Joanna Going

After years of playing proud and upstanding types on daytime dramas like The Doctors and Search for Tomorrow, well known gay, New York based actor David O’Brien got his Norman Bates on by playing Dr. Alan Glaser AKA “The Sin Stalker” on Another World throughout the spring and summer of 1987.

Famously, Glaser stalked popular country singer Crystal Gayle for singing lustful odes at Felicia Gallant’s (Linda Dano) top flight nightclub and even killed off established cast member Petronia Paley, who had played the notable Quinn Hardy for six years, in a particularly vicious attack.

Goaded on by the voice of his long dead mother, ’60s Hitchcock-style, Glaser soon became obsessed with the assumedly virginal Lisa Grady (Joanna Going), eventually determined to make the upstart heroine his (very reluctant) bride. Naturally, the fact that Lisa was a psychic, often receiving flashes of the Stalker’s evil actions, only added to the soapy intrigue.

Legacy character Donna Love, then played by Philece Sampler (of Days of our Lives and Rituals fame), didn’t fare so well with Glaser’s affections, though. Trapping her in a lighthouse tower, Glaser intended to put an end to Love and her often mischievous ways. A rescue attempt by John Hudson (David Forsythe), the frightened lass’s brother-in-law, resulted in an audience reveal of Alan as the formerly-mysterious killer and a highwire fall that left the heroic Hudson temporarily blinded.

Kindly doctor Jamie Frame (Laurance Lau) also felt the wraith of this twentieth century marauder. Its obvious that O’Brien is having a great time as he rises up from behind a garbage dispenser and, sneakily, attacks Frame in a parking garage.

In fact, it is his commitment and actorly-reveling here that helped make this story so memorable to passionate fans of the show. Of course, the week long appearance of Gayle as a potential victim, the noir-style lighting that decorated Gallant in several red herring sequences and the presence of Lisa’s supernatural abilities all added grand flourishes to this story, helping to bring it a significant notch or two above a standard psycho on the loose tale.

Pride Notes:

O’Brien, who died of AIDS in 1989, spent well over two decades in daytime television, making him a perfect (if previously unheralded) Pride Month subject. While his life was cut much too short, the amount of entertainment he was able to give throughout his career was paramount, making his impact on the genre one of long lasting significance. An honored member of our community, his impact should never be forgotten.

“That was a very naughty song, Crystal! You should be more careful” – The Sin Stalker

Once upon a time, the powers-that-be at Another World conspired to make country goddess Crystal Gayle the final girl with the longest tresses ever! In the spring of 1987, Gayle, who was a huge fan of the daytime drama, guest starred on the show for a week. While she performed plenty of musical numbers during her stay in Bay City, the producers also worked this raven-haired singer into a major plotline by making her a target of the Sin Stalker, a ghoulish entity who was terrorizing women that struck him as being anything less than moral.

Finding some of Gayle’s sweet pop ballads a bit too suggestive, the peeved stalker wrote her threatening letters, spied on her in her dressing room bathtub and eventually, disturbed beyond all measure, went in for an aggressive kill. But this momma fixated psychopath should have known better than to count this satin voiced yet rough-hewn country gal out. Fighting back with a ferocity, this slasher reminiscent scenario found Gayle leading the killer through a myriad of unoccupied hallways and backrooms of the hotel she was booked in – trying to, desperately, escape him. Her extremely luxurious locks floating, spirit like, in her wake, she eventually clobbered the killer with a fire extinguisher. Momentarily stunned, this malicious entity was, ultimately, scared off by the arrival of Adam Cory (Ed Fry), the show’s handsome police detective. Determined not to let this lurid attack offset her life, Gayle rounded out her run on the program by performing its new theme song with her duet partner, fellow hit maker and future Broadway star Gary Morris.

“I’m going to sing. No one’s going to get the best of me!” – Crystal Gayle

Nicely accentuated by the participation of a sweet character named Lisa Grady (Phantoms’ Joanna Going), a young psychic with a strange connection to the demented marauder, the story developed further horror film references as it continued. Much like Psycho, the twisted exterminator here was soon being egged on by the voice of his dead mother, a demented audio presence that encouraged him to kill. Unfortunately for dedicated viewers, a surprise victim of those sadistic monologues was one of the show’s elegant, longstanding citizens, Quinn Harding (Petronia Paley). Thankfully, while devotees mourned her departure, the talented Paley later found work on Guiding Light, playing the matriarchal Vivian Grant for 7 years in the ‘90s.

“Good boy! You knew she was living with that lawyer.” – The Sin Stalker’s Mother after Harding’s Murder.

Happily, for the curious, portions of this macabre undertaking, including the entirety of Gayle’s run, can be found on YouTube.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

Big Gay Horror Fan

All posts tagged Joanna Going

As the Stab Burns: Another World’s Sin Stalker

Flashback: Crystal Gayle Meets the Sin Stalker