DRW50

That's an odd photo with Lisa Peluso (?). It looks like he's with a vampire. I wonder what the other soap offer was. I could see GL asking for him, especially since John Wesley Shipp was leaving.

This is great. I love your banner, and I love the article! And continuing on that theme, that's a beautiful shot of Liz Hubbard. Some of the glamour shots of her at that time are framed strangely and just put a big closeup on her nose, but this one is great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzh007pO-yI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6LQo4FxgGY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

That's rare - that a soap is saved because of viewer anger.

I wonder why they changed their mind.

Caryn Richman auditioned for Search's Suzi after Cindy Gibb left. When she lost to Elizabeth Swackhammer, she subletted Elizabeth her apartment.

How long after this article did they fire Stadd? Apparently his wife went on to quite a bit of TV writing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ4tsqcCbbE

as it is. "Housewives simply are interested in everything that interests other women," says writer Stedd, who continues: "There are two central characters in From These Roots - Liz and David. But we are not only telling the story of two people. We tell the story of an entire family, the entire town of Strathfield, and all their complex inter-relationships. It's a story that never really began and will never end. It goes on and on, as families go on and on. "There is no rigid pattern. We don't say, 'This is the only way it is - today, tomorrow and forever.' I write the scripts according to the way the story unfolds. If a character begins to get more interesting, to 'take over' - and often it's the viewers who first call this to my attention - then I build up the part. Nothing has to remain static." Healthy family relationships are a basic quality of the drama. There is the relationship of the father, Ben Fraser, to the younger members of the family...Ben is what the world calls an elderly man, but still active, still looking forward, still pulling his own weight. There is Kass, the Fraser housekeeper...Kass is an individual in her own right, not merely someone who walks in and out, serving coffee or answering telephones and doorbells. She mothered Liz after Mrs. Fraser died; when Kass herself was ill, the entire family was caught up in the concern for her. There is the excellent relationship between Liz and her older sister Emily: "Here are sisters quite unlike in temperament and experience, yet able to have deep love and understanding between them, and to talk to each other on their own terms." Emily's own relationship with her daughter Lyddy is also a good one. Emily has come to grips with herself after some stormy years. She has now become a point of identification with many viewers around her age. Emily has lived through a period when she suffered from pseudocyesis (spurious pregnancy), caused by the shock of believing she had lost her husband's love and the need to have another child to forge a new link in their marriage. Although she recovered, she became a widow shortly after, and has developed as one of the most interesting characters in the story. Problems - often among those encountered by many viewers themselves - are met head-on. The whole question of the adoption of older children (the so-called "unadoptables") is one of these. When Maggie and Dr. Buck Weaver decided to adopt an infant - and were led, instead ,into adopting not only a five-year-old boy but his six-year-old "problem" brother - the mail increased from "adopted" parents who were particularly interested in the emergencies, problems and rewards of such adoptions, as depicted on their TV sets. The subject of "black market" babies was treated with equal frankness, and both the producer and the writer felt they had rendered a service by airing the whole question in terms of human drama. From These Roots has dealt with juvenile delinquency. Medical emergencies have occurred. "I don't believe we have to bring in a lot of diseases or dwell too much on medical procedures. When Kass required a brain operation," Stadd points out, "that was an integral part of the plot. I talked to doctors before I wrote the hospital scenes. Kass had hit her head and injured blood vessels. This happens. The operation is the cure. It was all completely true to medicine - and to life." An interesting sidelight on the operation is the number of messages that poured in, asking to have Kass get well. "Don't let Kass die," they begged Len Wayland, who plays Dr. Weaver - and who notes: "They wanted me to see, personally, that Kass came out all right. I don't think they quite trusted the writer or the producer. They went directly to the doctor!" "We try to make our show a healthy one," Stadd explains. "Where a character needs to undergo psychiatric treatment, as Emily did for a time, it was used as the great, modern tool it has become. But we steer away from psychiatric terminology. People today are familiar with psychological medicine. They know something about the treatment of the mentally disturbed. But that's no reason for bringing in into the story merely to resolve some situation." Humor and fun also have their place in any drama that is true to life. Sometimes that is projected, on the show, through father Ben Fraser, who loves to "pull the leg" of some other member of the family until he gets the laugh he's angling for. "The great thing we try to bring out," says Stadd, "is that people who live together - in a family, a community, in any group - are bound to have arguments, strong differences of opinion. But underlying these is the respect - more than that, the love - they have for one another. On daytime TV serials, people aren't ashamed of that world 'love.' "Perhaps their emotions seem stronger because we have more time to portray them in depth. All the dramatic elements of a good nighttime drama can be shown, but there is greater opportunity to explore them. Our story doesn't need to be hurried along. What we can't do today, we can do tomorrow." Leonard Stadd fully realizes how much the writer is aided by good production and direction, and by having fine actors to interpret his words. Eugene Burr is the producer of From These Roots, and Paul Lammers directs. All work together closely. "No matter what I write, nothing would happen without all of them and all their help." Stadd speaks out of personal experience, as both actor and member of a family "team." Not too successful, at first, as a writer of short stories and magazine articles in New York, he became interested in TV while working for an agent for playwrights. "I read hundreds of TV scripts," he says, "and kept telling myself I could do better. So I had to prove it." He has - not only as sole writer of From These Roots, but in previous stings for such shows as Ellery Queen, NBC Matinee Theater, and The Verdict Is Yours. Behind his current success is the woman he credits with starting it all: His wife Arlene. Born thirty-five years ago in Baltimore, Maryland. Leonard met Arlene while doing a little-theater production there. It was she who read his early writings and encouraged him to take courses at Johns Hopkins. And, when she left to study drama at Carnegie Institute, he followed - to major in writing at the University of Pittsburgh nearby. They were married during Christmas recess, now have a son Robbie, who was five last April. "Robbie plunged Arlene into semi-retirement," the writer says. "But, last winter - just to keep her hand in - she did a bit part in From These Roots. She played a nurse when Kass was ill...and a male fan of the show immediately asked, 'Who was the new nurse? Wow!'"

July 1961 TV Radio Mirror

I guess those were the peak years for Love of Live. At first I thought that was the Regis Millionaire. BTW I wanted to say sorry about the ratings I posted not having the game shows. It wasn't an oversight - it's just that the Daytime TV issues don't feature them.

I guess Beverlee's departure in 1980 probably made things even worse. The 1980 episodes I have seen aren't bad, but they're very lackluster and mostly center on stuff that's just kind of stupid and dated (like Kit the runaway heiress, and the endless hand-wringing over Jordan Scott). The only story which has momentum is Cecile's schemes. I also like Blaine and Jerry, two very attractive and interesting people, but knowing that ends so badly you can't really get invested.

GH didn't add a black character did they? Did A Time for Us?

Were these stories planned out for a while or was it the strike writers (or the producer, Edwards) who saw the strike period as their best time to try socially relevant stories? What did you think of the stories? Was Camille Yarborough involved in this story? It's too bad this is all likely lost. It sounds very cutting edge for the P&G soaps at this time. And it also sounds like the highest profile stories Search ever gave to black characters. The Linda Bove story is also very unique for soaps. I wonder if she left for Sesame Street or they just wrote her out.

Yes. There's a thread, Classic AMC/OLTL, where a few of us have been discussing the episodes over the last few months. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I don't think T-Paw would have been a strong candidate. He had the media, and the media loved him, but he was uncharismatic, he's an extremist on social issues without any of the charisma to balance that out, he left Minnesota in a bad fiscal place, he raised taxes (even if he didn't call them taxes), and he was just gutless. There would be a movement to bring him back in if he had been that strong. I'm not surprised about the Gingrich endorsement over Huntsman. Huntsman is a moderate. NH conservatives don't even want college students to vote, and they care more about repealing gay marriage laws than any real problems. They would love Gingrich, who panders his way to the right every time it suits him.

I thought she was great. I hated where the story went. They could have kept her on for years (or, to the end of the show anyway).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaYHzGwPu0

Here's a clip of Esta.

I went to the Egoli site and saw news updates for some of their last years but didn't see any clips. Are they still there? There are a few things on Youtube. I know it airs in repeats on one South African channel but don't know if that can be seen in the US.

I never knew that. I wonder who she played.

I didn't either. I thought for some reason he was on an Italian soap after Loving. Egoli is one of those shows very little seems to be available for.

March 1998 Digest.

From a March 1998 Digest