by Dan J Kroll

Posted Wednesday, March 03, 2004 11:53:11 PM

To skip ahead to the list of nominees, click here

Nominations for the 31st Annual Daytime Emmys were announced live on Thursday, March 4th from the 64th floor of Rockefeller Center in New York City's famed Rainbow Room.

For a second consecutive year, General Hospital placed at the top of the acting nominations pile and All My Children earned a heap of Technical and Creative Arts nominations. With eight nominations, General Hospital soap tied CBS's The Young and the Restless for the most nominations in acting categories this year. Overall, however, The Young and the Restless led the pack with 16 total nominations.

Though a few nominations back from frontrunners General Hospital and The Young and the Restless, As the World Turns continued to exert its dominance at the Daytime Emmys. In two of the past three years, the Procter & Gamble produced soap has been named Outstanding Drama Series. A fourth straight nomination in the top soap category comes as no surprise to fans or critics, as the show has seen somewhat of a renaissance under head writer Hogan Sheffer and executive producer Christopher Goutman. Three As the World Turns performers earned acting nominations in the early rounds - among them are previous Emmy winners Roger Howarth (Paul Ryan), who earned an Emmy for his work on One Life to Live, and Cady McClain (Rosanna Cabot), a winner during her stay on ABC's All My Children.

This year's Emmys bestowed nominations on several performers who have since left the shows for which they were nominated. Thorsten Kaye (Ian Thornhart, Port Charles) picked up another Outstanding Leading Actor nomination. Kaye's former co-star Brian Presley (ex-Jack Ramsey) earned his second nomination in the Outstanding Younger Actor category. Kaye and Presley were the only two nominations from the now-cancelled soap. Last year, Port Charles earned an Outstanding Drama Series nomination.

After nearly 13 years on The Young and the Restless, Heather Tom (ex-Victoria Newman, The Young and the Restless) was lured away to New York City for a role on One Life to Live. It was her work on The Young and the Restless, however, that earned Tom yet another Emmy nomination. Tom, a two-time winner in the Outstanding Younger Actress field, picked up her first Outstanding Supporting Actress nod.

The Emmy nominations are in. What is your reaction? Regardless of how my soap did, there are major oversights. 28% I'm furious. I think my soap was robbed this year! 22% My soap cleaned up -- I'm overjoyed. 17% I think the nominations seemed pretty fair this year. 16% The nominations this year are boring. So predictable. 11% The Emmy nominations don't really matter to me. 5% Other 1% Poll Posted: March 4, 2004

Two of this year's Outstanding Supporting Actor nominees saw their characters murdered this past year. All My Children's William deVry (ex-Michael Cambias) and Days of our Lives' James Reynolds' characters couldn't be more different. Reynolds' Abe Carver had been the longest-running African-American character in television history until he fell victim to DAYS' serial killer. deVry's Michael, a rapist, was shot and killed last summer s part of a murder mystery storyline that was not resolved until this month. deVry and Reynolds will go head-to-head with Rick Hearst (Ric Lansing, General Hospital), Ron Raines (Alan Spaulding, Guiding Light) and Christian J LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin, The Young and the Restless). Hearst is a previous Emmy winner for his work as Alan-Michael Spaulding on Guiding Light. Many soap insiders felt that Hearst should have received an Emmy nomination two years ago for his work as the evil Matt Clark on The Young and the Restless.

There are few first-timers among this year's nominees, three of them come from one soap. One Life to Live's Ilene Kristen (Roxy Balsom) and Kathy Brier (Marcy Walsh) each picked up their very first nominations, both in the Outstanding Supporting Actress field. Four of this year's Outstanding Younger Actor and Actress nominees were also newcomers to the Emmy ballot. They are: Agim Kaba (Aaron Snyder, As the World Turns), Scott Clifton (Dillon Quartermaine, General Hospital), Christel Khalil (Lily Winters, The Young and the Restless) and Lauren Woodland (Brittany Hodges, The Young and the Restless).

The Bold and the Beautiful received its second consecutive nomination for Outstanding Drama Series. The show failed to earn any acting nominations. Conversely, All My Children was shut out of the top soap field for a second straight year - it marks only the second time in the show's history that it has not been named as a nominee for Outstanding Drama Series.

Passions, the only soap to not receive an acting nomination this year, received seven nominations overall. In addition to six technical nominations, Passions was once again nominated for Outstanding Directing Team

This year's Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to ten veteran have devoted a major portion of their careers to Daytime Drama: Rachel Ames, John Clarke, Jeanne Cooper, Eileen Fulton, Don Hastings, Anna Lee, Ray MacDonnell, Frances Reid, Helen Wagner, and Ruth Warrick.

The Creative Craft Daytime Emmy Awards, primarily for the creative will be presented at ceremonies on Saturday, May 15, in New York at Marquis Hotel and in Los Angeles at the Kodak Theatre Ballroom.

The Daytime Emmys will be held Friday, May 21st and will air on NBC at 900pm.

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