Well, here I am in one of my favorite cities, New York, and I was told that I brought in the good weather with me. I really love this city and miss just walking. Living in LA you use a treadmill for that. It’s also nice being on an expense account!
My day started on West 57th with GUIDING LIGHT. This and AS THE WORLD TURNS were actually my mom’s very favorite soaps. More on ATWT later. I spent almost an hour with Ellen Wheeler and the first thing I did was praise her on her ground breaking AIDS story on AMC back in the 80’s. I think part of what makes her a great producer is that she is a great actress. She brought Brent Stanton and Frank Radice from NATAS and yours truly into a private room and really got into how she went about revolutionizing GUIDING LIGHT. I was captivated by her vision, energy and passion. Even now. Especially now. I have to give her a tremendous amount of credit for shattering the ancient rules of what a soap should be and trying to do something different. By the way, those sets were immaculate! You think you’re in a real house? No, it’s a set. And they were just hitting their stride, too. It is a shame that they won’t be able to see it fully realized on broadcast TV as I have been told the final story has been written. But the door to other options is very much alive and wouldn’t that be something to see it go on. I had a long chat with Frank Dicopoulos and he is man with great insight with obvious love and respect for his fans. In watching the taping, everything was so streamlined and efficient yet the quality was brilliant. If you saw what I saw, you’d think that they were in the World Series because they were definitely on their A game. To be continued…
We took the ride to Brooklyn and I found out that JC Studios, where AS THE WORLD TURNS tapes, was one of the very first and one of the busiest film studios ever built before the expansion to Hollywood. Once here, I met with Carole Shure and Christopher Goutman. What surprised me was that they said no producer has ever visited them before. It just would never occur to me that nobody would. That nobody asked them what they felt was important. I find this to be the case everywhere I went. I also met Kathy Hays and Noelle Beck and really had a great chat with them about their years on the show. I also asked them and the producers what they felt about the Emmy telecast. They felt that it was important and a big night, but they also felt that some moments from previous shows should stay in previous shows. We assured them that their opinions matter and we would do our best for the show. We can’t promise anything other than give them the voice they deserve and to do everything in our power to make the telecast everything it should be. It was my pleasure to be surrounded by so much talent and so much good humor. The boom operator in particular cracked me up before each take. I don’t think he realized I was observing him but never take for granted that what you do goes unnoticed. For me, I was observing everyone’s duties on the set, not just the actors as I truly have an interest in each show’s process. But it was a testament to the good feelings the crew had in being there. And thank you, Lisa!
Tomorrow I wind up my visit with AMC and OLTL. On Thursday, I will be at the TODAY SHOW when the nominees and host will be announced. Plus I’ll have a few more surprises to announce during the summer.
It's truly amazing that Romanovich is taking this time and visiting all the soap sets and collecting input. I am getting more and more excited about the telecast with each report.
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