By Marlena De Lacroix
On Saturday, my husband Moose and I were driving on a back road through the Pennsylvania woods to have dinner at a very good restaurant. Suddenly a familiar tell-tale putrid smell entered the car.
Skunk!
I gasped and a few seconds later my eyes welled up in tears. No, the tears didn’t come from the intensity of the odor entering the car. They came from the stab of pure humiliation I was suddenly feeling in my heart. That’s because my mind had immediately flashed back the sight of poor Bob Woods sitting up to his neck in a bathtub of tomato juice on One Life to Live a few days before. This Wednesday’s or Thursday’s episode was one of a
I have watched these shows forever and have written about them … almost forever. Unlike movies or night-time TV, the producers of these daytime shows have been known to — and are allowed to — make ‘comments’ on their actors by showing their characters in certain situations …
week-long storyline in which supposedly amusing “mishaps” kept happening to Bo and Nora, the beleaguered couple, leading up to their planned second wedding ceremony in the same church where they had been wed originally in 1995.
Bo was pictured immersed in a tub of that red vegetable juice because it was said to be skunk odor corrective. He was trying it at the suggestion of psuedo-son/pal Rex. Bo’s soaking was also witnessed by Rex, (John Paul Lavosier), me and an estimated one million viewers in America who, like me, had tuned to watch the show that week! (OLTL is in last place in the ratings.)
Emmy winner Robert S. Woods has devoted thirty years of his career to playing lead character Bo Buchanan on One Life to Live!
“I’ve watched One Life for forty years,” I cried to Moose. “Imagine, when I smell skunk, for rest of my life, I’ll see Woods in the bathtub of tomato juice!”
That ludicrous, embarrassing image will upstage thousands of others — scenes in which I’ve seen Woods as Bo being all charm, a real stand up guy, as he was always both on screen and as I knew him through years of interviews in real life. Scenes of Bo romancing a dozen young heroines all over Llanview. New Llanview arrival Bo kissing Jacquie Courtney’s Pat Kendall in Paris, kidding around with Asa and Clint, dancing to guest star Little Richard at his first wedding to Nora.
And speaking of Nora, did you see what they did to her on the same episode? “Green hair!” I cried, “And an eye patch!”
Moose, who never watched soaps until he met me in 1997 and only gives them a passing glance even now, looked even more strangely at me. He wasn’t sure what those details had to do with skunkery, but he knew I would explain. And I did.
“Sweetie, let me tell you the back story.”
I’ve been a Bo and Nora fan since then One Life to Live executive producer Linda Gottlieb 
personally put the characters together as a romantic couple back in 1993. They became wildly popular right away. In fact, I did the first joint interview with Bob Woods and Hillary B. Smith when Bo an and Nora became a couple.
I followed the characters’ first marriage and divorce and waited not so patiently nearly a decade for them to be reunited at last. Bo was supposed to remarry Nora on their June 2010 anniversary. (They had originally wed June 1, 1995) . All of last week (June 1 to June 4) of OLTL had scenes leading up to the second ceremony.
What a disgrace! What an insult to two veteran soap stars!
During that week, preparing for the ceremony, Nora broke a tooth, sprained her leg and hurt her eye. In the piece de resistance set at Foxy Roxy hair salon, hairdresser Roxy accidentally dyed Nora’s hair green and accidentally set the white wedding dress she had originally planned to wear on fire with a curling iron.
Don’t think Carol Burnett or Lucille Ball here. Either of them, backed by their teams of outstanding writers, could have turned this into hysterical comedy. But not this leaden mess, as devised by OLTL‘s ham-handed, mean-spirited crew!
Like Woods, Hillary Bailey Smith is also an Emmy winner. She has played Nora for twenty years and before that had roles in daytime soaps like The Doctors and As the World Turns going back to the early 80s. In these pre-wedding episodes, she appeared gap toothed, eye-patched, on crutches and sporting that dime store green wig –all to no clever purpose. The creatively impoverished OLTL geniuses gave her nothing to do but look ridiculous.
On one of the same episodes, Bo was made the target of a skunk squirting his odorous emission directly in his face as he was preparing for his second wedding ceremony to Nora. The scene happened while Bo and best man Rex were planning the wedding ceremony. The squirting took place in the middle of a pew in St. James Church!
“Skunks,” I shouted at Moose. “That’s what Frons and ABC Daytime and the producers and writers at One Life to Live are! How dare they humiliate not only Woods and Hillary, but a fan like me who has spent almost the past twenty years watching that show for my favorite couple …”
“Oh, Marlena, stop! ” Moose protested good-naturedly. “You know the difference between reality and soap opera. Between soap opera actors and their characters. You take it all so personally The whole ‘mishap’ storyline had to have been written as comedy.”
I looked across at driver Moose over my sunglasses. “Comedy? Comedy? Do you think any of this is funny?”
Moose, who has a keen sense of humor, was stopped in his tracks. “Well, um …”
“Look dear,” I explained, “You know I have watched these shows forever and have written about them … almost forever. Unlike movies or night-time TV, the producers of these daytime shows have been known to — and are allowed to — make ‘comments’ on their actors by showing their characters in certain situations …
“Moose, it’s revolting to disgrace soap actors on national television!”
I gave him examples: Men held in cages by their male tormentors … Young heroines drowned, beaten to death with a club or electrocuted on camera … In the 80s a producer even had a character played by an actress she didn’t like stalked and raped and murdered over a week of agonizing episodes.
“Oh, Marlena,” Moose said, finally getting what I was saying. “Yes, I remember reading all those columns you wrote on OLTL (he dutifully spelled out the acronym) the last two years or so. The one where they made Robin Strasser carry on like Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls and threw Dorian in La Boulie’s pool when they cut that great actor A Martinez who was playing her love interest.”
“Yes, Moose,” I said, “and remember that column where I freaked out when they had poor mentally ill Addie wear scuba gear to dinner?”
By then the skunk smell had receded and Moose and I had pulled in front of the restaurant. I dried my eyes.
“Yeah, Moose,” I said sarcastically. “Skunking Bob and Hillary and me and thousands of Bo and Nora fans on screen all week was … ‘comedy.'”
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ABC Photos
While it had a few bright moments, the whole slapstick comedy build up to Bo and Nora’s wedding was cheesy, stupid, and completely unnecessary!!!!! What could have taken one or a couple of episodes to do, was dragged out for three days!!!! I was relieved when the actual wedding took place, along with the fun reception afterwards with Bo and Nora dancing like a couple of energetic teenagers!!!!! Bob Woods and Hillary Smith have the most believable chemistry together as a daytime soap supercouple! (Next to of course Robin and Patrick on GH as a close second, before they threw the dreadfully boring Lisa Niles as a wrench as a spoiler to the couple!!!)
I loved how today’s show ended, (6-8-10) with Bo and Nora eating burgers and fries and both of them getting a present from Lindsay Rappaport from jail with a license plate reading “Bo and Nora 4Ever(!!!!)”
( I miss seeing Lindsay and Catherine Hickland on OLTL!!! Can TPTB PLEASE bring CH back to the show and Lindsay out of jail please!!!!) Also the ending musical montage of Cheap Trick’s “After the Flame” was a beautifully sweet touch to cap off the episode!
I hope that the TPTB give continue to give Bo and Nora more screen time on the show and not put them in back burner hell like they have been doing to them in recent months. These two talented emmy winners deserve so much more than that!!! Otherwise, the “skunks” in charge will just continue to put pitiful characters like Ford, Rex, and Gigi on the front burner with TOO MUCH screen time.
I agree with Moose on this one: The mishaps were intended as comedy & I enjoyed the whole thing. Keep up the good work Bo: looking dignified even when your covered in tommato juice and Hillary, even Lucy couldn’t have done it any better. You were the best Margo Hughes ATWT ever had! There’s only one life to live and Bo & Nora are my only reason for watching it!
Marlena, I too was over-the-moon for Bo & Nora back in the day, before they removed her brain and had her sleep with Sam to give Bo the will to live. STUPID!!!!!!!!! I think I must have started tuning out around then, but kept up with it enough to know the broad strokes of the story. I was very excited and actually tuned back in when they first started their flirtation and slow burn back to each other. They still had it. But then, it seemed too pat, the rest of the show was hidious and I tuned back out again. After reading your column, I’m so glad I didn’t witness what sounds to me too like humiliation. What fan of the couple would really want to see that? We want romance. Is that too much to ask? Don’t worry, that was rhetorical.
I’m curious, Preacher’s wife, if you’re a fan of the couple or just the show? No problem either way, just curious. My own informal poll, so to speak.
Marlena says: Esther!!! Thanks so much of reminding me that old SOW column I wrote, “The Thing That Ate Nora’s Brain” or whatever the headline I made up for that one was. The column in which we talked and LOL’ed so much about so back in the day!!!! As I recall, we were all SO upset that a soap could do such a brainless thing as having brilliant Nora conceive a child with Sam to pass if off as Bo’s. Or was it the other way around? I know for a fact the child was Matthew!
Though Wedding #2 for Bo and Nora had it’s nice and funny moments, it fell short enough of great to send me running to youtube to revisit their first wedding which was a classic soap wedding in all the best ways possible. It had romance, humor, fun, surprise, sentimentality, class and respect for the players.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP93zL6SLos. In other words, I LOVED it and watched the whole thing with a stupid smile on my face.
It’s almost too easy these days to state the obvious: They don’t write soaps like they used to. But I also wonder whether a Douglas Marland or and Agnes Nixon or a Bill Bell would even survive in the field today. I don’t think the networks would give them enough artistic freedom to take stories and characters where they wanted them to go. Would any of these guys even WANT to write for soaps today given the network interference, the push for ratings, and the general disrespect TPTB seem to have today for the genre?
Marlena says: Thanks for the URL, Renee ! Your question about Doug and Agnes and Mr. Bell wanting to write for the shows now is one for the ages. Agnes still participates in the writing at All My Children –I hope!
I confess! I’m loving Susan Lucci and Michael Nouri together right now on AMC. Some of their first scenes in which their characters were stranded together were very funny. Loved when Erica confessed to being married ten times, and the next thing you knew, her suitor-to-be had disappeared from the room.
Oh, Marlena, I thought the wedding was the most enjoyable, entertaining, hilarious 3 days on a soap one could expect these days! You take two long-time, familiar, ultimately likable characters and you call on their history and their friends and you give them funny lines and their friends witty lines and you get the best reactions in silly situations (even a little over-the-top, but who cares?) and you mix it all up, serve it with the likes of Bob Woods and Tuc Watkins and Hilary Smith–golden. I have long loved Bo and Nora and was delighted they finally got back together. They have always been both romantic and funny. I especially like that they aren’t kids anymore, but can remember when they were.
Remember on GH when vain-but-lovable actress Tiffany married Sean and the minister gave her real name,’ Elsie Mae Krumholtz’, and it completely broke up the wedding party and Sean and caused Tiff’s face to freeze? Well, when Tuc as David gives Nora’s name, that ‘Nora Hannon Gannon Buchanan Buhcanan Buchanan (you can’t count that other name–that was annulled..)’, well, I was sitting alone watching and laughing out loud so often it woke the dog.
Anyway, just a little of that fun, that good use of history and our love of each character’s nature that we know so well, the gathering of so many characters (nearly all were involved), and for me that is what soap enjoyment is about. We KNOW how the characters will react and we depend on it. We KNOW and love seeing them do things in character (and of course, we also love seeing them mature and develop and learn from their history, as they never seem to do on GH). Yes, there were a couple of mad moments that were exaggerated, but given the tone set by then, it was fine. A glorious 3-4 days that will stand out in memory, but for good reasons Commish Bo in tomato juice being handed those Cuban cigars from David–‘Hey, those are illegal!’, David with his throw-away line, ‘Who else would marry Tom and Katey?’ Dani coming into the sanctuary sniffing, ‘Why does it smell like skunk and new car in here?’ as Matthew kept spraying, Lindsey sending them a license plate from jail–I was laughed so hard the dog stared at me.
Then after all the mishaps and fun, we got pure romance with Bo and Nora dancing and devouring hamburgers together, God love ’em….
How could you not enjoy it all? I didn’t find it humiliating to the two stars–they’ve long done comedy like this and it’s one of the many reasons I like them so much together. Comeon, Connie, Didn’t you smile just a little, maybe giggle behind your hand?
Okay, so I also watch GH which is the dreariest, darkest, most depressing, isolating, character ruining soap around. Maybe that explains why the joy and fun of Bo and Nora’s wedding struck me with such delight. But there really were some clever, inspired moments. Really.
Chere Marlena,
Wonderful column. I couldn’t agree more. The Wednesday and Thursday episodes building up to the wedding just got more cringeworthy with each scene — A chipped tooth! A swollen eye! Green hair (cheap green hair at that)! An eyepatch! A skunk attacks the church! Nora’s dress goes up in flames! Bo soking in a tomato juice bath!
Couldn’t they at least come up with something clever for the pair to play? I understand this was meant to be funny. But it wasn’t. It was pathetic — the green hair being the absolute lowest point.
Longterm characters like Bo and Nora deserve better than this tripe. And loyal viewers deserved better too. Don’t think I’ve seen a worse OLTL episode since Dena Higly left the building.
Having said that, the show did redeem itself with the actual wedding ceremony. They found ways to be both funny and original. And true to the characters. Having David conduct the ceremony was genius.
I agree 100% with Marilyn Henry. I actually thought the entire was a great tribute to the fans. It wasn’t a master piece but it was fun to watch.
Despite working with what is clearly a props department that steals costumes from your local elementary school, the Bo and Nora wedding episodes were fun and a nice change of pace from the usual array of psychos, rapists, philanderers and what seems like hours of teenage drivel masquerading as angst.
With all the tsouris going around on stage and probably, a little off stage, this light hearted week was like a tonic. None of what happened to Nora and Bo, Nora especially, flies in the face of the established characters. Nora’s always been a little wacky or at least fun-spirited in a lot of her scenes that don’t involve rapists, brain tumors, psychopaths, philanderers or other of her life’s calamities. Also, HB Smith and Mr Woods as well as most of the rest of the cast, seemed to be having fun. Maybe they too needed a break from the usual rapists, psychopaths…
Yes to see Nora’s legacy portrayed for one week in such a demeaning fashion is no more insulting to her or her portrayer than the assinine year of living comatose storyline and I daresay the recent storyline was certainly much more engaging than a bi-weekly shot of Hillary still breathing so she can justify her paycheque storyline.
There’s been so much darkness on soaps lately, seeing Bo in a tub of tomato juice made me laugh out loud! Woods can carry a scene, even in a bathtub with a fake Cuban cigar. I especially loved how Rex said he would give up searching for his dad because Bo is all the father ne needs. (I’m sure it will be revealed that Bo is his dad somewhere down the line….)
Like you, I could have done without the leprechaun wig, though.
Thanks for staying in touch!
For me, it’s less about the alleged “comedy” and far more about the lack of emphasis on the history of this couple. Instead of using the wedding to prop up yet another Rex/Gigi reunion, why not SHOW us why Bo and Nora are so special? How about some clips from their first meeting, their courtship, their first wedding, and so on? Or maybe highlighting the obstacles they’ve overcome and the bond that remained even after their divorce? I know there seems to be a “no clips” policy in place when it comes to soaps these days, but there are occasions when those flashbacks are vital and necessary, and this was one of those instances.
It’s just sad when soap operas fail to take advantage of their own unique history to draw in new fans or reward their loyal ones. These episodes offered no sense of scope or depth, nor any real emotional resonance to a viewer who many have been unaware of Bo and Nora’s story. And in place of that, we got sight gags and cheap guffaws best left to the pen of your average sitcom hack. Green hair and skunks? Have the writers really been reduced to lifting gags from The Partridge Family and Diff’rent Strokes? No wonder OLTL resides at the bottom of the ratings.
I found some of it funny, some of it ridiculous and the rest somewhat mean, which seems to be the modus operandi for (the executive producer) and (the headwriter.) If Brian Frons was not in charge of ABC and he actually had any vision or guts, if he wanted to save instead of kill this show, he would bring Linda Gottleib back as producer and he would hand the reigns over, free of network interference(a fantasy, I know) for one year, to either Michael Malone, Claire Labine or both.
I was thinking about why Bo and Nora’s pre-wedding stuff while ridiculous didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. Perhaps I’ve become immune to that kind of material. Bo and Nora were on screen and no one died even if the shotgun made an appearance. Bo and Nora’s reception and night together afterwards were sweet. Then again, I lost interest in Bo and Nora due to Sam, and the idiotic story in which, Nora slept with Sam to get pregnant and pass the kid off as Bo’s, who is now the teenaged Matthew. Seeing them reunite was a good thing, but I wasn’t really into the way it was done. While it was slow burn, it made Bo and Nora look kind of unsympathetic as they kidnapped Matthew during that time frame.
I was more offended back in 1995, when Matt and Vanessa got married and had a “humorous” pre-wedding (like Bill running over her dress with his car) and reception. They made Nola responsible for an outbreak of salmonella food poisoning and played it for humor when one can die from that. They went as far as having Vanessa feel ill on the honeymoon, but they never said she had food poisoning, though she did eat the tainted risotto.
On GH, years ago with the Tiffany/Sean wedding, I didn’t take offense to her name situation as the idea Sean and his spy buddies didn’t know her actual name was just odd due to their professions. I can’t believe Sean never looked into Tiffany’s past and found out that she used a stage name.
Just wanted to also say I really liked your sadness article back in April, though it is depressing thinking about how long ago I started to feel that way about soaps.
Marlena says: My dear old friend Blossie—great to hear from you again. It’s been too long! And thanks too for your gracious mention of my April article.
Initially, I thought the idea of Bo & Nora’s wedding day hitting a few humorous snags might be entertaining. But when I watched it play out entirely, I couldn’t help by roll my eyes. Had the writing team lost all sense of RESTRAINT when it comes to humor?
I thought, after seeing the the sampling in ABC’s promos, that having Nora fall and chip a tooth (which is how the promos depicted it) and Bo having to chase a skunk out of the chapel may lend to some levity…
However, to add on Nora injuring her leg, poking her eye, and screwing up her hair? Okay, I might have found a botched hair color job amusing… BUT…
Were we supposed to “suspend disbelief” when we saw Nora wearing a Mrs-Ronald-McDonald-on-crack NEON-GREEN wig, and were told THAT would be a result of mixing up hair dye developer with a floor cleaner? Come on! Maybe too blonde, even too orange… but the color of SLIME?
I can’t even tell you how irritated I was after Roxy “fixed” her coloring mistake: It looked EXACTLY the same as it had prior to the “botched” dye job… no better, no different.. not even a strand. I really thought to myself, “after all the ridiculous crap they just put Nora and ME through, the least they could have done was give her some fricken hilights!”
Then of course we had to go full-throttle with the skunk situation. Bo had to get sprayed in upper body. (Which would normally make someone so ill, they might end up in the hospital.) By the way, where I live, we have skunks… and they’ve sprayed when other animals get too close to them. Never once has a spraying incident produced an audible sound, let alone sounded like the “Turbo Rinse” at the car wash… as it had on OLTL.
So from that, we get to see Rex gently poor tomato juice over naked Bo in a tub for two episodes.. Oh, another “by the way,” the tomoto juice thing is a bit outdated – and only good if you want to smell like skunky tomato… Peroxide (you know, the thing that Roxy was SUPPOSED to use in her colorant, instead of floor cleaner?) is the most well-known, effective solution to de-skunking.
The only saving grace was having Tuc Watkins suddenly arrive to comment on the bizarre circumstances in a candid way. I like that David stood up to Rex, whose arrogant insistance on being Bo’s “chosen one” surrogate-son has now become obnoxious. Too bad that the writing tries to instruct the viewer to agree with Rex and brush-off David.
Side note to OLTL: Thanks for the completely boring resolution to Rex’s parentage. Strange that you would entirely disconnect him from Llanview’s canvas, but at least now you have a good excuse to send him & Gigi off into the sunset. After all, you did already make both of them entirely unlikeable when you threw three or four characters / actors – including the much more interesting Scott Clifton / Schuyler – under the bus for them and their “love story.”
Speaking of Schuyler, why didn’t anyone in Llanview comment on how Gigi seems to cause men who get close with her to suddenly snap and shoot other male characters nearly to death? (Brody shot Rex, because he had it bad for Gigi, two years ago…)
I digress… Back to the wedding disaster…
When Nora & Viki finally exited Roxy’s salon, and stood on the side walk… and Viki asked Nora to look up to the sky… I half-expected a lightning bolt to touch down on Nora and fry to her a crisp. At that point, I’d been put through so much unfunny crap… I almost didn’t care to stick around for the wedding itself.
Writers, please write your stories organically and from character. Never write in the manner of penning your conclusion, then deciding what garbage of “obstacles” you’re going to shove in beforehand. Otherwise, this Bo & Nora wedding disaster is just the kind of thing that could happen to you, too.
Given the plight of today’s network soaps, tonight’s [June 27] Daytime Emmy awards seem … well, unimportant.
But in case Connie/Marlena writes on, say, her take on the ceremony, I’ll go ahead and list here the key categories — series, direction, writing, and the six performance awards.
• DRAMA SERIES: “The Bold and the Beautiful” [CBS] — thanks to submitting Ann’s death (how crazy are nominating voters said “no” to the career renaissance of Betty White in best supporting actress!?)
• ACTOR: Michael Park [Jack], “As the World Turns” [CBS] — Emmy commodity Peter Bergman, the three-time winner as Jack on “The Young and the Restless,” is the best bet for an ‘upset’; but with his TV love [Maura West as Carly] winning her race three years ago, Park may be getting prized after his screen partner in a timing that’s somewhat similar 20 years ago to A Martinez in 1990, who won his Emmy (as Cruz Castillo on “Santa Barbara”) the year following his leading lady Marcy Walker (as Eden). Doug Davidson [Paul, “Y&R”] — previously nominated in 2003 — is unlikely. And there’s the fact that this category hasn’t been won by a first-time nominee since 1983 champ Bob Woods [Bo, “One Life to Live”] — which isn’t at all encouraging for Jon Lindstrom [Craig, “ATWT”] and James Scott [E.J., “Days of Our Lives”]. “World Turns” last won this category in 1987 when the great Larry Bryggman — nominated eight times and awarded twice as John Dixon during the decade of Reagan — scored for his romance with Elizabeth Hubbard’s Lucinda. Mouring the shocking death of his brother Brad, this is best opportunity to redress the dearth of best-actor gold for “ATWT” courtesy of Park’s tortured Jack.
• ACTRESS: Crystal Chappell [ex-Olivia], “Guiding Light” [CBS] — An enterprising actress with guts and glory as demonstrated in the lesbian love story of her character with Jessica Leccia’s Natalia, 2002 best supporting actress Chappell’s heady competiton of West’s Carly [“ATWT”] and Michelle Stafford’s Phyllis [“Y&R”] could deal with a loss. (Side note on Leccia: She should have been had joined Chappell in this, and last year’s, best-actress race. Few of “GL’s” actors opted to go on the ballot for its final season.) But the fact that no one has the category more than once over the last decade — other than “B&B’s” Susan Flannery [Stephanie] — ought to be encouraging as West scored in 2007 and, three years before, Stafford was queen in 2004. Fact remains with the lead-acting Daytime Emmys — only in 1975 has one series won both prizes in the same year: “Days'” Flannery [as Laura Horton] and the late Macdonald Carey [as Tom Horton]. If “ATWT” or “Y&R” takes home best actor, it could pave the way for Chappell, “GL’s” sole nominated lead. Also a factor: ABC contenders Bobbie Eakes [Krystal, “All My Children”] and Sarah Brown [ex-Claudia, “General Hospital”] represent serials with a poor Emmy record in this race — “GH” won only once [1991, for Finola Hughes’s Anna Devane]; “AMC” just twice [1983, for Dorothy Lyman orginating Opal Gardner; 1999, at last, for Susan Lucci’s Erica]. Second to “One Life to Live’s” record-11, Chappell’s soap has the best record in this race: 5 thus far [four for Kim Zimmer’s Reva Shayne, 1985, 1987, 1990, 2006; one for Cynthia Watros’s Annie Dutton, 1998].
In other races [without explanation]:
• SUPPORTING ACTOR: Billy Miller [Billy], “The Young and the Restless” [CBS]
• SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Beth Chamberlin [Beth], “Guiding Light” [CBS]
• YOUNGER ACTOR: Drew Garrett [ex-Michael], “General Hospital” [ABC]
• YOUNGER ACTRESS: Julie Berman [Lulu], “General Hospital” [ABC]
• DIRECTION: “One Life to Live” [ABC]
• WRITING: “The Young and the Restless” [CBS]