion eventually, as almost everything else in soaps are. But, she revealed, even she was taken aback when her scripts indicated the manor return with her in it. Delightfully taken aback, as she promised the return would include a renovated update per a stylishly updated Opal. Walking onto the set of the manor had Larson tearing up and psyched. “It has the feel, the bones, of the old Cortlandt Manor, in the way it’s been designed, but it looks as if Opal grew up and redid it,” she described. “There’s not as much dark wood paneling and Old English country manor [feel] that it had initially. … It’s still elegant, don’t worry!” –soapoperadigest.com
Season 3’s America’s Next Top Model contender Yaya Dacosta (2nd placer) was chosen to play Angie’s daughter Cassandra, as of April 25. Dacosta, a model and actress, enjoyed a fruitful career after her America’s Next Top Model debut, including gigs for Garnier Fructis, Olay, Sephora and the Antonio Banderas Take the Lead film. Once Cassandra appears on the Pine Valley landscape, she’ll soon become Uncle Rob’s pawn against Jesse.
Gossip for the week of 07-Apr-2008
Expect Opal to be the latest casualty of AMC’s pathetic ratings grab when Rob causes her demise for May Sweeps. I dread the means of her demise, I really do. I was one of the few AMC fans back in the day who disapproved of Ray Gardner, Rob’s brother, raping Ruth.
Cady McClain may soon return as angel Dixie, but if she and TPTB work out a better deal—and the stars align with fan expectation, according to the latest from Ravenbeauty (4/5), eventually, not right away but eventually, the angel may come back to life. “I was told that part of the reason they decided to bring her back was because they truly fear one of their biggest stars in the show's history is ready to bolt for a more charmed life,” Ravenbeauty wrote. “IF this happens, they will need all the names they can get. I think I will take a long overdue vacation that week. Either that or stock up on Valium because the noise will be deafening.”
An ABC Soaps in Depth blind item from the other week indicated a disconnect between the effort of TPTB to appease a female star and the lackluster reception to that star by the fans: “There’s trouble behind the scenes at one soap thanks to the fact that the show has been pulling out all the stops (including offering up a prime piece of dressing room real estate) to keep a star happy both on screen and off. But if our mail is any indication, fans don’t seem nearly as taken with the character as execs had hoped. Might they regret moving heaven and earth to please the star?” This could either point to AMC’s Rebecca Budig (Greenlee), which I highly doubt, or GH’s Sarah Brown (Claudia; ex-Carly). Or…?
Will there soon be a recast Colby in our near-future? Ravenbeauty said she’s not sure, based on presumably a “rehashed script used for audition purposes only,” but she “will do some poking around to see if we are about to get a recast. I'll let you know if and when I learn something on this....promise.” –Ravenbeauty, April 5, 2008
Let’s rename AMC, Fusion, and give AMC back to AMC’s veterans with their own show, then center the stories around Tad, Jesse, Erica and Angie, with eye-opening doses of the fine, fine Frankie. I don’t blame Colby for making a jackass of herself around this guy; he is the most gorgeous specimen of manhood I have ever laid eyes on since David Jenkins circa my 1976-77 childhood in Garden Terrace, Ft. Dix.
“Loneliest Star” by Seal, from his Seal IV CD, may be Kendall and Zach’s love song, but it’s far and away not appropriate enough to describe the shallow effect she has on him. He’s a deeply tortured Shakespearean character playing up to her Scarlett O’Hara surface allure.
All My Children News & Gossip, Copyright © 2008 Carol Banks Weber. Published by SoapZone.com / Jeff Jungblut. No part of this page may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Opinions expressed on this page are those of the author and may not be representative of SoapZone.com or its advertisers. Don't steal scoops.
