Harding Lemay's soap Lovers and Friends

[Cat]

Yeah, that is what I meant. Melodrama in the purest sense of the word. A psychodrama.

And it sounds like L&F would be up my street as well.

[EricMontreal22]

OK I feel like an idiot--I can't figure out our scanner--i think maybe I need to load a disc I don't have... So maybe I will just type it lol

That opening I found, on video of For Richer FOr Poorer, but nothing else, does make me think at least an episode of that is floating around somewhere...

[TC]

Maybe Brian from WOST would know. I've seen him posting here, using the name "wostbrian" I think.

[Sean]

I remember a member here once said that he had one episode each from both soaps in his collection (this was a few years ago - but I remember he said one was a wedding, perhaps the FRFP revamped premiere?). I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few more lingering in the P&G archives.

[EricMontreal22]

I hope they show up at some point...

Great avatar! One of my earliest screen crushes

[Paul Raven]

I wonder what happened behind the scenes to have L&F taken off the air to be retooled?

The think the only other time that happened was in the early 60's on CBS with The Clear Horizon.

Was L&F rushed to air and in such a chaotic state that the decision was made to revamp off air.I mean,a lot osf soaps have gotten off to a rocky start and made changes in the first months on air.

Were the actors kept on contract all those months?If not,maybe that accounts for some of the cast changes.

What were the major changes? I know the Rhett character was now called Bill.If those kind of changes were the extent of the revamp,no wonder the show died.

Incidentally,Chico and the Man reruns replaced L&F at 12.30,then The Gong Show and America Alive.

FRFP played at 1.00,the first NBC network show in that slot since the 50's. I'm sure the clearances were low.

Apart from Rod Arrants,none of the other cast members became big soap names.

[All My Shadows]

Wasn't "Love of Life" taken off the air for a short time in 1978-1979 in order to fix the show up? Not a complete revamp, of course, but some fine tuning. I remember reading that when the show came back in April 1979, two things really helped kill it: Jean Holloway's extremely old-fashioned and outdated style of storytelling and the show's move from its traditional late morning timeslot to the afternoon.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm not sure if anything was reallyhappening behind the scenes for the retooling--anything major. Although I know Harding stayed on AW for two more years I sorta get the feeling that already by 1977 he was starting to suffer burnout--it's interesting that he really didn't seem to fight for Lovers and Friends even though it was his creation...

I promise I will type that stuff out

[EricMontreal22]

This isn't the synopsises but a brief comparioson of Lovers and Friends with Richer and Poorer in the 1987 edition of Schemering's encyclopedia--interesting tthis and the other book mention it was initially viewed as NBC's answer to Y&R

(all typos are mine--i'm gonna try to type this out as fast as possible)

Lovers and Friends

Jan 3 1977 - May 6 1977 NBC

After establishing Another World as one of daytime's highest-rated saops, writer Harding Lemay and producer Paul rauch went to work on creating a new serial about two very different kinds of families: the wealthy Cushings and the upwardly mobile Saxtons. The Cushings included Austin, an unemployed college dropout with a drinking problem; Megan his sister; Richard their stockbroker father; and Edith, their socialite mother. The Saxtons included Rhett, who fell in love with Megan Cushing; his parents Lexter and Josie; Jason his brother who also vied for Megan's affections; Bentley, his younger teenage brother; Eleanor, his social climbing sister married to George Kimball; and Tessa his youngest, teenage sister.

Set in Point Clair, a fashionable suburb of Chicago, L&F (titled Into this House in development) was originally rumoured to be NBC's attempt at a show similar to Young and the Restless, however it focused even more on class conflict and psychological themes, a sort of mix of Lemay's Another World with the youth of Y&R. Like AW, the drama depended more on character development than plot, but L&F had a far more youthful cast. (It was also taped in the Brooklyn Studio adjacent to Another World.)( When the soap did not catch on immeidately, trigger happy NBC decided to put it on hold for intensive revisions. The revamped version, For Richer For Poorer appeared seveb months later.

For Richer, For Poorer

Dec 6 1977 - Sep 29 1978 NBC

After a seven-month hiatus to make stroy and cast changes, Lovers and Freinds returned to NBC daytime in this revamped version. the setting was still Point Clair, a Chicago suburb, but the Cushings and the Saxtons wer eno longer neighbours. Tom King had taken over the headwriting position from creator Harding Lemay (who remained a consultant), and there were many other chnages. The character of Edith Cushing was recast and made a widow, Austin Cushing had married Amy Gifford, Bentley Saxton and sister Tessa were suddenly aged and college students. Most important, the leading parts of the star-crossed lovers Megan Cushing and Bill (changed from Rhett) were recast.

While Lovers and Friends had moved at a leisurely pace, emphasising character over plot, For Richer began with a hook and never let up: the day of Megan and Bill's wedding, Bill's ex-girlfriend told Megan that she, Connie, was five months pregnant with Bill's child. The lives of the Cushings and the Saxtons were still intertwined and in class conflict. Writer Tom King added a third family, the wealthy Brewsters, and tried to beef up the show with romance, suspence and soap staples such as adultery, amnesia and organized crime. In an unusual and publicized move, the popular characters of Mac and Rachel Cory from Another World were drafted for several extended appearances to perk up interesting in the show. Although For Richer, For Poorer was undenibaly a far livelier and plot heavy show than its predeccessor, NBC gave up on the show, employing much of the cast in their other soaps.

[EricMontreal22]

And now the first chunk of the article/synopsis of the book from the 1977 revision of LaGuardia's World of Soap Operas (so while the show was still briefly on the air) Again I'm typing this out so all typos are mine. LaGuardia has such a relatively old fashioned way of writing I find quite charming--but quite different from the above entry.

Lovers and Friends:

Before the premiere of Lovers and Friends on January 3, 1977, the new serial was expected to be an imitation on NBC, of the highly successful The Young and the Restless on CBS. The actual program, however, turned out to be quite different. While there are some similarities--the emphasis on Young Love, the clash between older and younger generations, for example--Lovers and Friends tends not to be Hollywood-glamorous nor a bedazzling fantasy of sensuality like Y&R. Its many simultaneous love stories gain their interest from the complexities of human interaction and motivation, so typical of the psychological preoccupation of its creator and head writer, Harding Lemay. Mr Lemay, it is recalled from earlier chapters, was the last writer to pen the Steve-Alice-Rachel love triangle on Antoher World, rounding out all three characters with stronger motivations and broader backgrounds for their actions.

So, quite consistantly, Mr Lemay introduced his characters on Lovers and Friends, during the first week of episodes, with elaborate backgroudns and prior "stories" to justify current dilemmas. (Most serials introduce such prior lives when a particular plot, occuring somethings a year after the premier, necessitates the information.) Viewers heard, in dialogue packed scenes, of previous alcoholic bouts, marriages and engagements for convenience, details of wedded lives lived decades in the past--all for the sake of imparting utmost realism to the vivid romantic and familial problmes that Lovers and Friends' characters now experience.

The story's set-up is unusual: two families, one rich and one poor, interact--with the romantic entanglements between the two families establishing most of the immediate plot, but with social points (such as the quest for success, or the flight from entrapment of it), ultimately controlling romantic attractions. The two-family set-up--rich and poor--was first established by Irna Phillips (as the World Turns, Another World), and was recently revived by William Bell in his The Young and the Restless, with great effective-ness. Rich-and-poor families, as milieu, was also used by Agnes Nixon in her fine creations One Life to Live and the recent hit All My Children. Mr Lemay's show has good precedents. Yet, it is distinguished (this far) by the scrupulous avoidance of melodrama and a decided interest in normal, rather than pathological, psychology. Lovers and Friends promises to offer us flawed heroes and "sympathetic" villains.

As an aside here, one might also note that Lovers and Friends is vaguely autobiographical, in that Harding Lemay came from a large family, plagued by many problems among parents and offspring (he ran away from home at an early ago but some years ago had a reconciliation with the Lemays), and has always had, by his own admission, a love-hate relationship with rich people. It is no accident that Richard and Edith Cushing are unsavory people, having done great damage to their children, while financially poor Josie and Lester Saxton have at least produced, among their five off-spring, an Apolo-like winner specieman of a man in Rhett Saxton.

Lovers and Friends began with the following cast:

Ron Randell (Richard CUshing)

Nancy Marchand (Edith Slocum CUshing)

Margaret Barker (Sophie Slocum)

Patricia Estrin (Megan Cushing)

Rod Arrants (Austin Cushing)

John Heffernan (Lester Saxton)

Patricia Englund (Josie Saxton)

Bob Purvey (Rhett Saxton)

Richard Backus (Jason Saxton)

VIcky Dawson (Tessa Saxton)

Flora Plumb (Eleanor, "Ellie", Saxton Kimball)

Stephen Joyce (George Kimball)

David Knapp (Desmond Hamilton)

David Abbot (Bentley Saxton)

Christine Jones (Amy Gifford)

Diane Harper (Laurie Brewster)

Susan Foster (Connie Ferguson)

Karen Phillip (Barbara Manners)

[EricMontreal22]

ANd heres' the plot from LaGuardia's book. Again I'm typing as fast as I can to get it out so my typos will prob be worse than ever--sorry. I still think the setup and storyline, while nothing groundbreaking, strikes me as terrific. I'd love to see some of this and wish it had been given a longer chance in its original incarnation. (I'm following the book's odd practice of writing names when they first appear in capital letters). Interesting, it says above in the other book that the Brewsters were added for Richer by Tom King--but they obviously had at least one family member in the original

OVERVIEW AND OPENING STORY

The wealthy, "country club" Cushings live in Point Clair, a posh suburb of Chicago, and are headed by stockbroker RICHARD CUSHING (Ron Randell) and his snobbish wife, EDITH CUSHING (Nancy Marchand). Richard is having an affair with his assistant BABARA MANNERS (Karen Phillip); in fact the Cushing marriage is an "arrangement" by now, since Edith knows of Richard's affair and tolerates it, and Richard knows that Edith knows. The two Cushing children are both in trouble: AUSTIN (Rod Arrants) turned to alcohol when he realized he would never become a first-rate artist and when his relationship with LAURIE BREWSTER (Diane Harper) began to sour; and MEGAN (Pat Estrin) allowed herself to become engaged to the terribly stuffy DESMOND HAMILTON (David Knapp) out of sheer rboredom and lack of will, since her parents seemed to want the marriage.

The poor Saxtons have just become neighbours of the Cushings. JOSIE (Pat Englund) and LESTER SAXTON (John Heffernan), a reformed alcoholic, were living in a poor section of Chicago before their social climbing, 27-year old daughter, ELLIE KIMBALL (Flora Plumb), convinced her lawyer-husband, GEORGE KIMBALL (Stephen Joyce) to give her unemployed father Lester a job and buy a new house for the Saxtons next door to the Cushings in Point Clair. The two youngest children, BENTLEY, eighteen and TESSA, fifteen, resent having to leave all their firends behind in the Hammond section of Chicago. JASON SAXTON, tenty-two (Richard Backus), is a schemer, interested in climbing the ladder of success by any means, quickly: and RHETT SAXTON, twenty-five, has his feet solidly planted on the ground, radiating strength and virility. When the story began he was engaged to Connie Ferguson--but the relationship, as he grew to realize, lacked passion. It was inevitable that he and beautiful Megan would find each other irresistable. Megan's wise grandmother, realizing that Megan was about to make the same mistake that both she and her daughter Edith (megan's mother) made in their own marriages, advised Megan to call of her engagement to Desmond and to wait for a man that she could really love.

AMY GIFFORD (Christine Jones), a cousin of the Saxtons, set her sights on weak, alcoholic, and very rich Austin Cushing, despite the fact that he and Laurie Brestwer had planned on marrying--but only after he was able to pull himself together. Simultaenously, Jason Saxton took over Austin's job at his father's firm and was also intent on replacing Austin in the arms of Laurie, all for the sake of getting ahead quickly. He even connived to break up his brother's engagement to Connie Ferguson, and Megan's with Desmond Hamilton, to make sure that a Saxton (Rhett) married a Cushing (megan). For that bit of scheming Rhett blackened his brother Jason's eye--but Jason had only been acting on the truth: Rhett and Megan were irrevocably in love. While Laurie fell into the arms of Jason, a crushed Austin sought solice in the liquor bottle. Since Lester Saxton had been through it all before, he became a kind of "alcoholic's father figure" for Austin, helping the boy get off the bottle. Richard Cushing had wanted to send Austin to an expensive sanitarium to dry-out, and felt slighted that his son refused to go, instead deciding to remain in Point Clair to face his problems head on with the kindly Lester for guidance.

[Sapounopera]

This sounds like a very interesting show to me. Another bad decision for NBC Daytime.. It's not like you get Harding Lemay everyday to create a soap opera for you.

I love the show's title and yes.. for some reason, I got the feeling it was NBC's answer to Y&R the first time I read about it in the Soap Opera Encyclopedia years ago.

And L&F has several similarities with another defunct NBC soap opera, namely Generations. Both shows were set in Chicago and featured a problematic rich family and a blue-collar one that has just managed to get the money and move in a good neighbourhood.

[EricMontreal22]

It shocks me that NBC has had such a long history of giving up on shows--especially seeing that in 1977 they should have had more faith in Harding Lemay (even Y&R did very poorly its first year).

You're right about the Generations similarity--I never even thought about that!

[Snark]

Thanks to the Wayback Machine, a few of the synopses from the now-defunct soapopera history site have survived:

http://web.archive.org/web/*sr_61nr_10/htt...rahistory.com/*

[EricMontreal22]

What happened to that site