West coast reporting
By Tony Rizzo, Soap Opera Digest, 1985	Home   Cette page en Français

The new big over at Santa Barbara is that they have signed Joseph Bottoms to play Kirk, Joel Crothers' (Jack Lee) son on the show. Bottoms has appeared in many films, mini-series and TV-movies, but has shied away from episodic television, so joining a daytime show is a change.

Many folks are asking, why the change of heart ? The reason is that New World the film company which just bought Santa Barbara, has promised to invest a lot of money in the show and have pulled off a very clever arrangement by offering big names from movies and TV a three picture deal along with Santa Barbara. It makes good sense to push an actor who is working on a soap into others mediums; one promotes the other and when you control the movie and the soap actor is in, you can arrange the schedules to accommodate him. For years I have wondered why the networks haven't put their daytime people into prime time guest shots in an effort to bridge their daytime and nighttime audiences - maybe if this works with Santa Barbara it will clear the way for other shows to do the same.

The second star to be signed for Santa Barbara is comedian Jack Carter, who is playing Richard Eden's (Brick Wallace) father. Jack has proven through the years what a good actor he is and now finds himself doing heavy drama. As a matter of fact, Richard admitted, "The other day we had the toughest scene together. We had the toughest time getting through it because every time I looked at Jack I wanted to laugh, which came from all those years of laughing at his great jokes and routines. However, when we finally got past that and completed the scene, there wasn't a dry eye in the house."

Richard's recent daring, almost nude layout in Allure magazine not only caused a sensation among readers and viewers but also behind the scenes at Santa Barbara. They are now writing in a lot of sexy bedroom scenes as part of Brick's new image. When Richard is asked how he feels about his daring career move he admits, "I didn't feel it was a risk at all; after all, I was the second centerfold... Mel Gibson was the first and I'd be glad to follow him into any role !"