I've heard the Joan Crawford "rumor" circulating around the fanbase for years too...


seems like the DS cast jumped around from soap to soap a lot in the late 1960s and early 1970s in general. there was a lot of crossover amongst the New York based soap community at the time.

'the secret storm' in particular was where several castmembers ended up at one point or another.

and Diana told me herself at a fest Curtis asked her to come back in 1969. she didn't mention late 67.

perhaps some actors had some sort of informal agreement with Curtis that allowed them to come and go as they wished. Karlen certainly seemed to have had such and arrangement...


but really the only way to get "assurances" of their future availability is to get them under long or short term contract. off-contract "day players" are free to come and go as they please and take whatever work they find most suitable. if an abrupt departure left DS in the lurch they producers were free to recast or write the character out of the storyline, and perhaps a "bridge was burned" and the actor not asked back, but that actor was under to legal obligation to the program.

and in terms of "something better coming along" daytime soap work at the time was not particularly lucrative or prestigious. even the actors themselves have quipped at their somewhat meager wages. so other film, stage or television work might have actually been more desirable to them at the time.

I hope peggy lipton's available...

did anyone else catch this morning's episode of 'CBS This Morning'?

they did a story on television's "new" blood and guts "craze" featuring the current batch of vampire and zombie fare...

looking back at previous shows that dealt with the subject they showed clips from (of all things) 'The Muensters' and DS. the clip from DS was the opening shot of the ocean waves crashing and a shot of Willie opening the coffin and Barnabas' hand reaching out to strangle him...

needless to say the word "campy" was employed to describe the tone of the old shows.

the leviathan storyline definitely gets a lot more flack from fans that it really deserves...

it was deeply flawed to be sure. but most DS storylines were. but there's sort of this alternate universe "truth" in the fandom that it was the "reason" the series was cancelled.

the fact that it ran for another year and was actually cancelled in a time period that had nothing whatsoever to do with it (incidentally a "time travel" storyline for those who insist they were "better" than the "present day" episodes) gets ignored. it part of fan lore.

in one that I read liz and roger have a brother named "professor veno"...

the ross novels really function in some sort of alternate universe.

thanks midnite...

I saw these postings early this morning on FB but could not verify their authenticity.

r.i.p.