Gina Calabrese: Saundra Santiago


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7 hours ago, GinaFan said:

I know she has 2 or 3 more weeks to stay.

A real shame - on her Facebook she has been posting about it most days was quite serious and still is , although not critical .

Such a lovely woman wishing her a speedy recovery 

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  • 2 months later...
2 hours ago, Dadrian said:

Is that Michael Mann on the left?

Nope that is Paul Michael Glaser who directed several episodes of Vice.  He is best known as an actor for playing Detective Starsky in the 70's police show Starsky and Hutch. 

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  • 5 months later...
3 hours ago, summer84 said:

A nice post from Saundra on Instagram. She has the same beautiful singing voice, as when she sang on "Heroes of The Revolution." :cheers:

WOW!!  Lovely voice.  

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  • 9 months later...
On 10/26/2017 at 6:33 PM, summer84 said:

Vg6jwY3.jpg

It was a wonderful surprise to see these three together. :fireworks: Glad to see Saundra is feeling better. 

Love this picture!! So sorry she was injured but happy to see her getting better!

 

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  • 1 month later...

Saundra has been interviewed on Coopertalk.net this week. She discusses her entire career and does speak about her time on MV

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21 minutes ago, CarolineUK said:

Saundra has been interviewed on Coopertalk.net this week. She discusses her entire career and does speak about her time on MV

Would have loved to have heard that! 

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Here's the interview:

https://www.coopertalk.net/

A very interesting indepth interview with Saundra Santiago. When she auditioned the show wasen't called MV. I think it was Gold Coast. She was the first one to be cast on MV and also read with Larry Wilcox, one of the guys that auditioned for the part of Sonny Crockett. At that time, an actor for the main role hadn't been cast yet. Olivia Brown originally was cast a guest star, but then became a regular, since they thought Gina and Trudy were great as a team. She recalls everyone of the cast members except for PMT broke up with their "better half" in the second year. She was upset, that she couldn't do this Spielberg movie by Michael Mann/Universal as John Diehl had left the show and they didn't want to lose another cast member. And also disappointed, as she pictured her role would be larger on MV more even with the main stars. It was a "fight for the camera" to get more screen time. She was tied to the five year contract, not allowed to do movie projects. And before her accident, she was supposed to be in this movie made by EJO's son Bodie about 9/11, I believe where she was supposed to be Edward James Olmos's girlfriend. She believes the show ending mostly had to do with DJ wanting to move on to a movie career. Also talks about life after Vice to her present. Some of the things about MV, I knew from the interview in "The Making of MV" book and other discussions/threads here on the forum. I didn't get to hear the full podcast, but it was great to get knowledge about her background, her time on MV and point of view. A great interview! 

Edited by summer84
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Great interview, a must for Vice fans.  She didn't mention she was the homecoming queen during her senior year at South Miami High but that's a small detail.  Among the insights you learn why the episode Heroes of the Revolution was written with singing parts for her.

Edited by miamijimf
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  • 1 year later...
2 minutes ago, Chris Lance said:

Hey I'm new to the forum and I always wanted to know why Gina's last name is Italian if she's supposed to have a Cuban background? 

Continuity just wasn't something they did very well on Vice.  She starts out Italian, then she becomes Cuban in "Heroes of the Revolution", then in "Blood and Roses" she's an Italian from Philadelphia (she's undercover, but it didn't seem like an act).  Her character should have been Cuban all along.

 

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15 minutes ago, airtommy said:

Continuity just wasn't something they did very well on Vice.  She starts out Italian, then she becomes Cuban in "Heroes of the Revolution", then in "Blood and Roses" she's an Italian from Philadelphia (she's undercover, but it didn't seem like an act).  Her character should have been Cuban all along.

 

Yeah I was impressed with the thread about Sonny's background and the work being done to make his background work. On one level it's fun but on another it's madness that the fans have to do that to make things consistent. I'm always surprised, although I guess I shouldn't be, how little thought most TV writers give to continuity and background. I guess they never think the show will become a hit in a way that would produce fans who care about such detail. Writing is a job at the end of the day. It's like how for actors acting is the gig and the characters don't mean as much to them as it does to fans. 

 

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2 hours ago, Chris Lance said:

 

This has been discussed in another thread, but in this era of TV there typically wasn’t a set group of writers for a drama series unlike today when there are far fewer episodes and the entire story arc is often known from the start of the season.  
 

In this period writers would submit their scripts after looking through the show bible to avoid major mistakes.  The producers who selected the scripts would  
essentially be responsible for any real detailed continuity problems.  They, of course, were often  more interested in getting the product finished, on time, and on budget ahead of any artistic vision.

I recall going through the list of writers for MV and there were maybe a couple of dozen who wrote just one episode.  Many more wrote just a handful. The total number of writers was in the many dozens.  There’s no way they could all remember the details of every character’s back story, etc...  Many of those writers were submitting to other series as well.

It was just a different process then compared to today.  You are right about not expecting the level of scrutiny as well. Back then, Trekkies were about the only extreme TV series fans I had ever heard of and they were considered a bit odd.  I was a teenager when the show first aired and I watched it.  It was a huge hit but I don’t recall talking about any of those kind of details with friends who watched.  It was all about the slick style, the music, the setting, the fashions. 

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I think Vice was different in that it focused more on the visuals than the characters. You didn't see these kind of mistakes in Hill Street Blues, for example. Battlestar Galactica was also pretty steady in terms of characters and background. Not all shows were, obviously, but I think for every one that was there was another that paid attention to those details.

And as far as tracking character background and the like, it's easy (and wrong) to overlook the daytime soap fans.

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3 hours ago, Robbie C. said:

I think Vice was different in that it focused more on the visuals than the characters. You didn't see these kind of mistakes in Hill Street Blues, for example. Battlestar Galactica was also pretty steady in terms of characters and background. Not all shows were, obviously, but I think for every one that was there was another that paid attention to those details.

And as far as tracking character background and the like, it's easy (and wrong) to overlook the daytime soap fans.

Agreed that MV was definitely visually oriented.  I was specifically referring to typical primetime dramas of the era with my comments.  Primetime comedies are a whole different set of circumstances.  In contrast, they have a pretty small group of regular writers. Outside scripts aren’t submitted in the same way at all.  Daytime soaps also have a group of regular writers who churn out the melodrama with zero locations and action.  They’re all different art forms, if you will.  They’re created differently, just as  feature films or musicals have their own process, using different kinds of talent.

Hill Street Blues was one of my favorites at the time but I’ve never rewatched it or taken a deep dive into the details like we do here.

Edited by pahonu
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  • 11 months later...
On 10/27/2017 at 5:58 AM, Vicefan7777 said:

Nope that is Paul Michael Glaser who directed several episodes of Vice.  He is best known as an actor for playing Detective Starsky in the 70's police show Starsky and Hutch. 

I didn't recognize him....

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