All My Children‘s recently memory-challenged playboy has yet another new partner. Cameron Mathison, best known as Ryan Lavery on the ABC daytime drama, is pairing off with Sherri Shepherd of The View. The duo has landed the hosting chores for the coming 35th Annual Daytime Emmys scheduled for June 20th at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.
Mathison seems to have come into his own as a presenter, also serving as host on SOAPnet’s reality competition show, I Wanna Be a Soap Star. While he hasn’t yet bagged his own Daytime Emmy, he has been nominated twice for outstanding supporting actor in 2002 and 2004.
In other news, four months after Days of Our Lives fired its entire writing team, All My Children has followed suit, getting rid of current head writers, Barbara Esensten and James Harmon Brown. In their stead, ABC has brought in five-time Daytime Emmy winner, Charles Pratt, Jr., who brings with him a diverse background in television writing.
Pratt earned his Emmy stripes in a remarkable run that saw him scoop up three of the statues while sharing head writing duties for General Hospital with Robert Guza, Jr. Prior to that, Pratt won his first pair of Emmy Awards, not to mention four more nominations, as part of the writing pools for the now-defunct NBC soaps, Sunset Beach and Santa Barbara.
Outside the realm of daytime television, Pratt also boasts an impressive resume of primetime work. He has penned stories for such high profile shows like the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys as well as Darren Star’s early `90s series, Melrose Place. Apart from his writing duties, Pratt has also worked as a consulting producer on recent hits, Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty.
“I am incredibly excited to welcome Chuck as head writer of All My Children,” AMC showrunner Julie Hanan Carruthers has said. “I look forward to his contemporary storytelling sensibility, his warmth and sense of humor enriching the entire canvas of Pine Valley.”
Charles Pratt, Jr. takes over the reins of All My Children‘s scriptwriting beginning June 23.
-Rosario Santiago, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: AP, Soap Central
(Image Courtesy of Variety)
Staff Columnist, BuddyTV
