Let's talk about Linda Evans' acting

[Zara]

LE was as most beautiful and soulful in her acting in season 1 and 2. A perfect Krystle even though she hadn't nailed the part quite yet, but this "insecurity" was also what made it better a part from love scenes with Blake/men, too awkward. Krystle's innocence was captured like no one else could by LE. And her tender way to approach men and life. Blake always knew he had lost when K turned away in silence and let her calmness shine through. Blake lost his choleric disease because of it.

I never liked her hands, though, too bony and old looking even when she was barley 40.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

LE was as most beautiful and soulful in her acting in season 1 and 2. A perfect Krystle even though she hadn't nailed the part quite yet, but this "insecurity" was also what made it better a part from love scenes with Blake/men, too awkward. Krystle's innocence was captured like no one else could by LE. And her tender way to approach men and life. Blake always knew he had lost when K turned away in silence and let her calmness shine through. Blake lost his choleric disease because of it.

I never liked her hands, though, too bony and old looking even when she was barley 40.

But the actress being insecure and the character being insecure isn't quite same thing.

Also, actors need to be able to resist criticism, even criticism from fans, or else it can do you in. Linda reportedly got a lot of fan mail telling her that Krystle was "too sad" and that she needed to "be happy!" And if Linda took that to heart and that was the basis for her to shift from melancholy to automated squeaky-happyishness, then she was done in by the more moronic of the audience.

But who knows....?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Joan Crawford went around telling young actresses (at least the ones she didn't hate) to lower their voices -- the pitch, not the volume -- and practice by reading the phone book aloud in order to deepen the voice. Some of those actresses found this very useful.

Maybe Missy should have passed Mommie Dearest's wisdom onto to Linda, because I've read on Youtube videos of (good) Season 2 scenes between Krystle & Alexis commenters mentioning how "deep" Krystle's voice is in contrast to the higher-pitched, airy voice they'd mostly remembered from her.

I think all the producers had to tell her was to "relax" and speak more deeply, and the problems that eventually arose in her performance -- where she went from winning Golden Globes to being called "flimsy" in the press -- could have been avoided. But there was apparently no one there to do that, the showrunners just wanting Krystle to have affairs which Linda disapproved of.

In any event, a simple deeper voice can add gravitas to an actor's presence, while wall-to-wall squeakiness doesn't.

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

Think that the writing limited her opportunities, and most directors didn't seem to want to expand on her acting.
The Rita storyline didn't work too well - I think it was an attempt (a bad one, granted) at trying to give her more substance.

Well... In Beach Blanket Bingo, she sang!!!

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Think that the writing limited her opportunities, and most directors didn't seem to want to expand on her acting.
The Rita storyline didn't work too well - I think it was an attempt (a bad one, granted) at trying to give her more substance.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the Rita storyline, nor Evans performance in it... Some fans of it feel watching Krystle and Rita was like watching two different people, while I feel exactly the opposite -- in fact, when we used to dub fake dialogue over DYNASTY episodes (circa Seasons 4 & 5) and our version of moany, spoiled Krystle anticipated exactly what Rita Lesley would turn out to be.

Not that I blame Linda too much; it was an ill-conceived plotline and it also went on much too long. And, really, what more should she have done with it? (I always like the idea of Rita adopting a markedly different hairstyle once in the mansion, and more semi-comic attention given to her vulgar slip-ups than they did).

When first watching DYNASTY when it originally aired, I found Krystle's shrill shift (and the show around her) pointed and immediate with the outset of Season 3... With four decades to adjust to it, it no longer seems so obvious so quickly. In fact, today, when watching the DVDs, her airy screechiness seems to gradually build thru Seasons 4 and 5, and at one point, mid-way thru Season 5, she seems to catch herself and roll it back for a while.

But over time, Krystle went from sad, soulful and cleareyed in the first two years, to neurotic and cross-eyed --- even when she wasn't speaking.

It's so weird, the shift.

Well... In Beach Blanket Bingo, she sang!!!

Looped, of course.

Come to think of it, maybe Paul Lynde should have played the Carringtons' flamboyant butler for a while, somehow involved with Krystle's kidnapping...!

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

The S.A.D. would soon prevent any scenes like this from ever happening after Season 2 -- there's nothing particularly superlative about the scene, the writing's okay and the acting's sufficient, and one could easily argue that the "Willie Sutton" references hardly sounds like something that would just tumble out off of Krystle's tongue spontaneously... but yet it all works:

Hell, even the lighting on the "sky" and the brick wall behind Alexis' head as she paints has the right, convincing color-glow that really makes it look like it could actually be outside instead of a studio (which it was) in a way the cardboard studio version of the Southfork rear terrace could almost never.

Details, details. It's all about the details... And who gave up on that with the start of Season 3...?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I think all the producers had to tell her was to "relax" and speak more deeply,

Sometimes I really wonder if they told Linda to start acting that way -- to become more "reactive" and distraught to highlight Alexis' villainy. Because Linda didn't give that kind of performance in other projects outside, or after, DYNASTY.

It's always worse than you think.


"I think they're going to ask for my Golden Globe back, Matthew -- I know Sparky's lobbied the Acadamy to "unshare" it with me. And my two Emmy nominations may be stricken from the records as well. My 73 People's Choice Awards are safe, but that's trash ... hell, they tell you who won that in advance just to make sure you'll show up at the broadcast. Barbara Mandrell and John Ritter have had theirs melted down to fit the windows in the motor home she tours with, and he just likes plastic blobs that float in his bath tub with his ducky.... I'm so alone, Matthew. The future seems so bleak and --- and static, somehow... Squeaky, yes, but also static... Everyone's making fun of me, Matthew. But Elaine Rich, encircled in layers of cigar smoke past and present, just doesn't seem to care... "

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Can you imagine how Linda would have handled this scene later on in the run of the show...?

...or this:

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Well, I suppose she's kind of funny here, as rattled Rita, but with the show just becoming messier (and our humorous over-dubbings prognosticating Rita's spoiled, sulky demeanor) somehow she just seemed like Krystle with, maybe, a head cold...

 

[Laurie Marr]

Well, I suppose she's kind of funny here, as rattled Rita, but with the show just becoming messier (and our humorous over-dubbings prognosticating Rita's spoiled, sulky demeanor) somehow she just seemed like Krystle with, maybe, a head cold...

The more I revisit this storyline the more I like it. Sure, it’s nuts and lasted much too long but Evans did often manage to create dramatic tension in this largely comic scenario.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

The more I revisit this storyline the more I like it. Sure, it’s nuts and lasted much too long but Evans did often manage to create dramatic tension in this largely comic scenario.

So much of the show -- even the very worst of it. eventually ceases to shock the system with the passage of time. But I find it's taken so very long.

But knowing what's around the corner, having seen these things multiple times, viewing these story arcs unfold five times per week via syndication instead of only once per week as they originally aired, watching as many episodes as you can in a single day via streaming or DVD bingeing, and just the "it's old stuff" status accrued, really lessens the psychological impact of how crap so much of DYNASTY became, and how much it changed after its first couple of seasons.

But I see that as a version of Stockholm Syndrome. (No offense toward our Swedish posters). And while resistance is probably futile, it's probably also a healthy futility -- if such a conundrum even exists.

I just want to find out that Sammy Jo actually replaced Krystle with Rita three years earlier -- so it can all make sense.


"Where is Joanna Cassidy -- and what have you done with her, you bitch?!?"

 

[Monzo]

I liked Linda Evans on North & South very much. The way she acts fits in perfectly with the antebellum years. I wish she'd been on N&S more than just a few scenes.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I liked Linda Evans on North & South very much. The way she acts fits in perfectly with the antebellum years. I wish she'd been on N&S more than just a few scenes.

Yes, in other projects away from DYNASTY, Evans was just fine. So the static acting directive (which ran off Leann Hunley) was likely the culprit even more than the scripting.

In addition to that, one wonders if Linda was given special instructions to behave in a particularly reactive fashion (which is why shrieky Rita wasn't all that much of a stretch, because Krystle was already headed in that direction anyway).

In any event, it was devastating for the character and for the show.

 

[GillesDenver]

Frankly, I find her acting in "Bare Essence" similar of her acting in "Dynasty" (post-season 2):

She is whispering even more than she did as Krystle.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

She is whispering even more than she did as Krystle.

But the whispering was never really the problem. It was the high-pitched squealiness that she got into that made you want to medicate her.

 

[Majorfanofshow]

She loved playing Rita. I enjoyed her so much as Rita. She hated playing prisoner Krystle. The peak moment was probably her in the ambulance suffering from the miscarriage. That was harrowing

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

She loved playing Rita. I enjoyed her so much as Rita. She hated playing prisoner Krystle. The peak moment was probably her in the ambulance suffering from the miscarriage. That was harrowing

She found the whole thing embarrassing -- and who can blame her?

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Linda was absolutely terrific as Krystal.

I absolutely loved her and John Forsythe's acting on the show.

 

[DF414]

Yes, in other projects away from DYNASTY, Evans was just fine. So the static acting directive (which ran off Leann Hunley) was likely the culprit even more than the scripting.

What do you mean ran off Leann Hunley?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

What do you mean ran off Leann Hunley?

When she left the show in 1988, Hunley became the first actor to "out" the show for its rigidly maintained static acting policy (which was painfully obvious and had been for six years). The irony being that that policy had been allowed to lapse a bit during Season 8 and was removed entirely by Paulsen for Season 9 (although Linda, God bless her, had slipped too much/too long into "automatic" to quite ever relax again -- although it wasn't on display in her other projects away from DYNASTY).

Sometimes I wonder how much better and more effective Krystle's scene, the one where she learns from Sable that the body in the lake was actually Roger Grimes, would have been had Linda played it the way she would have back in Seasons 1 or 2. But long-before by Season 9, the knob on Linda's semi-shlocky "devastated" default reaction setting was too rusty.

Which is why I appreciate the brain gizmo revelation, because it allows me to forgive or rationalize all sorts of things about how Krystle devolved over the years and, hence, the show itself.

Hell, Rita Lesley was probably all part of poor Krystle's imagination.