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Ricardo Montalbán: ''I did not dare place too much hope that Fantasy Island would succeed.''
"Their reviews were not just bad; they were abysmal."
Though today it is well loved by audieces today, it wasn’t exactly met with a warm reception when it first began airing.
According to the show’s star, Ricardo Montalbán, critics were very unkind to the series, to the point where the actor assumed that it was on the verge of cancellation.
“During all this time I did not dare place too much hope that Fantasy Island would succeed,” wrote Montalbán in his memoir, Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds.
“The critics helped to curb my expectations. Their reviews were not just bad; they were abysmal…I wasn’t prepared for the lambasting of Fantasy Island. My heart sank. I had known the power of critics in the theater, where a handful of demigods wielded the power of life and death over the future of actors. Movie reviewers did not possess such absolute power, but their opinions could help or hurt a project.”
Luckily, the opinion of a handful of critics meant nothing to a sea of viewers who adored Fantasy Island.
“Thank heaven I was in a medium in which the public decided whether or not they liked a show,” wrote the actor. “They liked Fantasy Island. The series had been on the air only a few times when suddenly I was recognized everywhere I went, by all age groups. I had never known such widespread recognition.”
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