THIRD PART: AN EXCLUSIVE AND UNUSUAL INTERVIEW WITH FRANK SALISBURY (SB SCRIPTWRITER FROM 1984 TO 1990)

Today I'm presenting to you the third part of the interview that Frank Salisbury has granted exclusively to "Santa Barbara Blog". If you missed the first and the second part, you can read it by clicking here (first part - second part).

Today we will discover some background on the Robin Wright' experience on Santa Barbara and we'll talk about some friction between her and Marcy Walker. Also try to understand why the CC' casting was complicated, then we will enjoy a nostalgic memory of the SB writers and much more. Good reading.

How were the storylines developed on SB? I mean, can you describe the stages through which you reach dialogue written for individual characters from a vague outline? Have these stages been the same  in all the soaps?

Ordinarily you refer to the master story line, or the Bible, of the show.  They write these up in advance, and they're done about every six months. Then, once you get them approved, you begin breaking them down into weeks, so you know the story arc from Monday through Friday, and lastly into daily breakdowns from which the scripts are written.  There has to be flexibility, of course.  You never know when an actor will prove to be unavailable for a given day or period of time.  This is the process I've always had.  From my earliest days on The Edge of Night, when we only had one head writer (Henry Slesar) and one sub-writer (me), and when a days' show was plotted out on one sheet of paper, and never exceeded it; up to SB where you had two or three head writers, five breakdown writers, five scripters, one editor, and the breakdown ran to 30 pages sometimes and scripts came in at 60-plus pages of dialog.   The natural progression of ways to do things.  Bigger being believed to be better, and longer considered best of all.

In your work as a script writer, do you cared about any request of the SB actors? Do You interact with them, or you were not interested in their demands?

To my knowledge we never had to deal with the demands of actors.  I suppose they were buffered by the Dobsons or Chuck Pratt, or perhaps they never happened.  I knew several members of the cast personally and I never had any complaints from them, so, supposedly, it all went on in an orderly way.

How was it working with Robin Wright? Can you make a personal and professional portrait of Robin?

I'm probably one of the few people in this world who didn't care for Kelly.  I found her to be cold and unresponsive.  Writing for her, to me, meant forgetting about the actress and concentrating on the character.  Once in a while she would rise above herself, but I could never understand the acclaim she received.  Not until she broke out as an actress and displayed some originality in films.  This isn't her fault.  It was the constraints of daytime. And, as I say, she was much loved.

Robin Wright has left the soap in 1988. She was forced to extend her contract to filming The Princess Bride. In fact at the end she seemed very bored and tired. Do You have noticed a change after her return? It 'true that she was on bad terms with the Dobsons and Marcy Walker? Someone was jealous for the success of Robin?

I've only heard the rumors about Robin's being on bad terms with the Dobsons and Marcy.  If true, I can't  believe it affected her performance.

Last question about Robin Wright. (sorry, I'm a real fan). In a recent interview Robin seems ashamed if they asked about SB. According to you, she really ashamed of that period? Robin hated Kelly to this point? I wonder: was it really so terrible the set of SB?

Any number of stars have omitted their time in soaps from their resumes or their interviews.  It's a stepping-stone to many actors and a source of embarrassment, apparently.  I don't agree with the philosophy at all.  It's a marvelous training ground and a good place to be, even with its many peculiar demands.  And it's steady work in an industry that's fraught with insecurity.  I think, however, that Robin did not like it at all.  There was nothing terrible about the set of SB.  In the early days, certainly, it was a very happy place.  I think after the Dobsons debacle it lost some of its joie de vivre, but changes are bound to happen.

Lloyd Bochner

In the soap there were four different CC: Peter Mark Richman, Paul Burke, Charles Bateman and Jed Allan. Can you make a personal and professional portrait of them?  In the intent of the Dobsons, Lloyd Bochner should have played CC Capwell. But he suffered a heart attack which prevented him from starring in the series. it is true that before the heart attack he had shot some scenes? Why it was so difficult find the right CC?

I had experiences with all of them, including Bochner.  I think he was fine.  I do think Jed Allan was the best of them all.  As you know, Peter Richman didn't care for the part in the least, and I don't know about Burke and Bateman.  Casting has always eluded me.  The reasons for it, the failures and successes of it.  It's always difficult to find the right actor for any given part.  I think that's why we were so blessed on SB.  We had a very high average.

Sb was accused of failing to enhance secondary characters and not able to relate them to the major characters. So exhausted their storyline, they disappear into nothing. What do you think about it?

SB was accused of a lot of things.  I think it's very possible that many were unable to be related to major characters, that story lines were quickly exhausted and the carriers of them allowed to vanish into the void.  I know there was trouble with Anne Howard Bailey during her tenure, and possibly Sheri Anderson.  But these were people who weren't endemic to the show and you have to expect a certain disconnect from them.

These writers were all with you on SB. Can you tell us something about them? What do you think of their work? : Patrick Mulcahey Lynda Myles, C.L. Johnson, Charlotte Dobbs, Charles Dizenzo, Jack Turley, Hoyt Hilsman, Courtnet Sherman, Bill Mernit, Gary Tomlin, Josh Griffith, Joan McCall.

P. Mulcahey

I knew and admired Mulcahey, Myles, and Sherman.  We were a team and worked as one.  I don't know anything about Johnson, Turley, Hilsman, Mernit or McCall.  (I assume some of them were brought on by Bailey and others by Anderson.)  I did know Dizenzo (and gave you a description of his contribution to the show in answer to an earlier question), knew Charlotte Dobbs, Gary Tomlin and Josh Griffith.  Gary Tomlin was also a director and had an agent better than mine who was able to get him l-1/2 scripts a week to do.  Josh and I didn't have much contact, but I knew he was there. I have to tell you that, looking over any number of clips on You Tube from the show, I'm struck by the absence of anything I ever wrote.  At the risk of being thought paranoid I have to say that I'm sure the Dobsons have issued a ukase that all such scripts be deleted from the pool of those available.   I know that they are no longer friends or fans of mine, owing to a matter that had to do with my termination.  If I'm right, I'm sorry about it because I would have loved to sit back and rewatch those shows.  And I know I would have been entertained.  They were funny.

to be continued...

Pic #4 is from SB, le site francais

Pic #6 is from Capridge.com