RECASTAWAY WISH-CRAFT - "A MAN AND A GIRL*"

In today's "ASOTV" showcase, I mentioned that Anna Madrigal (as played by Olympia Dukakis in 'Tales Of The City' and its sequels) should be considered a recastaway. Even though we never saw her past life up until the late 1960's in flashback (as far as I can tell), she had been a man named Andy Ramsay. When he was 44, Ramsay went to Denmark to get a sex change (what's called a "gender reassignment" surgery today) and changed her name to Anna Madrigal.

Since the series took place in the early 1980's and the operation was performed twelve years before, I'd say Andy Ramsay existed until the late 1960's before becoming Mrs. Madrigal.

If for Toobworld purposes only, Inner Toob wanted to see Andy Ramsay in a flashback, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen. This is something that would have to be theorized as part of the Dynamic. But to actually visualize it, I think it could be accomplished by using film clips of some actor who bore a passing resemblance to what Olympia Dukakis might have looked like as a man, and in clothing and locations that suggested the time period. (And I prefer using clips from movies, a different fictional universe, rather than from TV shows that have already played out in the same TV dimension.)

Because I recently featured him in the November induction into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame, the first actor who came to mind was Fredd Wayne.

This picture is from 'Perry Mason',
so it doesn't count as a flashback candidate

We've seen scenes culled from other sources integrated into TV shows before:

• Bruce Springsteen's video for "Dancing In The Dark" became part of Jules Cobb's high school life on 'Cougar Town'.
• Scenes of William Shatner and Ralph Bellamy from the 'Studio One' pilot of "The Defender" illustrated the stormy relationship Denny Crane had with his father in an episode of 'Boston Legal'.
• 'Diagnosis Murder' resolved some plotline loopholes in an old episode of 'Mannix', bringing back many of the original actors.
• And 'Murder, She Wrote' created a sequel to a movie called "Strange Bargain", which absorbed that film noir out of the Cineverse and into the Toobworld Dynamic.

So pulling clips of Fredd Wayne out of some other movie to instead be considered as the pre-op life of Anna Madrigal would not be outside the realm of believability.

If they're in black and white, so much the better - it would enhance the flashback mood.

It would be nice if the dialogue from these scenes might tie in somehow with Mrs. Madrigal's past. But something generic - like Fredd Wayne's character coming home to greet his wife - would be acceptable. However, if there's nothing that could be recycled in the dialogue, the flashback scenes of Fredd Wayne as Andy Ramsay could be seen without the original dialogue but with a voice-over by Olympia Dukakis as she reminisced about her life as a man.

The picture I used of Mr. Wayne is from an episode of 'Perry Mason' and so I wouldn't want to use anything from that nor from any other TV show. But here are a few movie titles that might yield four results (if I stretch the parameters of the search for a decade):

• "Seven Days In May"
• "Sex And The Single Girl"
• "Chamber Of Horrors"
• "Hang-Up"

I only have those four examples because Mr. Wayne worked more often in television......

BCnU!

*"A Man And A Girl" is an anagram for "Anna Madrigal"........