Sunday, April 18, 2010

50 Greatest Soap Actors: #22 Stuart Damon

NAME: Stuart Damon
RANK: 22
SOAP ROLES: Jim Ford, DAYS OF OUR LIVES (2010); Ralph Manzo, AS THE WORLD TURNS (2009); Alan Quartermaine, GENERAL HOSPITAL (1977-2008); Alan Quartermaine, PORT CHARLES (1997-2002)

AWARDS:
1999 Daytime Emmy win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
1999 Soap Opera Digest Award win for Favorite Veteran
1997 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
1996 Daytime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
1996 Soap Opera Digest Award win for Outstanding Supporting Actor
1993 Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor
1992 Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor: Daytime
1991 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
1990 Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Comic Actor: Daytime
1989 Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Comic Performance by an Actor: Daytime
1988 Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Comic Performance by an Actor: Daytime
1984 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
1983 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
1982 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

COMMENTS FROM THE PANEL:
Damon L. Jacobs:  Rarely has an artist excelled in illuminating the subtle yet complicated motivations of his character.  Mr. Damon spent 30 years treating us to his brilliant yet deceptively simple interpretation of Dr. Alan Quartermaine on GENERAL HOSPITAL.  He could infuse outrageously fascinating subtext to the very best and worst dialogue at his disposal, and had plenty of opportunities to do both during his tenure on this ABC soap.  His recent short-term stints as a sociopathic mob boss on AS THE WORLD TURNS, and as a politically corrupt official on DAYS OF OUR LIVES, both demonstrate that we have only scratched the surface of this artist's genius.  With any luck his beloved audience will continue to witness the unraveling layers of Damon's gravitas.

Alan Carter: To those of us old enough to remember Prince Charming and Cinderella, it was a revelation when Damon took on the role of arrogant Alan Quartermaine...comic relief, broad comedy, slapstick, plotting to kill Monica, high drama, anything the writers of GH wanted to do with Damon over two decades he could pull off.

Connie Passalacqua Hayman (Marlena De Lacroix): Handsome and evil as all get out as the early Alan Quartermaine, the character become as tender and dear as the actor himself in later years. Firing him from GH was an act of real cruelty. Great recently as Uncle (Sopranos) Ralphie on AS THE WORLD TURNS.

COMMENTS FROM CO-STARS/CO-WORKERS/INDUSTRY:
Jacklyn Zeman: (worked with Damon on GENERAL HOSPITAL) Stuart Damon is a true Prince and forever charming. He is the ultimate professional and a really nice man.

5 comments:

  1. During the days of the Monica/Rick/Lesley/Alan storyline, Stuart Damon was terrific. You always believed that he was one step from actually killing Monica. In later years, really loved seeing him fighting with Tracy and with Edward (especially the original Edward).

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  2. The summer during which Alan carefully rigged the under-construction Quartermaine nursery roof to collapse...every day turning a vise grip/clamp a little looser to weaken the roof...was must-see for me.

    He planned to lure cheating Monica and Rick to the nursery at just the right time, and let the ceiling fall of them.

    That was a perfectly constructed soap story. We understood his rage, but also understood that it was over the top. We worried for Rick and Monica, but also knew they had done wrong.

    Best of all, the story played out over weeks (months?). Each day we saw the turn of the screw.

    Both the pacing of the story and Damon's portrayal are testaments to day in which characters were still redeemable and the agonizing "make 'em wait" made payoffs even more delicious. That this story happened during GH's famous "renaissance" under Gloria Monty is also a testament to how solidly grounded her (and Douglas Marland at that point?) "new" soap form was in what had come before.

    I had the sad opportunity to watch Alan's final story. It was agony to see him die--heart spasm by spasm--in front of us. There was no need for that horrid act of budget cutting. For many of us, it really built a wall around our hearts for GH. Only recently, as GH seems to again embrace more emotional, character-based, relationship-based storytelling has it been possible for me to watch regularly again.

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  3. "For many of us, it really built a wall around our hearts for GH."

    That is EXACTLY how I felt, Mark H! Thank you articulating that so well.

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  4. Hey...I think u made a boo boo...Damon only won the Emmy once in 1999...the other years he was nominated.... :)

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