Melissa Re-uploaded

[Toni]

Once upon a time...

In December 2015 (6 years ago already), I and all the "Falcon Crest" fans got an early Christmas present in the form of a one-hour Question & Answer session with one of my favorite stars of this show, Ana-Alicia. We had sent her a lot of questions which she kindly answered personally in her own podcast. Later on, the podcast went offline but I had kept a copy of it, since it is, so far, one of the biggest, most satisfying experiences I have had on the internet.

Life happened, and on the occasion of the show´s 40th anniversary, I tried to contact Ana-Alicia again to ask her for permission to re-upload the whole thing as a tribute to the series but, very especially, to Ana herself. Thanks to the invaluable help of @TJP, I got her ok in a record time. And here is the result: a 2-part edited version of that session, with a lot of pictures and a couple of clips. This is my homage to her and also to you, because you also made this happen. Every question is shown on screen along with the name of the fan who made it. In these times when everybody is seeing each other´s face with the Zoom thing, this is a humble proof of how strong, positive fandom can be. For all of you who don´t have English as your first language, English subtitles are available to help you

So Merry belated Christmas and a Happy New Year! Here is my present to all of you (and Ana too!):

PS: Here is a call to the friends who made questions (sorry if some of you is not on this new forum or changed their nick):
@Willie Oleson (I hope that was you, sweetiepie!)
@Karin Schill

 

[Willie Oleson]

I was really afraid to see what my question was going to be.

There was another Q&A-with-Melissa going on at that time (and maybe in the same thread!) and I just assumed that this one never happened.
Thank you Toni, this is a very nice surprise!

 

[Jock Og]

Great stuff Toni! I recollect there was a podcast on your website and then there was another broadcast here. The event occurred some months before the crash and sad demise of the original forum.

Unfortunately Ana didn't have the time to answer all questions. Mine and a few other 'Falcon Crestees' were not answered. However she kindly commented that there will be another time......


Mexico born Ana Alicia (aka Melissa) has just joined the cast of the new CBS wine saga FALCON CREST, shown right after DALLAS. Ana is somewhat apprehensive about her very vamp feisty (no holes barred) character. The newcomer expresses her concern to top billing star Jane Wyman, who advises she speaks with Fr. Bob Curtis, ('behind the scenes'; from season 1, 1981-'82):

Fr. Curtis speaks to Ana: "Drama started in the church and someone has to play evil. The better you play evil, the better it makes the good things look."

Jane Wyman after doing a heavy verbal showdown with Ana: "Oh honey, Father Bob will love this!"

 

[Richard Denault]

I never liked Rod Taylor as an actor. Not even in Alfred Hitchcock's Los Pajaros.
At Falcon Crest it was Jane Wyman who insisted that they hire him
You remember that I play Frank Agretti, Melissa's uncle
Ana Alicia must not have liked it either. When they ask her about him and interpret again.
It expands a lot on the second, Rod says nothing

 

[Angela Channing]

Thanks Toni for posting this, really interesting interview.

 

[Karin Schill]

Thanks for reuploading this great interview. I am sure I've listened to it way back but I seem to have forgotten some things.
First of all I think it's sad how she lost her father so early on in life and I can see how that must have been a traumatic experience for her.
But it's a positive thing that she's been able to rechannel those emotions into her acting.

Cool that she played a Swedish girl for her first role.

Also for some reason I haven't really thought of that she was actually born in Mexico.

I guess she must have been really religious to want to be a nun as a child.

Interesting stories about how she got "Ryan's Hope" and "Falcon Crest" too.
Too funny how she tried to seduce the woman she read opposite. But that's good acting!

Over all she sounds like a really friendly person.

 

[WarriorsFan]

Casting a Mexican-American actress as the main vixen on a primetime soap opera in the early 1980s was quite groundbreaking. That was something we would not see again until the mid-2000s.

"Producer had a connection to a different actress they wanted to bring on to take the place of Melissa". So there was more to the hiring of said actress then. I thought it was due to said actress having a huge following from a show popular with younger audiences and CBS was hoping for that younger audience to follow said actress to their primetime lineup.

 

[Angela Channing]

Casting a Mexican-American actress as the main vixen on a primetime soap opera in the early 1980s was quite groundbreaking. That was something we would not see again until the mid-2000s.

"Producer had a connection to a different actress they wanted to bring on to take the place of Melissa". So there was more to the hiring of said actress then. I thought it was due to said actress having a huge following from a show popular with younger audiences and CBS was hoping for that younger audience to follow said actress to their primetime lineup.

More so than the other main US prime time soaps of the era, Falcon Crest had more ethnic diversity with Asian-American and Latinx actors in a few prominent roles.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

Toni;
Thank you for posting this. I was relatively late coming into the game when it came to Dallas and Falcon Crest. By the time I came on board, both shows were in what is now I guess regarded as the period of their decline:1987-88, but as a 10 year old, I enjoyed this time, and now, while Falcon Crest is kind of a blur because I haven't seen any episodes, outside of seasons 1-3 in 21 years, I do have some flashbacks about the excitement of Melissa throwing Angela out of Falcon Crest, Richard being shot, and the eventual Falcon Crest fire. Melissa seemed like a very interesting character, and I do remember thinking season 8 was rather dull compared to the previous season.

Ana, I am curious as to what you didn't like about Rod Taylor? As I said, it's been a while, but I thought he did a pretty good job as Frank, and then to see him coming undone in season 9 when the Andrea Thompson character starts playing head games with him was pretty intense. He did this well. To each their own, but I was just curious what it was about his acting or character that turned you off.

 

[Karin Schill]

I agree that the show jumped the shark when Melissa died in that fire. I think it was pointless bringing her back as a different character too since people wanted to see Melissa not Samantha. Come to think of it, I think this is an example of how Dallas got it right when they made Bobby dying a part of Pam's dream which enabled Patrick Duffy to come back as Bobby and not another lookalike character. People wanted him to be Bobby. Just like people wanted Ana Alicia's character to be Melissa.

 

[Richard Denault]

I agree that the show jumped the shark when Melissa died in that fire. I think it was pointless bringing her back as a different character too since people wanted to see Melissa not Samantha. Come to think of it, I think this is an example of how Dallas got it right when they made Bobby dying a part of Pam's dream which enabled Patrick Duffy to come back as Bobby and not another lookalike character. People wanted him to be Bobby. Just like people wanted Ana Alicia's character to be Melissa.

They also wanted Cole to die in a shipwreck but Willians Moses convinced them not to.
After the mistake of Bobby's death because they insisted that the deaths of Melissa and Magie were irreversible,

 

[Richard Denault]

I agree that the show jumped the shark when Melissa died in that fire. I think it was pointless bringing her back as a different character too since people wanted to see Melissa not Samantha. Come to think of it, I think this is an example of how Dallas got it right when they made Bobby dying a part of Pam's dream which enabled Patrick Duffy to come back as Bobby and not another lookalike character. People wanted him to be Bobby. Just like people wanted Ana Alicia's character to be Melissa.

Toni;
Thank you for posting this. I was relatively late coming into the game when it came to Dallas and Falcon Crest. By the time I came on board, both shows were in what is now I guess regarded as the period of their decline:1987-88, but as a 10 year old, I enjoyed this time, and now, while Falcon Crest is kind of a blur because I haven't seen any episodes, outside of seasons 1-3 in 21 years, I do have some flashbacks about the excitement of Melissa throwing Angela out of Falcon Crest, Richard being shot, and the eventual Falcon Crest fire. Melissa seemed like a very interesting character, and I do remember thinking season 8 was rather dull compared to the previous season.

Ana, I am curious as to what you didn't like about Rod Taylor? As I said, it's been a while, but I thought he did a pretty good job as Frank, and then to see him coming undone in season 9 when the Andrea Thompson character starts playing head games with him was pretty intense. He did this well. To each their own, but I was just curious what it was about his acting or character that turned you off.

I love Alfred Hitchcock's movies but in the birds I didn't like Rod Taylor as the leading man in the movie.
As for Frank Agretti, in my opinion he should have been a support for Melissa. He is say Angela's uncle and not Angela's husband
His friendship with Angela left Melissa more alone

 

[Toni]

It´s funny but I also think that Rod Taylor didn´t actually work out in the show. On the paper, it was a great chance to introduce a Hollywood star with a tailor-made role as a long-lost member of one of the original families. Maybe it was because Rod was such an energetic presence in all his classic movies, including "The Birds", or maybe because he wasn´t believably coupled with anyone in the show (not even Angela as a friend, who looked older than him). No disrespect to Mr. Taylor, who was a great actor and a gentleman, as Ana-Alicia points out in the podcast.

Then there is also the undeniable matter that at that point stunt casting in FC was completely worn-out. Anyway, I will re-watch his episodes in a near future to see if my opinion has changed.

 

[Karin Schill]

They also wanted Cole to die in a shipwreck but Willians Moses convinced them not to.
After the mistake of Bobby's death because they insisted that the deaths of Melissa and Magie were irreversible,

The episode where Maggie drown in the pool was the first one I ever saw. I think it was a mistake to kill of Maggie too.

 

[stevew]

More so than the other main US prime time soaps of the era, Falcon Crest had more ethnic diversity with Asian-American and Latinx actors in a few prominent roles.

And there best bad guy role went to Rosemont, an Africa-American, in my opinion. Very diverse indeed.

 

[stevew]

I agree that the show jumped the shark when Melissa died in that fire. I think it was pointless bringing her back as a different character too since people wanted to see Melissa not Samantha. Come to think of it, I think this is an example of how Dallas got it right when they made Bobby dying a part of Pam's dream which enabled Patrick Duffy to come back as Bobby and not another lookalike character. People wanted him to be Bobby. Just like people wanted Ana Alicia's character to be Melissa.

I agree except wiping out a season as they did was a bit of a jumping the shark moment as well, to me.

 

[Richard Denault]

Y el mejor papel de chico malo fue para Rosemont, un afroamericano, en mi opinión. Muy diverso por cierto.

Lo que no estaba en Falcon Crest era Gay a pesar de que dos de los escritores lo estaban.
Steven En Dinastía de era Gayy acabo de reseñar un episodio de Dallas en el que Lucy se enamora de un hombre gay y él se lo confiesa antes de la boda, muy simpático y respetuoso
Aparentemente, se pensaba que Meredith y Erin eran lesbianas, pero luego se convirtieron en hermanas.

And there best bad guy role went to Rosemont, an Africa-American, in my opinion. Very diverse indeed.

What was not in Falcon Crest was gay even though two of the writers were.
Steven in dynasty it was and I just reviewed an episode of Dallas in which Lucy falls in love with a gay man and he confesses it to her before the wedding, Very nice and respectful
Meredith and Erin were thought to be lesbians but later changed to sisters.

 

[stevew]

Lo que no estaba en Falcon Crest era Gay a pesar de que dos de los escritores lo estaban.
Steven En Dinastía de era Gayy acabo de reseñar un episodio de Dallas en el que Lucy se enamora de un hombre gay y él se lo confiesa antes de la boda, muy simpático y respetuoso
Aparentemente, se pensaba que Meredith y Erin eran lesbianas, pero luego se convirtieron en hermanas.

What was not in Falcon Crest was gay even though two of the writers were.
Steven in dynasty it was and I just reviewed an episode of Dallas in which Lucy falls in love with a gay man and he confesses it to her before the wedding, Very nice and respectful
Meredith and Erin were thought to be lesbians but later changed to sisters.

Good point. I’m doing a FC fan fiction where Kevin is bisexual.

 

[Falcon Crest I]

Thanks for uploading the podcast again Toni. Falcon Crest would have been a whole lot duller without Carlo's princess.

 

[Richard Denault]

Good point. I’m doing a FC fan fiction where Kevin is bisexual.

Regarding Kevin, remember that he was Chase's son. Melissa changed the blood for the paternity test.