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Falcon Crest is an American prime time television soap opera created by Earl Hamner Jr. that aired for nine seasons on CBS from December 4, 1981, to May 17, 1990. The series revolves around the feuding factions of the wealthy Gioberti/Channing family in the California wine industry set in the fictitious Tuscany Valley, located northeast of San Francisco and modeled after the real Napa Valley.
Jane Wyman stars as Angela Channing, the tyrannical matriarch of the Falcon Crest Winery, opposite Robert Foxworth as Chase Gioberti, Angela's nephew, and later David Selby as Richard Channing, the illegitimate son of Angela's ex-husband. Other notable series regulars include Abby Dalton and Margaret Ladd as Angela's daughters Julia and Emma, Lorenzo Lamas as Angela's grandson Lance, Susan Sullivan as Chase's wife Maggie, William R. Moses as their son Cole, and Ana Alicia as heiress Melissa Agretti.
Jane Wyman won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her role as Angela Channing out of two nominations. Series regular Lorenzo Lamas and guest star Gina Lollobrigida were also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor/Actress.
Hamner's concept was "the flip side of The Waltons—this family was infected by wealth, whereas poverty had threatened his Depression story in". After shooting the original pilot episode of the series, called The Vintage Years in the spring of 1981, featuring Wyman in a silver wig, the actress pushed for changes in Angela. Hamner had warned Wyman that the press would call Angela a female J. R. Ewing, the amoral oil baron from Falcon Crest lead-in series, Dallas, played by Larry Hagman. Not wanting her character to simply be a J.R. clone, Wyman said, "I feel I'm representing all women in business. I may come off as a hard, tough character, but I want Angie to show she's also capable of love."
CBS requested that Hamner make the show more like Dallas, which was the network's biggest hit at that time, and the show was retooled and the pilot reshot. The script was rewritten and several cast members changed for what became Falcon Crest. The series first aired in December 1981, when CBS scheduled Falcon Crest at 10 pm on Friday nights, right after Dallas. The Dallas- Falcon Crest double bill proved lucrative for the network and Falcon Crest was a top-20 show in the Nielsen ratings for several years. Both shows (like The Waltons) were produced for CBS by the same company, Lorimar Productions.
By 1986, each episode of the series cost around $1 million to produce.
The series also frequently cast former Hollywood royalty in guest roles: Lana Turner, Dana Andrews, Celeste Holm, Gina Lollobrigida, Kim Novak, Cliff Robertson, Cesar Romero, and Robert Stack all appeared on Falcon Crest. This aspect to the series seemed to be well-embraced by the producers, who at one stage instituted a rotating guest-star policy. Eddie Albert, Ursula Andress, Eve Arden, Roscoe Lee Browne, Leslie Caron and Lauren Hutton all made appearances during the 1987–1988 season, as did Rod Taylor, who would remain with the series until its end in 1990. After producer Jeff Freilich left the series at the end of the 1988 season, fewer special guest stars appeared to boost ratings, one of them being Susan Blakely in the final year.
Wyman reportedly had had a long-running feud with fellow movie star legend Lana Turner, which dated back years. The two actresses supposedly refused to speak to each other and the producers had to film their confrontational scenes separately and then edit them together. Turner appeared on The Phil Donahue Show in 1982 and emphatically denied the rumors of the reported feud. "It's a bunch of bull. It's all publicity trying to drum up a feud between us. I adore Ms. Wyman. I respect her as a lady and an artist, and there is no feud." A few years after she appeared on the show, Turner stated that she believed Wyman was negative in demeanor because her ex-husband, Ronald Reagan, was elected president during the 1980s, something that Turner believed Wyman could not reconcile within herself.
In 1984, Sophia Loren was set to star in the role of Francesca Gioberti, Angela's secret half-sister, who comes to the valley to threaten Angela's control of Falcon Crest. Loren was to play 13 episodes, and producers promised a fabulous wardrobe and a dynamic character that would rival Dynasty Alexis Colby. At the last minute, negotiations with Loren fell through and Gina Lollobrigida (a longtime rival of Loren's) was then cast in the role, but only signed on for five episodes. Lollobrigida earned a Golden Globe nomination for her guest role. Three years earlier, Loren had also been Aaron Spelling's first choice for the role of Alexis Carrington on Dynasty, but was passed over when she demanded too much money and the role instead went to Joan Collins.
According to Dallas creator David Jacobs, before auditioning for Falcon Crest, Robert Foxworth turned down the role of J. R. Ewing on Dallas because he did not want to play such an unsympathetic character. The role ultimately went to Larry Hagman. Simon Hoggart, "Simon Hoggart's week: High-class rolling stones in Boulder", The Guardian April 15, 2006
The pilot was written by Hamner and directed by Alexander Singer. Though never broadcast or released on DVD, it was made available for download on the AOL video-on-demand service In2TV in 2007.
Surrounding Angela are her daughters, Julia (Abby Dalton) and Emma (Margaret Ladd), and her lazy playboy grandson, Lance Cumson (Lorenzo Lamas), who aids her in her battles against Chase. Julia is chief winemaker, though often feels oppressed by her domineering mother. Kind-natured Emma does not work in the family business, but is emotionally troubled. Julia's son Lance loves money and yearns for power, but lacks Angela's discipline and determination. Her ever-tightening grip on him eventually sends him to work for his grandfather's newspaper, The San Francisco Globe, although he soon returns to the fold. Aiding Angela in her quest for more power is her crooked lawyer, Phillip Erikson (Mel Ferrer), who would later become her second husband.
Chase's wife Maggie (Susan Sullivan) is a freelance writer who later works at The New Globe newspaper; their grown son Cole (William R. Moses) works at the winery with Chase, and daughter Vickie (Jamie Rose, later Dana Sparks) is just finishing school. Eventually realizing that she would not gain control over Chase's land anytime soon, Angela hopes to enlarge her empire by forcing Lance into an arranged marriage with Melissa Agretti (briefly played by Delores Cantú, later by Ana Alicia), heiress to the much-coveted Agretti Vineyards. Scheming Melissa becomes embroiled in a love triangle with Lance and Cole, even marrying Lance while pregnant with Cole's child.
In the second season, a true rival for Angela arrives in the form of conniving Richard Channing (David Selby), the illegitimate son of Angela's ex-husband Douglas Channing and Chase's mother. He inherits most of his father's shares in the family newspaper after Douglas dies, and uses his new wealth and power to seek retribution against both Angela and Chase for always treating him like an outcast. Richard crosses them at every turn and makes several attempts at gaining control of Falcon Crest.
The rivalry between Angela, Chase, and Richard stayed at the core of the show for several years, as more romantic entanglements spun around them. Lance and Cole found themselves not only caught up in their family battles for control of Falcon Crest, but were also competing for Melissa's affections.
Like its counterparts, Falcon Crest employed memorable end-of-season to boost ratings. The 1982–83 season ended with the resolution of a murder mystery "whodunit" plot (surrounding the death of Melissa's father, Carlo Agretti) that had spanned most of the season. The killer was revealed in front of the entire cast, only to produce a handgun. Shots were fired as the camera panned away from the mansion, fading into the final scene of a rose-draped coffin being lowered into the ground, leaving the audience to wonder who had been killed.
The third-season cliffhanger in 1984 involved a plane crash carrying most of the major characters, resulting in three of their deaths. A bomb explosion which ended the fourth season left Richard and Maggie in peril, and an earthquake that rippled through the valley ended the fifth season. The cliffhanger of the sixth season put Chase, Melissa, Richard, newcomer Dan Fixx and Maggie's baby in danger of drowning in the San Francisco Bay area. At the end of the seventh season, Melissa had finally wrested complete control of Falcon Crest away from Angela, while Richard was apparently murdered by "The Thirteen", a powerful group of shady businessmen whom he had turned against.
Falcon Crest was a top ten series from 1982 to 1985 (peaking at No. 7 in the 1983–84 season), airing after Dallas on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m.
CBS executives made the decision to end Falcon Crest when ratings during the ninth season dropped to 63rd place. Jane Wyman returned to the series for the last three episodes. The show ended happily with a family wedding taking place on the grounds of the mansion. Taking a walk outside, Angela delivered a soliloquy (written by Wyman herself) that brought the series to a conclusion, mentioning past characters and events, but looking forward to the future. The final scene of the series shows her raising her glass to the land: "A toast to you, Falcon Crest, and long may you live."
| 1984 ! scope="row" | Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series | Eddie Knowles, John L. Anderson, Doug Davey, Chris Haire | "The Avenger" | ||
| 1986 ! scope="row" | Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series | John Asman, Eddie Knowles, Andy MacDonald, Ken S. Polk | "The Cataclysm" | ||
| 1989 ! scope="row" | Outstanding Music Composition for a Series | Joel Rosenbaum | "Dust to Dust" |
| 1982 ! scope="row" | Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Jane Wyman | ||
| 1983 ! scope="row" | Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Jane Wyman | ||
| 1984 ! scope="row" | Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film | Gina Lollobrigida |
| 1985 ! scope="row" | Best Foreign Series | ||
| 1986 ! scope="row" | Best Foreign Series | ||
| 1987 ! scope="row" | Best Foreign Series | ||
| 1989 ! scope="row" | Best Foreign Series |
Warner Bros. has released the first three seasons on DVD in region 1. Season one was released on April 20, 2010, season two on September 24, 2010, and season three on May 28, 2013. Seasons two and three were released by the Warner Archive Collection as Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) releases. Season four became available digitally on iTunes in 2016.
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