Post by jag11 on Apr 6, 2008 20:56:55 GMT -5
April 1, 2008 Soap Opera Digest
What is your earliest recollection of Y&R? "The sound of my dad's typewriter. He was always in his bathrobe cranking out those stories. He never switched to a computer."
When did you start showing interest in what he was doing? "When I was 11 or 12, I would pretend to be sick so I could stay home from school with my dad and watch Y&R. After each show, he would get on the phone with the producer in L.A. and say what exactly he loved and didn't love about that episode. It would always be like 'It should have been faster paced,' or 'There should have been a longer moment before she said her line.' I found that so fascinating. Sometimes I would go back and watch again to see what he meant."
Did you ever hear your dad admit he made a mistake with the show? "He would say something like, 'I should've cut that storyline earlier.' Most [soap] writers would know exactly how they were going to end a story, but he wouldn't, a lot of the time. But that was great. If he would feel something was going wrong, he would make it right."
Eric Braden [Victor] praised your dad for never giving the audience what they wanted. "My biggest comment about any TV show to this day is that you always want the audience participating. Hoping that they will hold hands or hoping they would kiss. I remember watching Craig and Sierra [on AT WT] and I would go, 'Oh, get together, please!' But I really didn't want them to get together. I loved rooting for them. My dad knew that rooting and hoping was important to a story."
What is your favorite Y&R story? "I really loved when Paul went undercover to clear his dad [1982]. When Doug [Davidson, Paul] gets into a story, you're like putty in his hands."
It's interesting that you didn't name a storyline that you were featured in. "I liked Christine's relationships because they were done in real time. I never thought the audience would ever go from Cricket and Danny to Chris and Paul, but they did because it was months of them being just friends. Then how do you get Christine and Michael from sexual harassment to law partners? It's because it was done slowly. People like to see the natural progression because they can identify it with their own life."
So you enjoyed your character's evolution? "Oh, yeah. It's so funny that the little girl who couldn't say 'model' ended up doing closing arguments."
Were you happy when your dad retired? "No, because it really wasn't his choice, but he was starting to forget things. He knew he had to retire, but secretly he didn't want to. He still went to the set a lot and my mom still does to this day."
With Bells On
Even though Y&R taped in Los Angeles from the very beginning, Bill Bell penned scripts for many years from the family home in Chicago, where his wife hosted a popular live talk show (THE LEE PHILLIP SHOW). The couple later moved to Beverly Hills; Bill died in 2005 after a battle with Alzheimer's disease. Their daughter, Lauralee (ex-Christine), reflects on her parents' remarkable legacy.
What is your earliest recollection of Y&R? "The sound of my dad's typewriter. He was always in his bathrobe cranking out those stories. He never switched to a computer."
When did you start showing interest in what he was doing? "When I was 11 or 12, I would pretend to be sick so I could stay home from school with my dad and watch Y&R. After each show, he would get on the phone with the producer in L.A. and say what exactly he loved and didn't love about that episode. It would always be like 'It should have been faster paced,' or 'There should have been a longer moment before she said her line.' I found that so fascinating. Sometimes I would go back and watch again to see what he meant."
Did you ever hear your dad admit he made a mistake with the show? "He would say something like, 'I should've cut that storyline earlier.' Most [soap] writers would know exactly how they were going to end a story, but he wouldn't, a lot of the time. But that was great. If he would feel something was going wrong, he would make it right."
Eric Braden [Victor] praised your dad for never giving the audience what they wanted. "My biggest comment about any TV show to this day is that you always want the audience participating. Hoping that they will hold hands or hoping they would kiss. I remember watching Craig and Sierra [on AT WT] and I would go, 'Oh, get together, please!' But I really didn't want them to get together. I loved rooting for them. My dad knew that rooting and hoping was important to a story."
What is your favorite Y&R story? "I really loved when Paul went undercover to clear his dad [1982]. When Doug [Davidson, Paul] gets into a story, you're like putty in his hands."
It's interesting that you didn't name a storyline that you were featured in. "I liked Christine's relationships because they were done in real time. I never thought the audience would ever go from Cricket and Danny to Chris and Paul, but they did because it was months of them being just friends. Then how do you get Christine and Michael from sexual harassment to law partners? It's because it was done slowly. People like to see the natural progression because they can identify it with their own life."
So you enjoyed your character's evolution? "Oh, yeah. It's so funny that the little girl who couldn't say 'model' ended up doing closing arguments."
Were you happy when your dad retired? "No, because it really wasn't his choice, but he was starting to forget things. He knew he had to retire, but secretly he didn't want to. He still went to the set a lot and my mom still does to this day."