Humor gives SANTA BARBARA an Edge on Soaps

- October 15, 1989 | Chicago Tribune - 

The sky is seriously gray, wind is blowing every which way and waves are crashing on the rocks. It`s the kind of day brooding was invented for, a perfect setting for Hamlet.

Instead, the cast and crew of NBC`s witty daytime drama Santa Barbara are gathered along the strip of Olive Park near Navy Pier. They`ve come here from the land of stucco and palms to include Chicagoan Patricia Masterson in two SB episodes, as part of a prize she won in a sweepstakes promotion.

Today, the plot involves hypnotherapist Heather (played by Jane Rogers) and her ex-fiance Scott (Vincent Irizarry). They`re playing a scene on a lawn near the water filtration plant.

Forget how cold it is. Scott has laid out a romantic picnic lunch, and a blanket bundle impersonating their month-old baby is parked under a nearby tree in a carriage.

Heather, who finally learned to trust Scott, only to be rejected by him when his high school sweetheart unexpectedly showed up in Santa Barbara, has come to Chicago for a job interview. Scott has followed her here.

After shooting their scene, Minneapolis native Rogers and New Yorker Irizarry puff on their respective cigarettes and talk shop in the back of their trailer.

“Soaps are such a fast-paced medium,” says Rogers, looking sophisticated in a silk suit. “You can`t go back and say, `Can I do that again?`, especially if everything is technically right with the scene.

“When we did the closeup today with Vincent, I felt really there for him, and I felt very good about it. But when it came to my closeup, airplanes were going by, and I was distracted. Unfortunately, it`s very hit and miss.” Irizarry, a method actor who studied with Lee Strasberg, nods in agreement.

“In a play or movie, you have a two-hour script with a beginning, a middle and an end,” he says. “You know where your character`s coming from, where he`s going and how he gets there. With soap operas, it`s a lot of middle. You never know what`s going to happen. All of a sudden, they`ll tell you you were a . . . uh . . .”

Rogers interrupts: “A mass murderer.”

“Right,” Irizarry says with a laugh. “Or that you were born from robots.”

As far-fetched as that might sound, how about a gangster who`s a cross-dresser? Santa Barbara has one. And if that sounds off-the-wall, it`s intentional.

From its beginnings six years ago, Santa Barbara in direct competition with decades-old The Guiding Light on CBS and General Hospital on ABC, has used humor as one of its strategies to attract viewers who wouldn`t normally watch soaps.

So far, the strategy seems to be working-at least on a critical level.

This year, the series, which focuses on the lives and loves of the Capwell family, won eight daytime Emmy awards. But the show`s success isn`t yet reflected in the Nielsen ratings.

Program spokesman Eric Preven says that the college students and working people who comprise the bulk of SB`s demographic tape the show.

Regardless of ratings, Santa Barbara continues on its merry way with characters such as conniving designer Gina, California golden girl Eden and her semi-psychotic brother Mason (who has just been re-cast with Terry Lester, the former rascal Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless). Mason is married to soft-touch Julia, played by Skokie native Nancy Grahn, a Goodman Theater alum who this year won a best-supporting-actress Emmy.

Add to the mix handsome Hispanic policeman Cruz (A Martinez), who is married to Eden, and you have daytime TV`s first interracial super-couple.

After a lunch break, outside the canteen, Rogers talks about Heather`s romantic liaison with Scott.

“Our love scene on the beach, the way it was shot, Vincent wasn`t even there,” she said. “I`m supposed to be looking at him, but I was looking at the camera.”

The conversation is interrupted by stylists-Rogers walks out of the trailer with her shoulder-length brunette hair considerably fuller than when she walked in. The equipment van rolls into the park, and Irizarry jumps off without a moment`s notice.

They`ll spend the rest of the day shooting ``pickup`` scenes atop the Hancock Building, inside the State of Illinois Building, outside Daley Plaza and at a posh Near North hotel.

By the end of today`s episodes, Scott and Heather are still at a standoff. Scott wants her back in Santa Barbara, but makes no promises. Heather, Rogers says, is not ready to forgive him for messing around with the first girl that came by after they were engaged.

But Heather doesn`t get the job, and she`ll return to the land of stucco and palms, and so will the crew of Santa Barbara.

Low-Rated SANTA BARBARA Soap Takes Chances That Pay Off

- July 28, 1988 | Los Angeles Times - 

Daytime soap operas are usually thought of as the most formularized of melodramas. So what was going on the other day on the NBC stage in Burbank where “Santa Barbara” is taped?

In one scene being shot for airing Tuesday, actor Justin Deas as sleazy Dist. Atty. Keith Timmons, clad in a grass skirt, convinced new bride Gina (Robin Mattson) to leave their bedroom immediately to catch a honeymoon flight to Hawaii--still wearing her wedding-night lingerie and a mint-green facial masque. In another, deaf actress Phyllis Frelich was using sign language to respond to questions being asked of her character Sarah, a nun whose disturbing dreams may reveal a murderer's identity.

Clearly, this is a show that is not afraid to take chances: Roles for deaf performers are a television rarity day or night, and the Gina-Keith scene, with its deft timing and sight gags, seemed more appropriate for a sitcom than a soap.

Just as clearly, the break from tradition is paying off. Lowest rated among the networks’ daytime serials following its premiere four years ago this week, “Santa Barbara’s” ratings are up 23% since last year--it now ranks ninth among the 13 soaps--and it recently won an Emmy as TV’s best daytime drama series, besting such veteran competitors as 32-year-old “As the World Turns” and 18-year-old “All My Children.”

“It would be unfair and untrue to say that other soaps are not good,” said actress Marcy Walker, who plays Eden Capwell. “But the Emmy is an acknowledgment that we belong in the top league.”

The serial also picked up Emmys for Deas as supporting actor and its second consecutive nod for outstanding music direction and composition.

According to Bridget Dobson, who created “Santa Barbara” with her husband, Jerry, the show was meant from its inception to stand apart from others of its genre.

“We wanted to take risks,” she said. “Otherwise, we knew the show would die in that time slot, as other soaps and game shows had.” (It airs weekdays at 2 p.m. opposite ABC’s popular “General Hospital,” which was created by Dobson's parents, Frank and Doris Hursley.)

“So we created two competitive families, the Capwells and the Lockridges, who were psychologically complicated but also psychologically and emotionally valid. We took the core of our own inner souls and put it on screen, for multifaceted characters with multidimensional personalities. That there was humor made the show unique--each character has a sense of humor.”

The attempts to differentiate the show take many forms.

“We move faster, have a more rapid pace than other shows,” said executive producer Jill Farren Phelps. “Our stories often begin and finish in the same day. There's less of that 'tune in tomorrow' to find out what happened.”

“We wanted to make sure it was the most contemporary show on the air,” said Brian Frons, NBC's vice president of daytime programs, who asked the Dobsons to create the show. “We wanted dialogue on the cutting edge, a new kind of musical sound rather than violins and organs, a warm California look--which our first lighting director, Kirk Witherspoon, gave us.”

An example of the series’ contemporary bent: the long-suffering romance and recent marriage of Walker’s golden girl character and the Hispanic detective Cruz Castillo, played by A Martinez. Castillo was conceived as “someone with a tremendous sense of morality and a heroic background,” according to Frons, to reflect the Hispanic influence in Southern California.

The romance came about as a “fortunate accident,” Walker said, as other characters left and a chemistry developed between the two that viewers noticed and liked. For his part, Martinez recalled, “there had been a prevailing sense that there was a risk involved in putting us together, but somebody stood up for it. On the other hand, it does play on the old cliches--lovers from the wrong side of the tracks, ‘Lady and the Tramp’.”

On the opposite end of the romance spectrum from the idealistic Castillos are the villainous duo Keith and Gina, the chief practitioners of the comedy that has become a “Santa Barbara” trademark. The couple, whose wedding airs Monday, has staged pie and mud fights, wreaked havoc as contestants on “Wheel of Fortune” and parodied everything from mythology to “Moonstruck.”

“We'll look at the script in the morning and say, ‘They want us to do \o7 what?\f7 ‘” Mattson recounted. “Some actors would be uncomfortable appearing the way we do, but I think if you just go with it, take it and run, it can be very winning.”

Dr. Joyce Brothers passed away at 85

Famed columnist and television personality Dr. Joyce Brothers died at age 85 on Monday. According to Starpulse.com, the TV psychologist passed away from natural causes. Brothers became famous after taking home the top award on “The $64,000 Question” in 1955, becoming the only woman to ever to win the coveted prize.

In 1958, Brothers created the advice program “The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show,” which aired on NBC. For over 40 years, Brothers hosted syndicated talk shows on television and radio. She made cameo appearances on popular series such as “Charlie’s Angels,” “Happy Days” and “Frasier.”

For nearly four decades she published an advice column in popular magazine “Good Housekeeping.” Beginning in the 1970s she wrote a column that at its height appeared in over 300 newspapers.

She also made many cameo appearances parodying herself on television sitcoms and soaps: in 1972, Brothers appeared on ABC daytime soap opera ONE LIFE TO LIVE; in 1981 she appeared on AS THE WORLD TURNS as an old friend of Bob Hughes and in 1989 she also appeared on SANTA BARBARA during a Gina’s dream : Bunny, dressed as a woman, welcomes a psychologist who wrote a book on women’s indecision and on propensity that some have to make bad choices in their life. The host then calls her other guest supposed to represent a typical case described in the book : Gina. Then a question follows surrounding the five marriages involving Gina, where she is attacked from everywhere and hissed by the public. Gina wakes up by waiting to answer the last question of psychoanalyst / Bunny :  “Who are going to choose you to be your next husband ?”

Here the clip (dubbed in French).

Cannes: ROBIN WRIGHT in trippy trailer for Ari Folman's "THE CONGRESS"

Imagine a wonderful actress forty year old. Imagine that she is very beautiful and talented. Imagine now that she has given up some important roles for family reasons. Imagine that she is scanned to live forever young on the big screen. Practically imagine Robin Wright who plays herself (or rather, a fictional version of herself) in the new film by Ari Folman, The Congress.

The story is a loose adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s The Futurological Congress from 1971, and follows a version of Wright who has sold Hollywood the digital rights to a younger version of her entire being. This looks like a really cool sci-fi story with some poignant social commentary on Hollywood and maybe the future of cinema. The film also stars Harvey Keitel and Paul Giamatti and premieres as part of the Directors' Fortnight sidebar at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The trailer for this highly anticipated movie was released a few hours ago and I love it. And you? I wonder if they will mention Santa Barbara ... Meanwhile, on May 16 Robin Wright will be in Cannes. Who wants to come with me? ;o)

DEBBIE BACHTELL gets organized

- Pulling all the pieces together, before they even happen - 

I think this is a very interisting article about Debbie Bachtell, Santa Barbara’s Production Manager and her key role on the show. Enjoy it!

(To enlarge the text, save the image and then open the file) 

"SANTA BARBARA" Da Laughs It Up Offstage

July 9, 1990|By Nancy M. Reichardt, Orlando Sentinel

NEW YORK — If you're a fan of Santa Barbara in general and of the straight-as-an-arrow district attorney Ethan Asher in particular, you would be very pleasantly surprised to meet Leigh McCloskey, who plays Asher. Why? Because, off-screen, McCloskey displays a humor and wit that he rarely gets to interject into his on-screen performances.

''A lot of humor goes on behind-the-scenes at Santa Barbara,'' says McCloskey. ''People do take a lot of the work with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. We laugh a lot and have great fun.''

McCloskey, who does his share of making his fellow cast members laugh, is known as the resident punster. ''I like word play,'' says McCloskey. ''Puns are my specialty.''

Considering what the actor has been through during his nearly two-year run on Santa Barbara, it's a miracle the guy can laugh at all. McCloskey started out as a nice doctor named Zack Kelton who turned out to be a rapist/murderer. Ultimately, Zack met his demise falling off a cliff, and McCloskey came back with a new look and a new character - district attorney Ethan Asher.

''They gave me glasses, then they cut and dyed my hair,'' he says. ''It was a horrible color that I used to call 'interesting orange.' My wife hated it, and so did I.''

When enough time lapsed for the audience to forget the crazy Zack, McCloskey was allowed to revert back to a longer style, his original hair color and shed his glasses. ''I'm back to my natural look,'' says the actor. ''Thank God!''

Despite the changes, things haven't gotten any easier for his character. Asher is wed to the wacky Laura Asher (Christopher Norris), and their marriage may very well go down as the most tumultuous in daytime history.

McCloskey reveals that he has thoroughly enjoyed working with Norris over the past year.

''She's a delightful lady and a marvelous actress,'' says McCloskey. ''We've had a great time taping all our fight scenes. Every now and then after we've finished one of them, we've actually walked away from the scene angry.''

Fortunately, the actor is blessed with a much more peaceful and happier marriage (and life) off-screen. McCloskey and his wife, Carla, have two daughters, Caytlyn, 7, and Brighton, 2. And McCloskey readily admits that he is devoted to his family.

''My priority is my family,'' McCloskey says, proudly. ''They are and always will be the most important part of my life. When I have time off, I like to spend it with them.''

The actor also spends much of his free time indulging in his favorite hobby - painting. ''That's my other obsession,'' he says.