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Twenty-Four Years After the Cancellation of a Beloved Soap, We Look Back in Anger… Through Tear-Stained Eyes
Wednesday, April 12th, 2023
On April 12, 1999, NBC blasted Another World out of the daytime galaxy.
Another World vet Linda Dano, who played Felicia Gallant for nearly 20 years, might have put the general reaction to the NBC soap’s cancellation best when she spoke with the New York Times. “It’s painful,” she said. “I also think it’s tragic for the soap industry when a show goes off after 35 years.”
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She could say that again — and again and again — and it would only become truer each time. In the years leading up to the end, the network’s affiliates had moved ratings-challenged Another World around their schedules more than kids do broccoli on their dinner plates. So to realign their ducks, NBC struck a deal to get new soap Passions aired everywhere right after Days of Our Lives.
On the plus side, we were getting not only a new soap, but a whackadoo one from former Days of Our Lives headwriter James Reilly, who’d given us Carly Manning’s premature burial and Marlena Evans’ demonic possession.
More: The soap *behind* the soap at Another World
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But that didn’t do a whole lot to lessen the sting of Bay City being wiped off the map. “We’ve known for quite some time that NBC’s decision could go either way,” We Love Soaps reports Procter & Gamble exec Mickey Dwyer-Dobbin saying at the time. “Although we certainly wish the outcome were different, it is a sad comment on the television industry as a whole that a soap, especially one with so much history, has to be cancelled to make room for a new one.
“The loss of the show,” she added, “is a loss for the industry.”
That it was, and that it is. And if you want to get a sense of just how great a loss it remains — and why we’re still so ticked off! — just click on the below photo gallery, a review of just some of the highlights of Another World and its legendary run.
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Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
1/20
<p>“You take me away to another world” went the Crystal Gayle/Gary Morris duet that served as the NBC soap’s theme song from 1987-96. Care to join us as we make a return trip to Bay City? Buckle up!</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
2/20
<p>Everyone remembers Irene Dailey as Aunt Liz Matthews. But for several years before she assumed the role in 1974, the buttinski was played by Audrey Lindley, who of course would go on to become a primetime icon as Mrs. Roper on <em>Three’s Company</em>.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
3/20
<p>So in love were Alice Matthews (Jacqueline Courtney) and Steve Frame (George Reinholt) that it seemed like nothing could stand in the way of their happiness. “Hold my beer,” said fate, sending to the couple’s engagement party an uninvited guest.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
4/20
<p>Shortly after Rachel Davis (Robin Strasser) married Russ Matthews, she realized that she wanted Alice’s boyfriend, not her brother. So the gold digger crashed their engagement bash and revealed that she was carrying Steve’s baby.</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
5/20
<p>Early in his career, Eric “Brother of Julia” Roberts passed through <em>Another World</em> as Ted Bancroft, with Pamela Brook as Corinne Seton. And we do mean “passed through” — his stay in Bay City lasted less than a year in 1977.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
6/20
<p>Scheming Iris Carrington (Beverlee McKinsey) was as determined to drive a wedge between wealthy father Mac Cory (Douglass Watson) and Rachel (by then Victoria Wyndham) as Alice had been to keep Steve out of the social climber’s clutches.</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
7/20
<p>Playing Edward Gerard in 1985, John Saxon — who racked up so many primetime credits in the 1970s that he was on TV practically daily — tried to entice romance novelist Felicia Gallant (Linda Dano) to write a new chapter with him. But as you can see, she had eyes only for Zane Lindquist (Patrick Tovatt).</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
8/20
<p>Keen on branding even before branding was a thing, Felicia wanted all the world to believe that she’d always been stylish and sophisticated. But when long-ago lover Lucas Castigliano hit town, he revealed that Bay City’s answer to Judith Krantz had been born plain old Fanny Grady.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
9/20
<p>Whether original portrayer Ellen Wheeler or successor Anne Heche was bringing to life good-and-evil twins Marley and Victoria Hudson, an expression like this one was your tipoff that you were watching the latter. Vicky was a surprisingly good liar for someone with no poker face whatsoever.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
10/20
<p>In the early 1980s, <em>Another World</em> had on its hands a new couple that was as popular as Steve and Alice in Catlin Ewing (Thomas Ian Griffith) and Alice’s adopted daughter, Sally. But when Mary Page Keller left the show, so did the magic; even a recast as estimable as <em>All My Children</em> star Taylor Miller couldn’t throw sparks the way Keller had with her future real-life husband.</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
11/20
<p>Bad boys didn’t get much worse — <em>or</em> more irresistible — than Jake McKinnon (Tom Eplin), who had chemistry with everyone from Paulina Cory (Judi Evans, between her initial <em>Days of Our Lives</em> stints as Adrienne Johnson) to… Wait, can that be right?</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
12/20
<p>Jake even had a fling with Donna Love (Anna Stuart), the elegant mother of ex-wife Marley and sometime lover Vicky. And though viewers were scandalized by the May/December hookups, they couldn’t <em>quite</em> bring themselves to look away.</p>
Image: E.J. Carr/NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
13/20
<p>After being killed off <em>One Life to Live</em> as Sarah Gordon, Jensen Buchanan took over the roles of Vicky and Marley. But unlike the Emmy winners who’d previously played the twins, she eventually cut down to just playing Vicky. What happened to Marley, then?</p>
Image: Arthur L. Cohen/NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
14/20
<p>Wheeler stepped back in as Marley (opposite former real-life husband Eplin here). The fact that the twins no longer resembled one another was explained away by the extensive plastic surgery that Marley underwent after being disfigured in a fire. Why she came out of surgery a whole lot taller than before would remain an unsolved mystery.</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
15/20
<p>After <em>Another World</em> struck pay dirt with the pairing of Sam Fowler (Robert Kelker-Kelly) and Mac and Rachel’s daughter, Amanda Cory, the budding artist’s portrayer replaced Peter Reckell as <em>Days of Our Lives</em>’ Bo Brady, then got invited back to Bay City to play the new role of race-car driver Bobby Reno. Who turned out to be Dr. Shane Roberts. But that’s a whole other story…</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
16/20
<p>Gabe McNamara (John Bolger) was a detective, but even if he hadn’t been, he probably still would’ve picked up on the subtle clues that he’d caught the eye of Felicia’s daughter, Lorna Devon (Robin Christopher, who, ironically, would also play Dano’s daughter when they were Skye Quartermaine and Rae Cummings, respectively, on ABC’s soap lineup in the early 2000s).</p>
Image: Robert Milazzo/NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
17/20
<p>In the 1990s, Josie Watts (Amy Carlson, long before becoming <em>Blue Bloods</em>’ saddest casualty ever) and Gary Sinclair (Timothy Gibbs) policed the streets of Bay City. She also, apparently, sometimes checked to make sure that his hair was real; it was, BTW.</p>
Image: E.J. Carr/NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
18/20
<p>The audience revolted in 1996 when the daytime drama turned beloved Frankie Frame (Alice Barrett) into the victim of a serial killer. Today, she’d probably just have been resurrected and reunited with true love Cass Winthrop (Stephen Schnetzer). But back then, the dead were at least a smidgen likelier to stay that way.</p>
Image: E.J. Carr/NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
19/20
<p>In the late 1980s, Sharlene Frame (Anna Holbrook) did the impossible and softened the edges of war vet John Hudson (David Forsyth). But she was harboring a deep, dark secret: She suffered from dissociative identity disorder.</p>
Image: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
20/20
