Jacqueline Courtney

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacqueline Courtney (born Sharon Courtney on September 24, 1946 in East Orange, New Jersey) is an American soap opera actress, who was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but has since retired from the genre.

Courtney first had short stints on daytime dramas The Edge of Night and Our Five Daughters. She became famous for her role (and subsequent abrupt departure) as Alice Matthews Frame on Another World; she played the role from the show's debut in May 1964 until July 1975.

In 1975, head writer Harding Lemay had Courtney and her love interest, George Reinholt, fired, allegedly for "storyline purposes". He reported in his memoir, Eight Years in Another World, that Courtney was fired because she was a bad actress. conveniently ignoring her huge popularity and award-winning performances — in reality, conflict brewed backstage because many of the longtime actors, like Courtney, were trying to protect their characters' integrity in the face of Lemay's ever-weakening scripts. After being coerced out of AW by a manipulative producer (one Paul Rauch) and petulant head writer, Courtney played Pat Kendall on ABC's One Life to Live until 1983, when the network fired her in preparation of bringing the dread Paul Rauch in as producer.

Courtney reconciled her differences with Another World and started back on the show as Alice on the 20th anniversary show in May 1984. She played the role until the next year when she was fired entirely, due to lack of story for the character. In 1989 she returned for the show's 25th anniversary and for Mackenzie Cory's funeral.

Apart from a small role on Loving in 1987, Courtney has since retired from acting. She stayed out of the limelight until 2004 when she sent a letter to Soap Opera Weekly rebutting some outrageous claims former AW executive produer Paul Rauch had made about her.

Courtney was married to Carl Desiderio from 1970 to 1978, and they had one daughter. Courtney's absence from New York when the couple moved to Jackson, Mississippi was explained away by having the Alice character go to France.