Synopsis
Open House starred Alison LaPlaca as Linda Phillips, the former studio executive who brought the same zeal pushing costly houses for Juan Verde Real Estate as she did working at World Wide Studios. The series also starred Mary Page Keller and Chris Lemmon continuing their roles as Laura Kelly and Richard Phillips. Newly separated from her writer husband Ben Coleman, Laura also quit catering, and became an apprentice agent. Richard, Linda's husband, was a pianist at Jasper's, but left the hangout — and his wife — by mid-season. Among Linda's eccentric co-workers were Ted Nichols (Philip Charles MacKenzie), her main rival; Scott Babylon (Danny Gans), a talented impressionist; Margo Van Meter (Ellen DeGeneres), the sassy, man-hungry secretary; and Roger McSwain (Nick Tate), the manager of Juan Verde.
The premise of the series had originated in the series finale of Duet, in which Linda was introduced to Ted, who brought her to Juan Verde to start her new career. LaPlaca and MacKenzie had been dating for several years by the time they worked opposite each other on Duet and Open House (they first worked together on a 1985 episode of MacKenzie's former series, Brothers ).
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Knots Landing is an American primetime television soap opera that aired on CBS from December 27, 1979, to May 13, 1993. A spin-off of Dallas, it was set in a fictitious coastal suburb of Los Angeles and initially centered on the lives of four married couples living on a cul-de-sac, Seaview Circle. Throughout its fourteen-year run, storylines included marital strife, rape, murder, kidnapping, assassinations, drug smuggling, politics, environmental issues, corporate intrigue, and criminal investigations. By the time of its conclusion, it had become the third-longest-running primetime drama on U.S. television after Gunsmoke and Bonanza and the last scripted primetime drama show that debuted in the 1970s to leave the air.
Alison La Placa is an American actress best known for playing Linda Phillips on the sitcom Duet and its spin-off Open House and the recurring role of Joanna, Rachel’s boss who also dated Chandler on the sitcom Friends.
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Philip Charles MacKenzie is an American actor and television director. He is best known for his role as Donald Maltby on Brothers, and as Ted Nichols on Open House, which he worked on with his current wife, Alison La Placa.
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