The Daily Star - Stay Tuned
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The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, July 22, 2011 2 coverstory Last lives to live Landmark soaps come to a close By Adam Thomlison TV Media T o their writers as well as to their fans, it must seem to be a monumen- tal task to wrap up all the sto- rylines happening on two of daytime’s best-loved soaps, but that’s the job ABC has given itself as it “evolves the face of daytime television.” The alphanetwork an- nounced recently that it was cancelling the landmark sud- sers “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” after a combined 84 years on the screen. “All My Children” wraps up in just a few weeks, on Friday, Sept. 23, while “One Life to Live” will live on until January 2012. Devoted fans (and few are as devoted as soap watchers) erupted in protest at the news, but the decision was final, and now the shows’ writers are tying up the countless loose ends in the lives of the many charac- ters. Will “All My Children’s” Erica and Jackson ever admit to the love that has eluded them for so long? Will Clint, the oft-deceitful patriarch of “One Life to Live’s” Buchan- an family, find a new lease on life after his brush with death, and heal his fractured family? The network has been vague about what will hap- pen to the beloved characters as the shows wind down, ex- cept to say in a release that it satellite-TV provider DirecTV picked it up for air on its own Audience Network, available exclusively to DirecTV sub- scribers. It aired for a year there before DirecTV canceled it in the summer of 2008. But the sad fact is “AMC” Trevor St. John stars as Todd in “One Life to Live” will “conclude each series in a manner that respects their legacies and the longstand- ing hopes of many of their viewers.” Devoted fans (with nice computers) can take solace in the fact that the shows will live on, online. Production company Prospect Park is re- portedly launching a new on- line TV network, and so far “AMC” and “OLTL” will be its flagship shows. The details are still vague, as the compa- ny is still negotiating most of them, but The New York Post reported that most of the soaps’ stars -- including the legendary Susan Lucci -- will be in on the action when the shows move to the web. “Passions” fans may re- member a similar shakeup a few years ago. When NBC canceled the show in 2007, and “OLTL” have now joined “Passions” in the procession of soaps leaving the air. “As the World Turns” and “Guid- ing Light” have signed off re- cently as well, suggesting the soap-opera genre, once the center of the daytime-TV uni- verse, may be fading out. ABC is replacing “AMC” and “OLTL” with talk shows about food, health and life- style, citing its hit daytime chat show “The View” as proof that this is what audiences are looking for. And while “The View’s” ratings certainly bear this up, ABC Daytime president Brian Frons recognized that these decisions are never easy. “While we are excited about our new shows and the shift in our business, I can’t help but recognize how bit- tersweet the change is.” Josh Duhamel is now a ma- jor film star whose “Trans- formers” franchise has made billions at the box office, but he got his start a few years ago on “All My Children.” In a recent “Tonight Show” inter- view, he said that “the day- time genre itself is kind of go- ing away.” “I had heard, like a lot of people that had seen the show or followed the show, that it was going off the air A/Auto Boutique B/The Green Giraffe 2 x 2 and I was sad about that. It’s been 41 years and that’s the show that gave me my first opportunity and first chance. Part of the reason why it up- set me is a lot of people won’t get that chance now.” And so, just like the heroic characters he plays on screen, he leapt into action. “I called up the casting di- rector and asked if I could come back and do something, if there was room for me, as a sort of thank you ... They called me back and said yes and I went in a couple of days ago and shot it.” He’ll be reprising his role as lovable con artist Leo Du Pres in the leadup to the show’s fi- nale. He’ll be joined by quite a few other “AMC” stars, as the show pulls out all the stops to make a fitting finale to its long run. ABC has already an- nounced the return of depart- ed but still-beloved charac- ters such as Maria Santos Grey (played by Eva La Rue), Zach Slater (Thorsten Kaye) and Dixie Martin (Cady Mc- Clain). They even got TV leg- end Carol Burnett to agree to a brief stint reprising her role as Verla Grubbs, which she played in 1983 and briefly re- vived in 1995. “One Life to Live” pre- miered on ABC in 1968, and “All My Children” two years later in 1970. Both began as half-hour series before being expanded to full hours in the late ‘70s. Both were created by TV legend Agnes Nixon. Chirstopher’s Coins 2 x 2 hollywoodQ&A By Adam Thomlison TV Media Q: I heard that “Goodfellas” was based on a true story. Was it? A: Incredibly enough, it was. The smash-hit, Oscar-winning 1990 film helped to redefine the mobster movie in the mod- ern era. It starred Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, who was a real mobster in the 1960s. Hill was an associate of the Lucchese crime family but would later inform on them to the FBI. “Goodfellas” was based directly off the book “Wiseguy” by noted crime writer Nicholas Pileggi, who also collaborat- ed on the screenplay with legendary director Martin Scorcese. Pileggi’s help with the script helped ensure that the film stayed surprisingly true to real events, and most of the other characters were also based on real people. Robert De Niro’s Jimmy “The Gent” Conway was based on Lucchese strongman Jimmy “The Gent” Burke, whose birth name was Conway (he was later adopted by a family named Burke). Joe Pesci’s outrageously foul-mouthed Tommy DeVito was based on Tommy “Two-Gun” DeSimone. The real-life Henry Hill has reportedly said that Pesci’s portrayal was quite accurate, except that the real Two-Gun Tommy wasn’t small like Pesci, but in fact very muscular and more than six feet tall. A/Crazy Tom's B/Allstar Auto Wash 2 x 3 Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town.