Sam Hall commenting on another writer

[Joeytrom]

Sam Hall made a comment in the 80’s in one of the old fanzines that (paraphrasing) “one writer, who will remain nameless, suddenly went into hysteria while Gordon and I look on stunned. He said Dan hates him and belittles him. I told him DC hates everyone but that did nothing to calm him. He was soon gone from DS.”

Any ideas who this could be?  I can only think of Ron Sproat or Ralph Ellis,, who wrote only two episodes.

[MagnusTrask]

It wasn't M Marmorstein; he was on another coast when problems happened.  That last name... makes sense it would be someone who hadn't had time to settle in and adjust.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

 Ron Sproat?

BTW, where did Marmorstein go?  He was one of the best writers on DS.  I like his episodes and those of Violet Welles. 

I think Gordon did some decent writing, but it could be Ron I'm thinking of.  Which wrote the better dialogue?

Sam Hall's episodes always fall flat with me.  They're not bad, but they're not phenomenal.  They're just average DS fare.   

[MagnusTrask]

Sam Hall = nothing special to me, though I may be wrong about my images of each writer.  Marmorstein says he had been mailing scripts in while living in southern California, toward the end.  Everything seemed just fine.  No one seemed to mind.  Then he heard indirectly that he'd been fired, and another writing job instantly presented itself quite easily, now that he was living in California.  And that was that.  So even he still doesn't know.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Interesting. 

Thanks for the info, MagnusTrask!  I wish there were more information available about the writers of the series.  For having such important roles, not much is known about a lot of them. 

[MagnusTrask]

Maybe when the writers were younger and all still slaving away in the industry, the fandom couldn't pay to interview them, and the viability of them for DVD extras later was unknown.  Otherwise we'd have old 80s interviews popping up on all the DVDs I guess. 

[Claude North]

Interesting, the Dark Shadows Every Day blog frequently hails Sam Hall to be series' best writer, and Ron Sproat to be nothing more than a time serving hack.

[Uncle Roger]

In the book Llanview in the Afternoon, Sam makes several catty references to Gordon Russell about their days writing for One Life to Live.