'Knots Landing' ran for 14 years between 1979 and 1993. "We have the best-written nighttime soap on the air," Joan Van Ark recalled. Joan was born a Gemini. It was said, "Gemini actors are seen a certain way for many years and then often surprise the world with their versatility decades later." In real life, Joan married newsman John Marshall, "His world is different – he lives with facts. My world is fantasy." 'Knots Landing', Joan observed, "I'd say it has a level. We take a borderline realistic situation, heighten it a bit, and react to it as realistically as possible. A realistic basis usually produces the better storyline." Michele Lee maintained, "What makes us different from 'Dynasty' or 'Dallas' is that we're not just dealing with people who have a lot of money, although we have gotten a little upscale...But we exemplify middle-class values." Ted Shackelford insisted, "If people watch 'Knots Landing' and are entertained by it than I’m happy. The main thing I have to remember is I'm providing entertainment for the masses, not creating art."
Donna Mills shared, "I grew up in a very traditional mid-western home where all you're really expected to do was, you know, grow up, get sort of decent grades in school and probably get married. I don't know how but that never - I mean that was all around me, everyone that I knew did that and everything - but somehow that was never in my mind, that was never what I wanted to do. From the time I was a little kid other kids were, you know, were brides and this and that and other things..." Of acting, Ted expressed, "There's a lot of power to acting on the stage. You can pretty much take people emotionally where you want to take them. I remember my freshman year of college I was doing a play and suddenly I was aware of all the energy coming from the audience directed at me. That's when I knew I had to be an actor. The amount of energy you get as one person on stage coming from 500 people is not to be believed. It's an incredible high that I don't think anyone can even get from drugs." Of his character on 'Knots Landing', Ted believed, "The producers saw something in me that I wasn't aware of. Producers have to be able to look past the actor's initial nervousness and see if there is a personality they can mold into the character hiding within the actor. I hadn't ever watched 'Dallas' when I went to audition for 'Knots Landing.'" Donna offered, "My idea of what a director does anyway is that he sets up an atmosphere for you to be free enough to do your own interpretation of the way the scene should be done and makes it comfortable for you so that your own inner ability comes out."
Ted worked at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City when he was auditioning for parts. He recounted, "You can't imagine what it was like when Jackie Kennedy checked into the hotel! She was so impressive and so beautiful that the staff would be excited the entire evening just thinking about her. Here I was, struggling actor by day and at night George C. Scott was calling me, Mr Shackelford. Warren Beatty used to come to the hotel a lot. I got used to seeing him there all the time. One night I saw him entered the lobby and so I naturally reached for his key. I turned around to hand it to him and I froze. I couldn’t move because hanging on his arm was Julie Christie." Donna said she watched 'Knots Landing' when it was on air because "that was the only time we got to see it. We didn't get to see our work except for when it was on the air because a lot of the time we were filming very close to our airdates so we were taping it and cutting it right away so we never got to see the 'dailies' or anything. We just have to see it on the air."
