Walford revitalized: EastEnders to introduce brand new areas when show's set is upgraded
BBC chiefs made the decision to rebuild the EastEnders set to help the show cope better with the demands of high definition television. Changes will include making the set 20% bigger and rebuilding the Albert Square houses with real bricks to ensure that they look more realistic on screen.
Albert Square, which has resided in London's Elstee studios since the soap launched in 1985, faces "demolition" under the extravagant plans to make way for Walford's new high street loaded with shops, a new underground station and houses.
Michael Easton shares some favorite General Hospital memories
"I’ll take away many fond memories. The whole cast is top flight and it’s hard to single people out as I’ll just be forgetting someone. If pressed I would say I liked initially coming on the show and how they made John McBain, Anna’s protégé. Finola [Hughes] brings class to everything she does and I was very fond of working with her. It was pleasure working with Kelly [Monaco], Steve [Burton], Tony [Geary], Maurice [Benard] and Tristan [Rogers] in that story as well. Dom [Zamprogna] was a cool partner to have in my short time with the PCPD."
Ted Danson recalls the "nightmare" of working in daytime soap operas
Danson started with TV commercials and landed an Aramis cologne ad. He then graduated to soaps — shows like
Somerset and
The Doctors. Danson says it still haunts him to this day.
"It was the nightmare, you know. The actor's nightmare, doing a soap opera," he says. "You got the lines the night before, there was nothing natural about them, they were all kind of repetitive. And back then, you couldn't stop tape. A wall could fall, and you did not stop."
In
The Doctors, Danson was cast as Mitch Pierson, a calm, cool doctor who breaks news to a family that their daughter has a terminal illness.
But Danson's first day on set was the opposite of calm and cool. Worried about the rigors of taping a soap opera, he had a nervous breakdown.
"I called a friend and he said, 'Take a Valium,' " Danson says. "So I took a Valium, and Valium and I don't work very well together. So I was pouring sheets of sweat, trying to be cool and reassure this family who's looking at me like, 'Dear God, I hope this actor makes it.' "
He wasn't remembering his lines so he was relying on the cue cards. That is, until the guy holding his cue card dropped it.
"It wafted like a paper airplane right onto my lap," Danson says.
It was out of frame, so they kept rolling. Danson, drenched in sweat and looking straight down at his lines, just kept going.
"Really scary stuff," he says. "Clearly I was not a huge success. Thumb through the soap opera magazines, you will not find me."
Danson lasted two episodes on The Doctors.
Dynasty star Emma Samms: I want to do Strictly Come Dancing
Samms has revealed she would love to take part in
Strictly Come Dancing, but she fears her appearance on
Tumble may have put her out of the running.
The 54-year-old actress – who played Fallon Carrington Colby in the '80s soap opera – took part in the BBC gymnastics reality show in 2014, and admitted she was shocked that producers got away with putting celebrities in jeopardy by performing such dangerous stunts on live television.
Rex Smith recalls his busy As the World Turns days
"I was the number one guy for two years on
As the World Turns," says Smith, who played Darryl Crawford on
ATWT. "And I was doing Broadway. I was doing the soap opera and ‘Grand Hotel’ at night, so I was doing eight shows a week plus five soap opera shows a week.”
Smith will appear in the Barn Theatre’s production of “Hands On a Hardbody” beginning Tuesday.
The Good Wife season premiere spoilers
Alicia attempts to revive her struggling law career by once again starting her own law firm, this time with the assistance of Jason Crouse (new cast member Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a calm, experienced investigator whom she hires. Also, to help with his Presidential campaign, Peter engages Willa Eastman (Margo Martindale, recurring), a national strategist who hides her intelligence and cunning under a fake, folksy charm, creating an interesting dynamic with Eli in the process. In addition, Cush Jumbo joins the cast as attorney Lucca Quinn.
Emma Samms is returning to GENERAL HOSPITAL in early August as Holly Sutton Scorpio. Samms appeared at the GH Fan Club Weekend main event on Saturday. Executive producer Frank Valentini tweeted a photo of himself with Samms on Sunday morning with the caption, "Guess the secret's out!!" Samms last appeared on GH in March 2012.
Emma Samms is on her way back to the ABC soap, to reprise her role of Holly Sutton Scorpio according ot a new report from