Strong velocity with a good nose:
Raising a glass to "Falcon Crest".
By Ivor Casey
During the 1980's, American prime time TV was dominated by a variety of lavish, over the top and expensively produced dramas depicting the triumphs and failures of the rich and powerful. These dramas, known by many today as the super-soaps of 1980s television, included most notably, Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest.
Popular fictional TV up to that time throughout the 1970's had been centred mostly on cop and detective dramas such as Hawaii Five-0, Kojak, The Rockford Files and The Streets of San Francisco and a few period dramas like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie. Nonetheless, towards the end of the 1970s the direction of the audience began to shift. America was aiming to rise out of the recession which followed the damage and defeat of the Vietnam War. The economy and future could only take a upwards turn and for the interests of entertainment, this optimism was soon to be reflected in prime time television.
Dallas kick-started the new wave of TV drama in 1978 and it became remembered for the progress and pitfalls of the oil industry. However, attempting to emulate the success of this big family, big house, big car, big money and bid budget TV show, one new drama popped up after another. Each had its own area of industry centred on big business and one of these very classy, stylish and intriguing productions was Falcon Crest, which centred on the Californian wine industry.
Falcon Crest first hit American TV screens on 4 December 1981 where it screened on CBS, home to Dallas and Knots Landing. The show was created by Earl Hamner Jr., who had previously created The Waltons. It centred around the matriarch to the Falcon Crest estate, Angela Channing, played by seasoned actress Jane Wyman, who begins a feud with her nephew Chase Giobertti, played by Robert Foxworth and his wife Maggie, played by Susan Sullivan. The Giobertti's, including their son Cole, played William R. Moses and Vicki, played by Jamie Rose (and later Dana Sparks), return to the estate to claim their inheritance from Angela's recently deceased brother, Jason. The cunning, corrupt and crafty Angela devises many ruthless and manipulative schemes to push the Giobertti's out of town but they stand firmly, planting new roots in their new family home and taking on the challenges and ambitions of the wine industry with the vineyards left to them by Chase's late father.
Filmed in the famed Napa Valley, doubling for the fictional Tuscany Valley, in Northern California the show evolved and transformed over the next nine years with colourful new characters, exciting plots and surprising twists. Many of the conflicts driving the story were brought about by Chase's dastardly, devious and deceitful long lost brother Richard Channing, played by David Selby. Many other stories and twists came about from the seemingly mild mannered daughters of Angela, in the form of Julia, played by Abby Dalton and Emma played by Margaret Ladd, as well as the troublesome and conniving rival wine-maker Melissa Agretti played by Ana Alicia. Along with Angela's grandson, Lance Cumson, played by Lorenzo Lamas, the drama never failed to give viewers stories of backbiting, bickering and brawling to keep the audience intrigued throughout the 1980s. Such shows were designed to help ordinary middle class people escape from the mundanity of regular life into an excessive world of power hungry greed, glitz, glamour and grapes, as the key characters battled it out for control of property, corporations and vineyards.
In Ireland, Falcon Crest aired on RTÉ One on Thursday nights at 10.30pm, altering schedules to various other times throughout the week during its nine season run. Jayne Wyman who lead the show had been a famous actress from the Golden era of Hollywood, having appeared in about one hundred movies between the 1930s to the 1960s. She was also noted for having been a regular co-star and former wife of 4th generation Irish-American Ronald Reagan, an actor who had become U.S. President by the time Falcon Crest began airing. Jane, originally from Missouri, had previously worked with Co. Rosscommon actress Maureen O'Sullivan on The Crowd Roars in 1938 as well as Irish actors George Brent on Honeymoon For Three in 1941 and Richard Todd on Stage Fright in 1950 respectively. She also starred in The Lost Weekend (1945) with Cork actress Anita Sharp-Bolster, The Blue Veil (1951) with Irish actors Cyril Cusak and Dan O'Herlihy and Holiday for Lovers (1959) with Irish actress Nora O'Mahoney.
Robert Foxworth, from Texas, who played Chase, started his career in a TV adaptation of the play Hogan's Goat by William Alfred, which centred on the lives of Irish Americans living in Brooklyn, New York in 1890 and the drama which unfolds around a campaign to become mayor. He went onto appear in a variety of TV shows and films, but Falcon Crest was always his greatest hit. Susan Sullivan, from New York, who played Maggie, began her career on TV, co-starring with Co. Wicklow actress Geraldine Fitzgerald in the series The Best of Everything in 1970. Susan, of Irish descent also went onto appear in a string of various TV episodes, including the pilot for the The Incredible Hulk in 1977 before landing her part in Falcon Crest. Also from the Falcon Crest cast starting her career with an Irish theme was Mexican actress Ana Alicia who started out on the TV show Ryan's Hope about an Irish American family in Manhattan, which aired between 1977 to 1978. Chinese actor Chao-Li Chi, who played Angela's servant Chao-Li and was one of the most dedicated cast members throughout the series, also had come from working in a variety of TV and film and would continue to appear in films after the series ended, including Extremedays (2001) with Dublin born actor A.J. Buckley.
As was the case with many popular dramas at the time, Falcon Crest helped define the "cliffhanger" to keep viewers guessing and waiting for months to find out the results of a mysterious climactic season finale. Corporate takeovers, long lost family members, natural disasters and plane crashes kept the audience on the edge of their seat. Also, guest appearances by some of Hollywood's golden stars were frequently brought in to allure viewers and spice things up including Lana Turner, Kim Novak, Cesar Romero, Cliff Robertson, Rod Taylor, Robert Stack, Ursula Andress and Mel Ferrer who appeared in several seasons. Jane Wyman passed away in 2007 at the age of 90 and rumours surfaced that the surviving cast members might be reunited for a reboot of the series but these rumours were dampened due to the unsuccessful reboot of Dallas between 2012 an 2014.
Falcon Crest was sometimes dismissed as a copycat of Dallas, irreverently called "Dallas with grapes" but it had much more realistic and grounded storytelling and very gripping writing. It didn't focus entirely on the power, corruption and wealth shown in Dallas and also didn't stay fixed enormously on the glamorous side of wealth which Dynasty specialised in. In its earlier years Falcon Crest attempted with great vigour to give an insightful look at ordinary domestic life and family conflict for some of its characters. However, overall it was one of the main dramas of that era to provide escapism, to transport viewers to a larger than life world and to simply excite, tantalise and entertain with a remote control in one hand and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon in the other.
- Ivor Casey
(First published in The Christmas Annual 2021 of "Ireland's Own")
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