This is from her run as Laura on the long-defunct CBS soap, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, from 1967-70. Leslie Charleson, who has spent the past three and a half decades as Dr. Monica Quartermaine on General Hospital, played Laura's sister Iris. David Birney played Mark, Laura's husband.

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Donna's LIAMST character had been a sweet novice nun who left the convent. Quite a far cry from Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing Sumner...(did I get all her surnames? Those were just the ones she married - she had flings with quite a few other men...:eek: :lol:)

^ Yeah I think you got all the names. And you're right, Abby did "get around" a lot. She slept with Sumner's fake brother for a while, and Laura's husband, Richard, too.

Neat pics, though. She really was/is a beautiful lady, in any decade and with any hairstyle. I love looking at classic photos like those.

Great article and photographs, Monika! Donna was certainly right about marriage not being the same in the future, but it took far less than one hundred years to happen!!! :eek:

^ Yeah I think you got all the names. And you're right, Abby did "get around" a lot. She slept with Sumner's fake brother for a while, and Laura's husband, Richard, too.

The fake brother was Peter Hollister (Hunt Block), right? The one who ended up being buried by cement? Abby and her daughter each thought the other had killed him?

^ Yes when in reality it was Paige Matheson who simply pushed him backward, making him lose his balance and fall into a order holder (with a very sharp point) and impale himself. She was angry at him and kept walking away, not realizing or even seeing the harm she'd done. I think Abby found him and thinking Olivia had killed him, buried the body in cement to cover up the supposed crime. My memory is that no one was prosecuted even when the truth came out, as it was ruled an accident. Hollister was a total sleaze who no one really mourned.

A grisly yet funny sidelight occurred when his fake brother, Greg Sumner, cremated his body and placed his ashes in an ashtray to extinguish his cigars. :)

Thanks - I couldn't remember all the details. :lol: Hunt Block makes a terrific villain, as he's also proven in daytime TV.

Here's another photo I found on the web:

^ Yes when in reality it was Paige Matheson who simply pushed him backward, making him lose his balance and fall into a order holder (with a very sharp point) and impale himself. She was angry at him and kept walking away, not realizing or even seeing the harm she'd done. I think Abby found him and thinking Olivia had killed him, buried the body in cement to cover up the supposed crime. My memory is that no one was prosecuted even when the truth came out, as it was ruled an accident. Hollister was a total sleaze who no one really mourned.

A grisly yet funny sidelight occurred when his fake brother, Greg Sumner, cremated his body and placed his ashes in an ashtray to extinguish his cigars. :)
What about his sister, crazy Jill? :lol: I remember how mad she got when she saw his ashes in Sumner's home and that Sumner was using it as an ashtray. :lol:

What about his sister, crazy Jill? :lol: I remember how mad she got when she saw his ashes in Sumner's home and that Sumner was using it as an ashtray. :lol:

You know, Jill is an example of a character who was somewhat moral and decent when she came on, when she was envisioned as a love interest for Gary. But when they decided to get Gary and Val back together (again!), they made her go totally "Fatal Attraction" on everybody, and that was kind of a shame. I liked the actress who played her too.

Another example of this was the Annie Dutton character on GL. A decent character who was morphed into a monster just so she could be out of the way for Josh and Reva to reunite.

What made the whole plot ironic was that Ted Shackelford and Teri Austin (Gary and Jill) ended up becoming a couple in real life for awhile.

What made the whole plot ironic was that Ted Shackelford and Teri Austin (Gary and Jill) ended up becoming a couple in real life for awhile.

Heh, I forgot about that! :crazy:

You know, Jill is an example of a character who was somewhat moral and decent when she came on, when she was envisioned as a love interest for Gary. But when they decided to get Gary and Val back together (again!), they made her go totally "Fatal Attraction" on everybody, and that was kind of a shame. I liked the actress who played her too.

Another example of this was the Annie Dutton character on GL. A decent character who was morphed into a monster just so she could be out of the way for Josh and Reva to reunite.
Teri Austin was great. Yea it was too bad that they made her insane butTeri Austin played Jill to the hilt. I think the episode where she forced Val to take those sleeping pills was probably the best KL Cliffhanger of them all.

Heh, I forgot about that! :crazy:

They made a good-looking pair. Mr. Shackelford has been married to his current wife for quite some time (he hooked up with Ms. Austin following the breakup of his first marriage), and I don't know what Ms. Austin's marital status is.

You know, Jill is an example of a character who was somewhat moral and decent when she came on, when she was envisioned as a love interest for Gary. But when they decided to get Gary and Val back together (again!), they made her go totally "Fatal Attraction" on everybody, and that was kind of a shame. I liked the actress who played her too.

Another example of this was the Annie Dutton character on GL. A decent character who was morphed into a monster just so she could be out of the way for Josh and Reva to reunite.

Characters like Jill Bennett and Annie Dutton made these shows interesting and both actresses were great. They told you to never judge a book by its cover. Some people may seem nice on the surface but inside they are evil. Abby, on the other hand, was the opposite. Right away you knew she was going to be trouble, but as time went on she showed her human side, such as when her daughter Olivia was addicted to drugs.

Yes, there was definitely a method to Abby's madness. She loved her kids and her brother Sid with all her heart - and there was never any doubt about that.

Characters like Jill Bennett and Annie Dutton made these shows interesting and both actresses were great. They told you to never judge a book by its cover. Some people may seem nice on the surface but inside they are evil. Abby, on the other hand, was the opposite. Right away you knew she was going to be trouble, but as time went on she showed her human side, such as when her daughter Olivia was addicted to drugs.

I guess my beef is that it seemed with those characters and others like them that their eventual reveal as "evil" characters wasn't organic or intended, it just came about as a result of the writers switching gears quickly and needing to MAKE them evil in order to serve the "we have to get X and Y back together."

As to Abby, let's not forget how really awful she was at times; willing to let Valene remain amnesiac and away from Gary, and later to allow Valene's children to be raised by someone else while poor Val went insane with grief thinking they were dead (after being somewhat responsible for the kidnapping in the first place). She did love her daughter, but that stuff is some pretty hardcore evil, IMO. And let's not forget her letting Paul Galveston die as he reached for his heart medication, completely within her reach. Granted, Galveston was a terrible person, but to just sit there smiling while an old man gasped for breath and died, wow, that's near sociopathic. And wasn't she somewhat responsible for her brother, Sid's death, after getting Fairgate Motors involved with the mob?

Heh, it's great to talk about the show again after all these years! :D

I give kudos to TPTB for not recasting Abby when Donna Mills chose to leave KL in 1989. No one else could've done that role justice. She did come back for the series finale in 1993, right?

I give kudos to TPTB for not recasting Abby when Donna Mills chose to leave KL in 1989. No one else could've done that role justice. She did come back for the series finale in 1993, right?

Yes, she did return, and I agree with your point.

I won't mention much about the way the episode ended, in case you haven't seen it or have forgotten it, but it did have a nice sense of "coming full circle", with real change mixed with a kind of status quo.

Yeah, I remember it, and she was among the many regulars who starred in the 1997 reunion movie. (I think even Brian Austin Green came back to play Abby's son.) Joan Van Ark had even bailed in the last season, but she too came back in the last episode.

By that time, it really was wise to end the show. Even with long-time, stalwart regulars like Ted Shackelford, Michele Lee, Kevin Dobson, and William Devane still around, the writing was on the wall. Weren't Shackelford and Lee the only ones who stayed with the show for its entire run?

Yeah, I remember it, and she was among the many regulars who starred in the 1997 reunion movie. (I think even Brian Austin Green came back to play Abby's son.) Joan Van Ark had even bailed in the last season, but she too came back in the last episode.

By that time, it really was wise to end the show. Even with long-time, stalwart regulars like Ted Shackelford, Michele Lee, Kevin Dobson, and William Devane still around, the writing was on the wall. Weren't Shackelford and Lee the only ones who stayed with the show for its entire run?

Yeah, that sounds right.

I think that KL didn't really suffer a noticeable drop in quality (amazing since it lasted fourteen seasons) but I agree that had it gone on much longer it probably would have.

I generally liked the reunion movie, but I wish Nicollette Sheridan's appearance had been more than just a cameo, I really liked her character.

OK, speaking of Nicolette Sheridan - which season did she and William Devane (aka Paige and Greg) have the strip croquet match??? :eek: :crazy: :lol:

Hmm...a quick check of wikipedia hints that this must have been Season Nine.

Yeah, that is one of the more memorable scenes from the series. "Well, gosh...what'll we play for now?" :lol: :o

Really liked them as a couple, great chemistry and they gave as good as they got. Underneath all the sarcasm and dysfunction, you felt like they really loved each other.

Thanks. I read in a soap opera book that William Devane said he thought that was the stupidest idea the writers could've come up with. "He has, however, acknowledged it as one of the most popular scenes Knots Landing has ever aired". :lol:

Thanks. I read in a soap opera book that William Devane said he thought that was the stupidest idea the writers could've come up with. "He has, however, acknowledged it as one of the most popular scenes Knots Landing has ever aired". :lol:

I remember hearing that, too. Good thing the writers didn't listen to him! :lol:

I did a search and it seems it was Season 10, but oh well. William Devane, who was a Broadway actor before coming on to KL, must have been wondering what his career had come to while filming that scene. :eek: :crazy: :lol:

I did a search and it seems it was Season 10, but oh well. William Devane, who was a Broadway actor before coming on to KL, must have been wondering what his career had come to while filming that scene. :eek: :crazy: :lol:

Points for being close?

Devane brought a great deal of depth to the role of Greg; his delivery, expressions and overall attitude were just priceless. One of the most three dimensional characters I can remember watching, he was fascinating. Whereas most villains try to convince everyone they're better than they are, Sumner always seemed to want to make people think he was worse than he truly was. I'm not even sure he can really be called a "villain", that's how great he was.

Yes, you get points for being close. :cool: By the way, the episode that scene is in is entitled "A Fine Romance", and originally aired on December 29, 1988. Later in this episode he proposed...to Abby!!!

So what did you think of Greg and Abby together?

Well, I think that neither one of them loved each other, and that Abby kind of brought out the worst in Greg. I think Abby did love Gary, but (like Greg saw her), saw Greg as a means to an end.

There's a great scene after they are married where Greg tries in vain to catch Abby without makeup on in the morning. It's hilarious! :)

Not to mention it's SOOO Abby. :cool: :D

Yeah, Abby's looks were like a weapon to her, and she NEVER wanted to be 'unarmed". :)

:lol: :lol: :lol: True.