Santa Barbara - General Discussion

[WendyCR72]

Tennis player Pete Sampras has announced that his wife, Bridgette Wilson Sampras, has been battling ovarian cancer.

https://deadline.com/2023/10/the-wedding-planner-bridgette-wilson-diagnosed-ovarian-cancer-husband-pete-sampras-1235586800/

She was on the show near the end, playing a schemer named Lisa Fenimore [versus Lisa DiNapoli and Eden's alter, Lisa; the show loved the name!], who ended up marrying Cruz's last newfound brother, Rafe.

[cleo]

Well I'm finally almost done watching 1991. Just trying to figure out where to stop. 

I'm past the part where Eden goes iver the cliff. I'm ff thru all the Suzanne garbage. Much as I like the Lisa storyline, the ending with Eden going over that cliff and never really coming back was a complete betrayal of the character.

I'm really only watching some of the Cassandra scenes but even those I will only go so far. I wanted to see a bit of the stuff with her and Warren, bc I don't remember it.

But even that is getting irritating, mainly bc the writing for Mason and Cassandra is all over the map. Does he like her, not like her, using her, not using her, seems to change by the ep.

I hate the retcon that Warren isn't Lionel's. 

So basically I will start again soon in 1984, just not sure when. For sure by the end of the year. Hey maybe I can make it a Christmas treat.

[Shirlaine]

Despite my good intentions, I still haven't returned to watching SB. There has finally been something interesting in B & B (after years of boring stuff) and also our various TV channels show Hallmark Christmas movies every day. Since it's cold, snowy and dark outside (the darkness descends after three o'clock in the afternoon), I have tried to cheer myself up with this brainless Christmas entertainment. However, I'm thinking of continuing SB every day, so hopefully I'll get there eventually.

All this was to say, that you'll probably catch us at some point, cleo. :D  

[cleo]

It's hard, there's so much good TV! Wow dark at 3! I live in Canada, so there are parts like that but Toronto is not so bad.

[Carlos Abad]

love her as Pamela. RIP

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Carlos Abad

[Carlos Abad]

For me the strongest years of santa Barbara were 1985, 1986 and 1987. This Emmy promo is narrated by Jed Allan and it shows some of the plots of 1987. love it!

Edited December 15, 2023 by Carlos Abad

[cleo]

Well I couldn't take anymore 1991 so I started over. Man so nice to see LD. He was truly irreplaceable.

I didn't mind GT in the beginning, but I found the whole storyline with him and Cassandra once Warren came back kind of sick. He was making me hate Mason.

I did like JW's portrayal of Warren, he was also much more attractive as he got older imo.

[Carlos Abad]

13 hours ago, cleo said:

Well I couldn't take anymore 1991 so I started over. Man so nice to see LD. He was truly irreplaceable.

I didn't mind GT in the beginning, but I found the whole storyline with him and Cassandra once Warren came back kind of sick. He was making me hate Mason.

I did like JW's portrayal of Warren, he was also much more attractive as he got older imo.

where are you watching from the beginning? please write me here or in private if you prefer. I need to find some episodes. thanks a lot.

 

[Shirlaine]

Cleo, it would be nice to read your comments on the early episodes if you want to write them here. I have to check where I am in 1984 and start watching again.. I've had enough of Hallmark for this year.

[cleo]

@Carlos Abad most of them are on youtube, especially the beginning. 

5 hours ago, Shirlaine said:

Cleo, it would be nice to read your comments on the early episodes if you want to write them here. I have to check where I am in 1984 and start watching again.. I've had enough of Hallmark for this year.

 

I can try to do that a bit but won't always be able to, and also I'm not sure how interesting my comments will be. Also note- so I'm starting a rewatch and I'm playing around with trying to do an expedited rewatch, so I've tried to identify key stories/eps and am trying it out. This is just a work in progress.  

So I'm at around 45 ish. 

-as I have said ad nauseum I dislike Kelly and most of her storylines, but the first story with her and Joe and Peter and Dominic is interesting, so I skipped some of that at first, but should've watched more. 

-Ah Mason. Skipping almost every scene with Santana. But still nice to see him. I liked in Eden's first ep Mason is immediately pissed off bc she showed up with a plane to give CC and overshadowed Mason getting Lockridge land for him. 

-Also liked the ep where Laken stays overnight and Mason's just dripping with disdain at having a Lockridge in the house. 

-Eden's entrance- I could do without the plane entrance. But man almost instantly the first scene she is with Cruz, those two weren't even talking and they had chemistry.

-all the bad CCs I have to suffer through :(

-for all the casting woes they really nailed the 4 capwell children

-I skip almost everything related to Ted and the teens, Joe and his family, the Lockridges I watch off and on. 

[WendyCR72]

On 12/16/2023 at 7:32 AM, cleo said:

I didn't mind GT in the beginning, but I found the whole storyline with him and Cassandra once Warren came back kind of sick. He was making me hate Mason.

Meh, as far as I'm concerned, Cassie deserved the way Mason treated her and more. She never did get caught out for her machinations. So *shrug*.

[CanaryFan98]

 

[Shirlaine]

I finally got myself to continue watching SB. Only 1988 so far, but will try to get to 1984 soon, too. It has been a while, so I didn't remember what was going on when I took a break. So, the Fox is about to be revealed and Cain was watching things from "a corridor" up, and then fighting Andrea there. I'm wondering if the corridor is indeed their stage's background thing or something like that. I've seen similar in tv shows or movies, if there is a theatre setting. Would be logical to use this king of background setting - and also interesting to see, how it looks like.

It's been freezing cold here in Finland lately, even under -30 c. Not much motivation to go outside, especially when we got a cold right after Christmas and it still goes on. But what a perfect opportunity to watch movies and tv shows. :D

[cleo]

I've been watching but I must say I've become completely obsessed with Guiding Light, so that has really taken over.

I really hate Charles Bateman's CC. I just watched 89 and Lane Davies is so good and Bateman is so stiff. I would love to know what he thought.

The clothes they put Eden in were some of the ugliest outfits I've ever seen. 

[Carlos Abad]

After 40 years, there are many Santa Barbara actors who have disappeared from our screens. But there’s still a few left who are still doing movies or TV shows.

I love to watch them now in different roles than the ones they were doing on SB.

Here’s is the trailer of the last movie with our dear Cruz (A Martinez) that was released on September 2023. It’s a movie with Bailey Chase and Amanda Righetti.

And also there’s a trailer of the upcoming movie DAMSEL with our dear Kelly Robin Wright playing an evil character with Millie Bobby Brown and Angela Basset on the cast.

 

I know this is not Santa Barbara. They are not Cruz Castillo and Kelly Capwell. But I love to watch them still working after these 40 years.

[Shirlaine]

I've also noticed that some SB actors still act in movies or in TV-series, but my problem is that they are usually in some streaming service, and we don't use any of them. The Finnish TV channels are a joke nowadays, as all they have are the reality tv shows or other celebrity stuff. If there is a new TV-series once a year, it's on a pay TV channel. I would even consider paying for streaming a movie or a TV-series if the price was reasonable, but whenever I have tried to do that, I've got an error message saying that they're not accessible in Finland. My preferred choice would be to order a dvd or bluray from somewhere (yes, I'm a relic), but unfortunately not everything is available in these formats anymore.

[CanaryFan98]

 This took me by surprise. May she RIP even though I had issues with her husband's writing on GH at times.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/meg-bennett-dead-young-and-restless-1235878548/

Quote

 

Meg Bennett, Soap Opera Actress and Writer, Dies at 75
She multitasked on ‘The Young and the Restless,’ ‘General Hospital’ and ‘Santa Barbara’ and worked on ‘Search for Tomorrow’ and ‘Sunset Beach’ as well.

Meg Bennett, the Daytime Emmy winner who did double duty as an actress and writer on the daytime soap operas The Young and the Restless, General Hospital and Santa Barbara, has died. She was 75.

Bennett died April 11 after a battle with cancer, her family announced.

Bennett portrayed Marty Maraschino for more than two years during the original Broadway run of Grease that kicked off in 1972, then began her long run in daytime two years later with a turn as Liza Walton on CBS’ Search for Tomorrow, where Kevin Kline and Morgan Fairchild were castmates.

She joined CBS’ The Young and the Restless in 1980 as Julia Newman — wife of Eric Braeden’s Victor Newman — but as her character was being written off, she was asked by Y&R creator Bill Bell to stick around as a writer.

“I’d been acting on the show for almost two years when this happened, so I knew the characters,” Bennett said in a 1985 interview. Still, she continued to show up as Julia on and off throughout the years, the last time in 2020.

Bennett wrote for NBC’s Santa Barbara from 1991-93 (and played author Megan Richardson) and wrote for ABC’s General Hospital from 1993-2011 (and portrayed the villainess Allegra Montenegro).

She shared her Daytime Emmy for her work on G.H. in 1995 and was nominated for writing Y&R in 1986, G.H. again in 2000 and 2012 and The Bold and the Beautiful in 2003. She also wrote for NBC’s Generations from 1989-91 and NBC’s Sunset Beach from 1997-98 and won a pair of WGA awards during her career.

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Helen Margaret Bennett was born on Oct. 4, 1948, and raised in Pasadena. Her mother, Margaret, was a psychologist at Pasadena City College.

Bennett attended John Muir High School in Pasadena, and while majoring in drama at Northwestern University — where Shelley Long was a classmate — she was a homecoming queen, a Miss America contestant, a model in Life magazine and a performer in summer stock.

She moved to New York after graduation in 1970 to pursue acting, landed a modeling job for Cadillac and appeared off-Broadway in Godspell before joining Grease. She also won cash, a car, three rooms of furniture, a sailboat and a trip to Jamaica on the NBC game show Three on a Match, hosted by Bill Cullen.

In her 1985 interview, she wondered if concentrating on either acting or writing would have been enough for her. “I’ll admit, acting makes me a little crazy sometimes: You wait to audition. You wait for the part,” she said. “When you’re writing, you’re in control. I can initiate things on my own when I’m writing.”

Survivors include her husband of 19 years, Sunset Beach co-creator and nine-time Daytime Emmy winner Robert Guza Jr. — they met on G.H. and were frequent writing partners on soaps — two stepdaughters, four grandchildren, a brother and a sister.

She and Guza purchased a home in Beverly Hills in 2003 that had been owned by Boris Karloff and then Gregory Peck.