Nearly 40 years after Constance McCashin’s Laura was dramatically written off Knots Landing, her former costars are still uneasy about what transpired.
“I think many people were really bummed when she left the show,” Donna Mills said of McCashin’s sudden departure during a joint appearance with castmates Joan Van Ark and Michele Lee at the Southfork Experience in Texas on August 9, according to People.
Mills, Van Ark and Lee, who played Abby Cunningham, Valene Ewing and Karen MacKenzie, respectively, on the soap opera, agreed that McCashin, 78, leaving the show in 1987 after being part of the original cast didn’t sit well with everyone.
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“It isn’t a good goodbye,” Van Ark, 82, confessed. “It would never be with an actress of her stature, but it leaves a scar in a tiny way, and she was invaluable.”
Mills, 84, claimed that McCashin was “very hurt” by the executives’ choice to write her out of the show to allegedly save on production costs.
McCashin portrayed Laura Avery Sumner from 1979 to 1987. During season 9, Laura died from a brain tumor, and the show’s 200th episode centered around her heartbreaking funeral.
Looking back at that time frame, Mills, Van Ark and Lee, 83, recalled how the cast processed McCashin’s exit while handling the TV death on screen.
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“We were invited for a weekend, the whole cast, to come to [creator] David Jacobs‘ house and sit around and ad lib on the death of Laura,” Mills told the crowd during their Knots Landing panel. “We came as our characters and each of us reacted and acted and spent a whole weekend talking about it.”
Lee pointed out that there were cameras following them every step of the way.
“We paid no attention to the cameras, honestly, but for instance, if Joan and I walked together outside the house, there would be someone that would follow us,” she remembered. “And so it was finding our voice.”
Van Ark noted it was as if they were mourning “the soul of the character” while also capturing “moments and exchanges that would be real, that would be gentle” for the viewers to process.
Knots Landing premiered in 1979 as a spinoff of Dallas. The CBS series ran 14 seasons before ending in 1993. Each week, fans tuned in to see what the residents of the fictional coastal suburb of Los Angeles were doing, which was anything from falling in love and getting married to being kidnapped or involved in criminal investigations.
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In April, Mills, Van Ark and Lee reunited to cohost the “We’re Knot Done Yet” podcast where they rewatch the iconic series and reconnect with their former castmates.
McCashin has not appeared on the podcast yet, but according to Mills she is the “No. 1 requested person that people want to hear from and see.” As a result, the trio did record an episode with McCashin, which Van Ark said is an “amazing interview.”
