In the comments to the link I posted at R45 I found this rant. Undoubtedly an eldergay and possibly a DLer......
"How could any panel of so-called soap opera "experts" not include Eileen Fulton, who portrayed "Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Chedwyn Grimaldi" for half a century in "As the World Turns" and is considered the daytime soap opera genre's first "bitch" or vixen character, the archetypal precursor to "Iris Cory Carrington Delaney Bancroft Wheeler" and "Erica Louise Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Roy Roy Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick Montgomery?"
How could this "expert" panel on soap operas have excluded Jada Rowland for her role as "Amy Ames Britton Kincaid" in "The Secret Storm," the first child actress to be allowed to age in real time and who (with but a few brief periods when she left the show) remained with playing the same character, from inception to cancellation, from 1954 to 1974?
And how could any serious panel of daytime drama experts not include on its list of "50 Best Soap Opera Actresses" the name of Joan Copeland, who was, bar none, the best villainess in TV soap opera history, in her portrayal of "Andrea Whiting Reynolds #3" in "Search for Tomorrow" from 1968-72? Anyone who remembers Copeland's take on her character having a nervous breakdown on the courtroom stand during her ex-husband's ("Sam Reynold's) trial, as she remembered the torment with which she has lived for many years covering up her misdeeds (including at least three attempted murders), brainwashing her son to think his father responsible for the death of his twin brother in a house fire, when, in reality it was "Andrea" who left her twin boys at home alone while she had a clandestine affair, will never forget the sight and sound of Copeland as "Andrea" clutching her strand of pearls as, one by one, the beads dropped onto the courtroom floor and she switched between hysterical crying and blood-curdling cackling, reduced at last to a babbling maniac and taken away to a prison mental hospital.That this terrific actress is also the sister of the late playwright Arthur Miler ("death of a Salesman," "The Crucible") should also come as no surprise, since theater is a part of her very fiber."
And it also defies logic that any list of the best soap opera actresses would not have also included Jennifer Bassey ("Marian Colby Chandler" in "All My Children"), Judy Lewis ("Susan Ames Dunbar Carver" in "The Secret Storm"), Dorothy Lyman (the original "Opal Gardner" in "All My Children"), Audrey Peters ("Vanessa Dale Sterling" in "Love of Life"), Rosemary Prinz ("Penny Hughes Wade McGuire Cunningham" in "As the World Turns," and for whom the character of "Amy Tyler" was created when "All My Children" began in 1970, with Prinz's name above the title), Ruth Warrick ("Phoebe Tyler Wallingford" in "All My Children") and Ann Williams ("Eunice Gardner Webster Twining Martin Wyatt" in "Search for Tomorrow"), each for their long-running and/or memorable roles in daytime dramas."
