The 1980’s seemed to open the flood gates on bringing back old movie stars to television. As mentioned in this series before you had Barbara Stanwyck and Charlton Heston on Dynasty II: The Colbys. Late1981 saw the first episode of Falcon Crest that starred Jane Wyman and years later Kim Novak for a season. In 1983 Anne Baxter was one of the stars of the drama Hotel. Apparently many of the movie stars who wanted TV stardom found the key to success. Now I know that some of them weren’t looking to be TV stars. Some did it for the money or to jump start their careers. But the ones that did want to star in a series found that there was strength in numbers. So they joined the cast of prime time soap operas. Soap operas, nighttime and daytime, came of age in the 1980’s. Now I never did get into the soaps. So I don’t have much to say about them. Believe it or not when I was in college I had a class called Broadcast Criticism. We had to watch shows and compare them to each other and tell which show was the better one and defend our position. One show that I was required to watch was Dallas. I forgot which show I had to compare it against. At that time I also worked at Bakers Shoes in Florence Mall. The Manager there, Rick Harkness, was a big fan of Dallas. He kept trying to get me interested in the show. I told him how I had to watch the show that week for a class. A few weeks passed and I had written my paper and got my grade. Rick was talking to someone about Dallas and since he had missed the last episode he asked me what happened. I said to him "Why are you asking me? You know I don’t watch the show." He looked at me and asked “You mean you didn’t get interested when you had to watch it for school?” I said "No I just don’t like the show." The 80’s was a haven for soap operas. So if you are fans of those types of shows buy the DVD’s and enjoy the show. I hope you have enjoyed this series of overviews of movie stars on TV. Television is littered with the failures of many movie stars who could not make the transition. However, Barbara Stanwyck, Rock Hudson and Doris Day did succeed. Tony Curtis was a successful co-star on Vegas. Currently James Caan is a hit on Las Vegas. Hmmm! I guess it isn’t just an ensemble cast that helps succeed but location too. James Woods is the next to try and others will follow. So raise a glass to their never say die spirit and wish them well.
The above TV Guide cover is dated June 9,1983 and from this site.
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