Sven Peterson and Alma Rudder from Another World! Now they were scary!!!

Growing up, I somehow managed to watch virtually all the soaps (there were about fourteen on the air back in the eighties) before technology evolved to make that routine. Having six aunts with different tastes in shows made it possible. However, at heart I was always an NBC boy.

Kirk Cranston on Santa Barbara terrified me too; but it was Carl Hutchins that truly gave me nightmares. One of the earliest scenes of Another World that I can recall is a scene of him dragging a tied-up Marlee Love (played by Ellen Wheeler) through the Arizona desert. It looked as if he were going to eat her alive!

I so remember her on AW. Alma scared the bejesus out of poor Blain. I was ten when this storyline aired. I will never look at a raggedy anne costume the same way again. Lol.

I can’t come up with numbers 5 through 2 at the moment but #1 was a no-brainer for me as soon as I saw the topic.

=#1 RAY GARDNER – ALL MY CHILDREN

Seriously, this man used to scare the hell out of me. Not only was it the physical appearance of Ray’s awesome portrayer, Gil Rogers, but it was the way he totally played that role. You believed this was a man who regularly abused his wife Opal Gardner and beat a adolescent Tad Martin close to death and left to die in a park. You believed this was a man who brutally raped the show’s matriarch Ruth Martin. I for one was relieved when he became a victim of his own homemade bomb. That character gave me the creeps.

I didn’t expect Ray to come up on Luke’s list since he had been gone for awhile by the time Luke started watching AMC, even though Tad, Opal, and others have certainly referenced him enough, but I was surprised that he didn’t come up on anyone else’s list. Oh well! So it goes. That’s my #1 pick.

An honorable mention, or he may make my 5 through 2, if I ever get to it, was Pimp Tyrone (no last name ever given) He was the pimp of former prostitute and the love of Dr. Chuck Tyler’s life, Donna Beck. Tyrone was played by Roscoe Orman, who went on to play Gordon on Sesame Street of all things. Yes, he was very scary as well.

@everyone: My top 5 are based on bad acting! A bad actor scares the s--t out of me and makes my skin crawl. It makes me have nightmares that they would somehow end up in primetime or a lead in a film. So here they do.

5. Melody Thomas Scott <<< For almost 30 years she terrified me with her bad acting. Finally someone exorcised the demon. Now she is just okay. Yet as a kid I kid behind the sofa when she came on in a scene.
4. The Writers of Capitol <<< That was the worst written soap opera I have ever seen. I mean it was just awful. Of Course accept for AW NBC was not known for many good actors on any of its soaps.
3. Kristian Alfonso <<< She's a sneak up on you bad actress. Not Single White Female, but Single Bad Actress. It is the worst when they attempt to play her as a villain. I have to grab my Rosery on that one and say 10 Hail Mary's. Hey, I was raised Catholic.
2. Ron Moss <<< Lord he scares me to death when he says LOGAN! And these days he reminds of me Skelator before he lost his skin. But that acting just sends to put the covers over my head.
1. Drake Hogestyn <<< Has me shaking like a puss in boots. I have Stella Adler's Actor's Therapy on speed dial and a bottle of vodka on hand when he's on-air.

Going through that hurricane yesterday was a bit scary for a few hours, but mercifully, I'm one of those lucky ones that has power. I still haven't been outside yet. Oh, what awaits tomorrow!

Anyhoo,

Does anyone remember Doug Cummings and his assistant Marsha?

How he dated Frannie Hughes while simultaneously stalking her Aunt/StepMother Kim Hughes?
And the look on her face when she found Doug's 'Secret Room' which had a Shrine dedicated to Kim?
I watched that storyline again last year on You Tube and man, that Marsha woman made chills run up my spine by her very presence.

Speaking of As The World Turns-

Does Anyone remember Lilith, Duncan McKechnie's ex wife? What a creepy, eerie woman! I swear that woman must have been a Vampire! And they'd always play that creepy stringed music whenever they had scenes with her. I think she poisoned several people. And Duncan and Tonio Reyes were probably the only surviving lovers of hers. I used to think that maybe she was a cannibal, but in my defense I was probably only 11 or 12 back then.

Very funny podcast. Thank you. I had a hard time thinking up daytime soap characters whom truly frightened me. Jamey was right about GL's Brent/Marian played by Frank Beatty. Truly scary.

In primetime, I was scared by that TV producer (played by Chris Lemmon) who stalked Karen and Jill Bennett (played by Teri Austin) who tried to kill Val and framed Gary.

Jamey, please warn us when you do your Erika Slezak imitation in the future. It’s hard enough keeping it together when you’re doing Eric Braeden and Melody Thomas-Scott but that imitation of Ms. Slezak had me laughing so hard, I was almost gasping for breath.
ROTFLMAO!!!

Oops! Double post! Sorry!

No soap character has scared me more than Another World's Carl Hutchins. I swear Charles Keating broke the fourth wall once and smirked directly at the camera during one of his creepy, conniving monologues. Scared the absolute shit out of me as a kid! No soap character comes even close to that Carl Hutchins.

Honorable mention goes to Jeanne Cooper's drunk Katherine. She was spooky to me...but not nearly as much as Carl Hutchins.

I actually played back the last 10 minutes of the podcast last night and this morning on the way to work. Jamey and his actor impersonations and real talk interpretations of favorite daytime drama moments are ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

Sven was by far the scariest character ever on a soap. He was like one of those back woods serial killers who shoot at the revenuers to get them away from his still.
The man would bring out his pocket knife and carve on something while talking to another character and I swear he would look at the other person like they were dinner. Poor Helga was so scared of him and he made her have sex all with him! And that is him BEFORE he even did the BAD things like killing poor old Rocky and kidnapping Rachel.
Then there was Alma!!!! She would send chills down my spine when she smiled.

Mac Cory simply could not hire the help. Of all daytime scary people 3 of my 5 characters worked for at the Cory mansion. The third on is Louise Goddard. She was not evil per se but she was scary. Walking around looking weird and talking to all the plants. That in itself was pretty strange but she also was totally in love (creepy love) with Iris Carrington for years. She would have done anything that woman said for her to do short of murder.
Actually all of my top 5 are on AW.
The other two are Olive Randolph and Carl Hutchens. Olive was Sheila(Y&R)all over but crazier. She hated poor Alice Frame for stealing her ex husband. She married John Randolph for his money and got him to build her this mansion and then burned the thing down because she was trying to kill Alice.
My list would be:
5 Louise Goddard Brooks
4 Olive Gordon Randolph
3 Carl Hutchens
2 Alma Rudder
1 Sven Petersen

I been thinking of "true" villains over my soap viewing years, not "super" villains and here's my list:

5. Y&R's Suzanne Lynch "Haunting of Katherine Chancellor"- '78-80 (played by Ellen Weston soap writer) She was the ex-wife of Derek Thurston a hair burner. He was in love with Jill but married drunk Kay. Katherine wanted to piss off Jill and would set up a trust for baby Phillip, he married Kay. Suzanne came to town to win back Derek and started drugging a drunk Kay and set the Chancellor mansion on fire (yes Bill did the same thing)Suzanne put a body with Kay's ring on her finger and everyone thought Kay was dead. Derek inherited Kay's money was going to marry Jill. Suzanne had Kay shipped to undisclosed looney bin pretending being her daughter and then kept drugging Kay. Kay thinking Suzanne had died in the fire and started haunting Kay into thinking she going in insane. JC was fantasic in this story! Kay on one of her drugged out state stabbed Suzanne to death. Awesome story for Katherine one the my favorites Bill did with Katherine.

4. Y&R's Rose DeVille - late Darlene Connelly "Blackmarket Baby Broker" '79-80 & '86-87. Some didn't realize Rose was on Y&R early knowing a young Nikki.

3. SFT's Jennifer Pace - Morgan Fairchild '73-77. I was only 12 when Jennifer arrived and she scared me. Morgan as always played the devilishly sex kitten to the hilt. She drove her alcoholic husband back to drink, but was injured in an accident going through the glass doors, leaving her unhinged. Jennifer had a hand in the death of Doug Martin then her most despicable act was the murder of Doug's ex-wife, Eunice Gardner Wyatt, Jo's sister. This was part of Jennifer's scheme to steal Eunice's husband, John Wyatt. Jennifer felt that she had heard John's voice saying that she had to kill Eunice. SFT was cooking on all cylinders then and had huge rating spike for those 3 years Morgan was on the show....here's a delicious clip
How soaps was in the mid-70s and LOVE IT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeOldY4WqMo&feature=channel&list=UL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9uDAoFjvgM&feature=channel&list=UL

2. Y&R's Sheila Carter a classic Bill Bell villain. Everyone knows Sheila.

1. GL's Roger Thrope simply because of MZ. He infused so many layers of this character. Unlike Adam GL did a redempation story to keep Roger and always the underlining guilt always was present with Roger and it was never forgotten of the rape of Holly. Giving Roger a tortured soul. (

Of the ones mentioned, I'd have to agree that OLTL's Mitch Laurence, GH's Cesar Faison and AW's Csrl Hutchins (pre-redemption) are among the scariest, but one none of you mentioned was GH's Ryan Chamberlain, Dr. Kevin Collins' evil twin. He had a sick unrequited love for Felicia and tried to kill her at her first wedding to Mac by planting a bomb in their wedding cake. He later kidnapped Felicia and baby Georgie. The thing that made him so scary to me is that Jon Lindstrom played the part so convincingly that you forgot it was the same actor playing both roles. The scariest was when Ryan was impersonating Kevin, or when he was manipulating Kevin to think that he was no longer mentally ill.

Just caught up on the podcast and some oldies from my childhood came back to mind.

Susan Piper from Guiding Light. That was one scary woman. She killed Hilary Bauer which was shocking and I'll never forget Susan drowning in quicksand and the last shot of her was her hand popping out and then disappearing forever.

Maggie Ashley from One Life To Live. Pat Ashley's demented twin sister locked Pat in the basement for weeks and took over her life. That was a great showcase for the late great Jacqueline Courtney.

And one most people have forgotten. Winter Austen from Edge Of Night. She went on trial for murder, was acquitted, then it turned out she actually did it and then proceeded to stalk Nicole Cavanaugh in a studio with a pair of scissors. That was one of the scariest weeks I'd ever seen in daytime.

Jagger1966 ...loving your memories because I remember the EON and especially Susan Piper by wonderful Carrie Nye on GL...great story. Great memories of great stories that has flowed on our airwaves...Sigh