Santa Barbara

Soap Opera Digest, July 11, 1989
SANTA BARBARA is unquestionably the biggest cult soap since DARK SHADOWS. Its ratings never make headlines, but one would never know that by the way the show's followers talk about it. This is a loyal, vocal group that literally salivates over all the day-to-day action. 3ddly enough, many of these viewers are he same folks who have watched ALL MY CHILDREN or AS THE WORLD TURNS for ears, but they discuss the happenings on these shows in more reserved tones.

Of course, there is a fundamental difference between DARK SHADOWS and SANTA BARBARA. While DARK SHADOWS was obvious camp (a Gothic horror poof with werewolves, vampires and time warps), SB doesn't fit neatly into any one category. Through most of its five years on the air, it has been an unlikely blend of Hamlet, MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTAN, SOAP, WHEEL OF FORTUNE and Waiting for Mr. Goodbar.

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Soap Opera Digest, July 11, 1989
Joe Marinelli is discussing the finer points of women's fashions. Panty hose, bugle beads, gold lame. He's not shopping for a present for his girlfriend or his sister. He's telling me how some of these items fit him — the three-quarter gloves, the evening gowns — and how playing "mobster/cross-dresser" Bunny Tagliatti on SANTA BARBARA has changed his life.

Understand that there is nothing androgynous about Joe's appearance. He has a broad face and nose, a stocky build, heavy beard, hairy arms — features not usually associated with women, but that's exactly why Marinelli got the part. "I asked the producers if they wanted [Bunny] to be a little feminine," says the actor. Absolutely not was the answer. "They wanted somebody who was absolutely masculine. Bunny's got a heart of gold, but he will kill anybody." Marinelli's research into the phenomenon of cross-dressing gave him an education in one of the strangest of all sexual subcultures: heterosexual transvestites.

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Soap Opera Digest, December 26, 1989
Robert Barr, the right-hand man of a Las Vegas mobster named Tonell, arrived in town to engineer a takeover of Capwell Enterprises. His real objective was a reunion with Eden. They'd been in love as teenagers, and Barr couldn't forget her. A case of amnesia had blocked out Eden's memories of Barr and their summer on the island of Sirenas.

Eden had also repressed the memory of the murder of a man named Raoul. Robert had served five years in prison for the crime, believing he was taking the rap for Eden. Santa Barbara mayoral candidate Jerry Calhoun, a childhood friend of Mason's, was found to be the culprit after a re-creation of the night of Raoul's murder on the Capwell yacht. Jerry jumped overboard and drowned. The crime solved, Cruz fretted that Eden still loved Robert. Castillo lost his job, thanks to Tonell.

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