 |
Brooke and Eliot articles
"After a failed romance with child pornographer Jim
Thomasen, a friends-but-not-lovers buddyfest with Jackson Montgomery, a fizzled affair with Dimitri Marick, and a disastrous
relationship with not one but three Pierce Rileys, Brooke English (played by Julia Barr) will soon find the heavens smiling
down upon her.
A casting call has been put out for the contract role
of Eliot Freeman. It's said that Eliot, a man in his forties, will turn out to be a minister - a unique change of pace from
some of the other men who've been in her life. Eliot is slated to be a love interest for Brooke, but it is possible that that
could change.
According to insiders with the network, many familiar
faces have tried out for the part. Rumored to have audition for the casting department is Stephen Schnetzer (ex-Cass from
Another World), Paul Satterfield (ex-Paul, General Hospital and ex-Pierce, The Bold and The Beautiful) and Michael Swan (ex-Adam,
B&B, ex-Bishop John Carpenter, One Life to Live and ex-Duncan from ATWT). So far no word on who has the early edge."
April 11, 2000
From Soap Opera Digest
"The coveted contract role of Pine Valley minister Eliot Freeman has
gone to DAVID BEECROFT. The actor, whose soap credits include stints on One Life to Live, Falcon Crest, and Melrose Place,
will first appear on All My Children in mid-May."
SOAP TALK: 'ALL MY CHILDREN': A KISS IN TIME
By Claire Siegel (The New York Post)
"This week on All My Children, Brooke (played
by Julia Barr) is learning that it takes a lot of courage to risk being vulnerable.
She hasn't even kissed a man in years. But this week,
she and Eliot (played by David Beecroft) do kiss and it's astonishing to her. 'It's been a very dry season - a long, long
time,' Barr says. 'And their kiss is beautiful, sweet, and poignant.'
After years of choosing the wrong men, and more years
of being everyone's friend but no one's heart, Brooke is beginning to love again.
She tells Eliot she hasn't been able to have a real
relationship since her daughter Laura was killed by a drunk hit-and-run driver. It's almost like she couldn't allow herself
to be happy. But now, she admits, she wants to be at the center of someone's life.
There's one thing Brooke can't get past. Eliot clearly has a secret he needs to confess, and can't bring
himself to tell her. She knows he's been in prison and that he became a minister in jail - but she doesn't know why.
'She wants him to know there's nothing he can't say
to her,' Barr says. 'Finally, he admits he stole the most precious gift from a family. She thinks he was a thief, but she
believes he's turned his life around.'
The two of them have the possibility of great joy. So it gets down to
this: How can he reveal what he came to town to reveal about himself? There's the potential for hope and love but, underneath
it all, there's a dreadful secret.
At the end of the week, Brooke confesses to Edmund: 'I think I'm falling in
love.' At the very same time, Eliot is making a confession of his own to his superior, Reverend Taylor.
And what he's confessing is such a shocking revelation, it just might break
Brooke's heart.
What's not secret is that Barr, a two-time Emmy winner and seven-times nominee,
is enjoying playing these scenes.
'I haven't had a real storyline in a while,' she smiles. 'It's like a racehorse
that likes to run. You don't want to be in the stable too long; you want to be out there on the track. So I'm very happy.'"
October 17, 2000 Soaps In Depth
GUILTY AS SIN - "It's confession time as Eliot reveals to
Brooke that he's the devil in disguise."
"It was mid-May when Brooke English found herself reflecting
upon that tragic day 12 years ago, when her young daughter, Laura, was killed by a drunk-driving, off-duty police officer
named Josh Waleski. Imagining the harrowing tire screeches from that time, the mournful mother broke down in tears, grasping
for support at the edge of a table. Brooke, though, found the support that she needed that night from a kind stranger, Reverend
Eliot Freeman. With compassionate words and an odd sense of understanding, he helped her deal with the heartbreak which she
was reliving.
Since that first meeting, Brooke and the reverend have
grown close, and even shared a tender kiss on the beach. Eliot, though, has been living in a private hell, struggling with
a shocking secret: Behind a face bruised, battered and ultimately reconfigured by prison beatings, he is really Josh Waleski.
Eliot was falling in love with a woman whose daughter he accidentally killed!
This week, though, that traumatic truth comes out, and
neither Brooke nor Eliot's lives will be the same afterward.
The Father, The Son & The Holy Terror - Celebration kicks off the
week, as Brooke and Eliot are awarded temporary joint custody of Ricky Collins, the youth who has been being abused by his
father, a disgraceful cop named Hank 'The Tank'. Although this is good news for Ricky, his dad flies off the handle upon hearing
that he's having his child taken away.
Incensed by the court hearing, Hank shows up at Brooke's home and begins to
cause trouble, hurling both objects and verbal assaults. Forcing his way into the house, Hank grabs Brooke, and proceeds to
put the fear of God into his son's new 'parent'. If he doesn't regain custody, Hank growls, Brooke will have to pay!
Divine Intervention - Unbeknownst to Hank or Brooke, Eliot already is inside
the house, awaiting her return so he finally can reveal his identity. Hearing the scuffle, he rushes to the foyer, pulls Hank
away, and a battle of good-versus-evil ensues. As Brooke looks on in horror, Eliot knocks Hank to the ground. Alas, Eliot's
problems are far from over. Having come to recognize the cop-turned-con-turned-reverend, Hank goads Eliot into telling the
truth, to come clean about his murderous ways. And if Eliot doesn't enlighten Brooke, Hank promises, he will!
Cornered, Eliot unburdens his soul: 'I am Josh Waleski,' he tells Brooke.
'I am the person who killed Laura.'
True Confessions - Hearing Eliot's admission, Brooke goes through a multitude
of emotions. 'The first thing she feels is confusion,' her portrayer, Julia Barr, explains. 'She doesn't know what he's talking
about. It's information that does not compute for a minute.'
Yet once the police interrupt to cart away Hank, the stage is set for
Brooke to slowly comprehend this revelation, and have a much-needed one-to-one confrontation with Eliot.
'The next thing she experiences is denial,' Barr continues. 'There is
a fear in the back of her mind that he's saying the truth. It's like when you don't believe somebody, but the hair on the
back of your neck sticks up because something is very wrong.'
Eliot's Exodus - Listening to Eliot's explanation of how he came to have a
new face and name, Brooke gradually brings herself to face - up-close - the devastating truth. 'She saw [Josh],' Barr recalls.
'She saw his eyes. So she wonders, 'How can this be?' Then she looks at Eliot, knowing that she might see the truth in what
he's saying - and she does. The truth is there in his face.'
Next week, in the ensuing aftermath between himself and Brooke, Eliot takes
to his church's pulpit, prepared to make a life-changing announcement to his congregation. He's caught off guard, however,
by Brooke's entrance.
What are Brooke's intentions? 'This is not something she can let rest,' Barr
replies, noting the upheaval which just has rocked her character's world. 'If she has to live with this truth - and she has
lived with it before, and now she's living with it again, in a different way - she is damn well going to see that Eliot has
to live with it too.'
Heaven help them!"
Captions:
"At
first, when Eliot confesses that he killed Laura, Brooke doesn't believe him. 'Basically, what she says to him is, "You're
a sicko,"' relates Julia Barr. '"This is a screwed-up thing to do."'
Brooke's marriage to Tom already was over by the time
that their daughter was run over by Josh. Still, the tragedy forever bonded the ex-Cudahys."
"When the rumors last week started to swirl about a
leading male character being fired, fan speculation was fast and furious. Initial reports that the character was male and
married proved to be right - and wrong. Though the performer in question is male, his character is not married.
The AMC Pages have learned that David Beecroft (Eliot) has been released
from his contract. A spokesperson for ABC, while extremely pleasant and willing to answer questions on a variety of other
non-related topics, was unwilling to confirm the report.
It's been no secret that the Brooke-Eliot storyline has fizzled
since its inception. Shortly after Eliot revealed that he was really the man who had killed Brooke's daughter, Laura Cudahy,
the storyline seemed to go nowhere. Additionally, actress Julia Barr has expressed frustration that the story has been relegated
to a back-burner plot.
It is unclear why the writers decided to drop the storyline. Fans have been
critical of the plot ever since the writers used jailhouse plastic surgery to explain why Eliot had a new face, one that Brooke
did not remember.
Moreover, many fans were unhappy with the way the storyline had developed.
Brooke and Eliot had a pinch of a relationship when Eliot revealed his secret. If the pair had developed a stronger bond and
been in love, it might have made Eliot's confession more powerful. In essence, in some fans' minds, there wasn't enough oomph
behind the saga to really generate feelings from the fans.
Brooke has apparently accepted, if not forgiven, Eliot's transgressions.
The idea of Eliot and Brooke ever getting back together must have seemed impossible even to the writers. So, another of the
men in Brooke's life will leave town. If you're keeping track, Eliot is added to a list that already includes: Dimitri, Jim
Thomasen and Pierce numbers one through three.
Now comes the question of what to do with Brooke. Barr's fans have been
irate over the writers neglect of her character. Barr has hopes that she and Edmund (played by John Callahan) will be able
to share some more on-screen time together - even if a romance doesn't re-ignite.
Expect Beecroft's final scenes to air in mid-to-late January."
January 29, 2001 Soap Opera Weekly
"It wasn't easy being Reverend Eliot, a man hiding behind plastic surgery, a man who drunk drove and
killed Brooke's beloved biological daughter Laura. How in the world TPTB expected a romance out of that disastrous beginning
baffled portrayer David Beecroft who bid adieu on January 25. They tried having him rescue Brooke's adoptive daughter Laura,
but even that wasn't enough to turn the fan tide from against to for. Even at a recent AMC fan event, Beecroft got the cold
shoulder from some delusional viewers who couldn't separate his acting fact from the show's fiction. 'I looked up in the balcony
and a couple of girls were giving me a thumbs-down. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before!' Let me give these idiot
fans a newsflash: The man was only doing his job by pretending to be a drunken child killer seeking redemption. Furthermore,
the actor agreed with you all, that something this heinous could never truly be forgiveable. That you couldn't tell the difference
and took it out on an innocent victim of stupid short-sighted writing speaks volumes for your own collective inhumanity. Not
exactly a ringing endorsement for soap operas as legitimate entertainment jobs, either, to the outside world. Lookie what
to expect."
January 30, 2001 Soap Opera Weekly
THE NEWS - Star haunted by storyline
"'THERE ARE BILLIONS OF guys
in the world. Why would Brooke want to have a romance with the very guy who killed her little girl?'
David Beecroft says this was
the question that haunted him from the beginning of his tenure as Rev. Eliot Freeman (last April) to the end (this Thursday,
Jan. 25). Beecroft says AMC told him he'd be playing a 'minister who was going to have a romance with Brooke.' But they left
out 'one teensyweensy detail,' he laments. 'They were hesitant to tell me what the real storyline was, but I said, 'You've
got to tell me if I'm going to build a base for this character before I come on.''
When he learned his character's
secret - that he mowed down Brooke's daughter Laura Cudahy while driving drunk - Beecroft 'was kind of excited, because there
seemed to be a lot of stuff there to play.' But a couple of days later, 'I remember being with my wife and saving, 'If something
like that had happened to you, could you ever have a romance with the man who'd done that?' We started thinking about it,
then I just said, 'Oh, the writers probably have it all worked out.'
Beecroft began to suspect
that was not the case when he wasn't even fulfilling the two-day-a-week minimum guaranteed in his contract. His character
never got involved with anyone other than Brooke, and that relationship seemed doomed from the start. 'At the AMC fan-club
gathering, I looked up in the balcony and a couple of girls were giving me a thumbs-down. Nothing like this had ever happened
to me before! During the Q&A, somebody [asked]: 'Do you think what you did was forgivable?' I said: 'I leave that up to
Brooke; Eliot certainly is repentant.' But what I thought was: This is an unforgivable sin. I had discussions with Julia (Barr)
about it: 'What would it take for Brooke to forgive me?' We never came up with an answer. She'd just go: 'It would have to
be something pretty big, pretty monumental.'
Saving adopted daughter Laura
from drowning was evidently not redemptive enough. So, after working only two days in November and receiving no notification
of upcoming dates for the first two weeks in December, the actor called executive producer Jean Dadario Burke. 'I said, Am
I off the show? What is the deal?'
Burke said she'd get back
to him. Within a week, 'she said they didn't know how to proceed with the story, so I'd just go through the next cycle and
be off the show.' Beecroft got this information right before Thanksgiving, but couldn't tell anyone except his wife, who 'wasn't
very happy about it, that's for sure.'
If Beecroft had known from
the outset that it was going to be a limited run, he would have taken the part anyway ('In fact, I only wanted a one or two-year
contract; they insisted on four.'). But 'I would have treated a few things differently. We sold our house in California.'
Mid-December, he realized
Barr might not be aware of his impending exit. 'I said, 'Julia, you know what's happening, right?' She said, 'Well, yeah,
I do.' They told her a few days after they told me, because it directly affected her.'
His last scenes with Barr,
taped Jan. 3, 'went fairly well. Eliot and Brooke had a long talk about things that had happened over the last nine months.
It was actually a nice, emotional farewell.' His own farewell, which included flowers from the show, was mercifully lacking
in emotion until he was walking out of the studio. 'I felt something I never expected to feel: relief. And I'll tell you why
- because I'm not a child-killer anymore.'"
Captions:
Beecroft's pairing with Julia Barr's Brooke didn't catch on.
October
16, 2001 Soaps In Depth
ALL MY CHILDREN IN DEPTH: FLASHBACK
"Last year at this time, Julia Barr's Brooke was learning the shocking
truth about Eliot Freeman, who, behind a reworked face, was actually the drunk driver who ran down her daughter in 1988. Barr,
reflecting on that 2000 story twist, says, 'It definitely accomplished what it needed to - in that Brooke was forced to look
at this man as a person, and grant him forgiveness - but whether it accomplished all it could have definitely is up
for grabs.' Conceding that the lukewarmly received Eliot/Josh tale came to an abrupt halt not long after the revelation, a
part of Barr wishes otherwise. 'Wouldn't have been interesting,' she asks, 'if the audience didn't know Eliot's identity,
and Brooke developed a relationship over, say, a year, and then the truth came to the fore? It might have ended the
same way, but there would have been more of an 'Oh my God!'"
Captions:
The Eliot-Brooke
story could have packed more punch, says Barr.
|
|
