SEQUEL PROJECT

And after "Dallas"...

the Tuscany Falcon returns!!!

"I´m a little too old to be happy, but not too old to be thankful".With these words, JANE WYMAN accepted in 1984 the GOLDEN GLOBE Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series for his performance as ANGELA CHANNING in the Third Season of FALCON CREST. She had been nominated for the same award the previous year, but JOAN COLLINS' wicked ALEXIS stole it away from her. And the following year, it was time for ANGELA LANSBURY for MURDER, SHE WROTE. But JANE had already won other three GLOBES for her movie roles.

During the 80´s decade, WYMAN symbolized the unlimited greed (with the permission of LARRY HAGMAN and COLLINS herself), which accentuated because of the scandalous fact that her character was a grandmother and, thorough the show's run, she became a grand-grandmother. The actress, who won an OSCAR for her role as deaf-mute BELINDA in 1948´s JOHNNY BELINDA (and was nominated in three other occasions), died while she was sleeping, at 90 years old, on September 10, 2007, after going through five marriages (one of them to ex-President Ronald Reagan), nearly one hundred movies, 209 FALCON CREST episodes and a long fight against arthritis and diabetes.

Next month of May JANE WYMAN will be honored with a Star on the Walk of Stars in PALM SPRINGS, California. However, this event is not the object of this story, but some news published by WILLIAM KECK last October 10, 2013, on tvguide.com site:

"Following TNT's successful DALLAS relaunch, stars of the 1981-1990 CBS primetime soap FALCON CREST have been approached by one of the original show's writers about their interest in appearing in a reboot.

"There's not much I can say, for reasons that go beyond myself," original star WILLIAM R. (for REMINGTON...) MOSES said at the premiere of War Horse at Los Angeles' Pantages Theatre. "Warner Bros. owns the rights and so it's a discussion between them and the writers. There is a pitch and an idea germinating that has some traction. The producers contacted me to ask if I'd be interested, and I said yes. Where it goes on the producing side, I don't know."

SUSAN SULLIVAN, who played MOSES' TV mother, MAGGIE, on the Northern California-set soap, was the first to clue me in to the project. Because her character was killed off the series, her involvement would only be as a specter in the mind of surviving characters. According to Sullivan, the proposed new series would focus on Moses' COLE GIOBERTI and DAVID SELBY's RICHARD CHANNING, son of the matriarch ANGELA (the late JANE WYMAN).

"DAVID and I speak periodically and are old friends and it would be fascinating for me to work with him again," says MOSES, whose character exited the series after five and a half seasons. "Life was too small for COLE in the vineyards, so he went to Australia to form a new life. Because the character was left open-ended, I would be curious to see what that boy became as a man. I can see him coming back to the valley with a chip on his shoulder." This is all the information provided by Keck for tvguide.

Earlier on, Warner Horizon (also owner of DALLAS´ rights for TV and movies) announced they had in development a "revival" of FALCON CREST, this meaning a continuation like TNT´s DALLAS. The people at charge of it are the series developer and Supervising Producer ROBERT L. McCULLOUGH (who also penned 50 scripts for the original series and directed one of them) and Story Editor GARNER SIMMONS (author of 8 episodes and currently an active producer).

Both of them were part of the creative team in the show´s first three years, and their first task was developing the script of a filmed but unaired Pilot, THE VINTAGE YEARS, where EARL HAMNER planted the seed of what we know as FALCON CREST, starring a few of the actors who were featured in the "ultimate" series: JANE WYMAN, LORENZO LAMAS, ABBY DALTON, JAMIE ROSE and WILLIAM R. MOSES.

54-year-old MOSES appeared, after leaving the show in 1986, in two more episodes of the next season. He pursued his career with small roles in movies (MYSTIC PIZZA or TRIAL BY JURY, for instance) and then focused it on Television, where he starred in the PERRY MASON continuation side by side with RAYMOND BURR himself, in the miniseries WAR AND REMEMBRANCE, and in MELROSE PLACE, where he played a psycho man obsessed with ALLISON, a role totally different from COLE. Recently he has guest-starred in episodes of THE MENTALIST, MAJOR CRIMES and MIND GAMES. His last movie has been filmed in 2014: a thriller entitled KILLING DADDY (he plays the title father).

Multitalented 73-year-old DAVID SELBY has continued a post-RICHARD CHANNING career as an actor and a poetry and drama writer. Besides his cameo in the movie version of his first big break DARK SHADOWS, he has appeared as a supporting actor in well-received films, such as THE SOCIAL NETWORK and INHALE. Casting directors of today's most prestigious series have also counted on him for roles in MAD MEN or COLD CASE.

About the fate of his most famous character, he stated:

"I liked the idea that (he) had found some kind of peace in his life and that he was able to make the turn - towards the light, I mean you have a choice, you have a life. We all do. And you have to pay attention to these choices (...) in your life (...), and CHANNING, at that point, made the choice. And I think his life may have not been as exciting, but in some aspects, maybe, he relished that because he knew that somebody loved him.

"I liked that aspect because that means that he had come full circle (...). So from that aspect, yes, (I liked the finale). The other aspect of it - I think, of course, everyoe knew that was going to be the last season. And it wasn't..., there was no sadness or anything like that simply because that particular show had run its course in a sense, though, that - I think - to a certain degree it had lost direction...as a way to go. JANE WYMAN wasn´t happy, and nobody was..."

Regarding the involvement in it of the rest of the FALCON CREST "heirs", the writers have only mentioned the name of LORENZO LAMAS, "depending on how things play out", besides, of course, the real protagonists: the new generation of CHANNINGS and GIOBERTIS. Their goal is re-capture the spirit of the first three years and leave on the side "the burden of all the contradictions" from the rest of the show. The adjectives they use to define it are slightly alarming:

"Outrageous, inventive, calculating, shocking, bold, agressive, horrifying and even...diabolic."

Shall we get to see the "resurrection" of FALCON CREST with its former writers (and two of its stars) at the helm?

Sources:

http://www.tvguide.com/news/kecks-exclusives-falcon-1071878.aspx

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0782978/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_trv_sm#trivia

http://www.falconcrest.org/

You can find anything FALCON CREST-related clicking on the latter link: a comprehensive and very creative German / English site.

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