Jonelle Allen Dishes Legendary Catfight with Vivica A. Fox, Possible Generations Reboot
Generations, the groundbreaking NBC soap that ran from 1990-91, is remembered for many things. After all, it was the first soap to debut with a core Black family, the Marshalls, and introduced daytime audiences to stars like the late Kristoff St. John, who played Adam Marshall before his decades-long, Daytime Emmy-winning stint as Neil Winters on Young and Restless. But 25 years after its finale aired on January 25, 1991, certainly no single episode is more vivid in fans’ minds than the epic catfight that broke out between Maya Reubens, played by Vivica A. Fox, and Doreen Jackson, played by Jonelle Allen. Allen looked back on the legendary 1990 dust-up when she appeared as a guest on Soapy, the podcast podcast hosted by Rebecca Budig (Taylor, Bold and Beautiful) and Greg Rikaart (Leo, Days of Our Lives).
Fight Club
Allen shared that she and Fox — whose characters were at war in the storyline because Maya had learned that Doreen had given birth to Adam’s daughter — were both gung-ho to do a physical catfight, inspired by the campy Dynasty brawls between Linda Evans (Krystle) and Joan Collins (Alexis). “Vivica and I were like, ‘Well, we want to do a catfight!'” she recalled. “‘But we, because we’re dancers, we want to have it choreographed so that you can push that camera in there and you can really see what’s going on!'”
The catfight scenes were scripted by Michele Val Jean, who is now the creator, head writer and showrunner of Beyond the Gates, and Fox and Allen then worked with a choreographer to plot out each beat of the skirmish. “Everything was right down to the moment,” Allen noted, adding that she and Fox “would go off and rehearse. I mean, we really, really, really, really worked at it.”
But in the moment of filming, some unplanned things did arise, like when Allen encouraged Fox to pull the train on her gown, which was constructed to be detachable. “But I had an ad lib for it that they didn’t know [about],” Allen confessed. “It was, ‘My train! My train!’ That was my contribution to the moment.” Allen also came up with the bit where Doreen kicked off her shoes one at a time — which almost resulted in a cameraman being struck by an errant heel!
Allen offered high praise for the episode’s director, Anthony Morina. “He was able to see what we were doing and he facilitated what we were doing. He didn’t come in and then say, ‘Well, the angle has to be that way,’ or whatever. I mean, he meticulously watched what we were doing and then he was able to set up the cameras — multiple cameras, of course — so they were able to catch everything. He was terrific.”
Allen appreciates that the catfight has stood the test of time, but confided, “My dream is that Beyond the Gates becomes such a huge hit that people want to be talking more about more and more about Generations because of the fact that in a way, [the show] was the seed” for BTG, which when it debuted on February 24, 2025 because the first soap with a predominantly Black cast.
The actress went on to reveal that Sally Sussman, the creator of Generations, “has a new reboot of Generations. Kelly Rutherford [ex-Sam] and Bob Torti [ex-Kyle] and I want to be involved in it, and there would be other actors [from the original cast], as well.”
Check out the entirety of Allen’s lively conversation with Budig and Rikaart below.
Conversation
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