When Sherman Magidson helped gain a hung jury in last year`s retrial of Daniel McKay, the suburban Chicago veterinarian accused of killing his newborn child, it capped another stellar courtroom performance.
But it was very much a cameo appearance by a criminal defense lawyer who has left grit for glitter in the latest episode of a decidedly full life.
As the strike by film and TV writers dragged on, Magidson continued his labors as full-time legal consultant and writer for two premier soap operas that remained on the air despite the walkout, ''The Young and the Restless''and ''The Bold and the Beautiful.''
Rather than aiding real-life rogues or the unjustly accused, he melds fact with fiction for an audience far greater than all the juries he has swayed.
For example, he concocted a complex and legally credible scheme for ''The Young and the Restless,'' in which conniving Nikki Newman tries to rip off $40 million from her mogul husband, Arthur, only to be thwarted by an Arthur counterattack, replete with counterfeit stock certificates. It`s a scheme so subtle that it might impress investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Magidson, 55, was one of Chicago`s prominent criminal defense lawyers when he chose to embrace his second love, the soaps; in particular the two shows created by the husband-wife team of Chicagoans Bill Bell and Lee Phillip.
''It was all so sudden,'' said Chicago lawyer Sam Adam. Here was an about-face by a man near the top of his competitive trade who had lived and breathed the combat of criminal litigation since a teenager.
In a world of inflated reputations, egos and jealousies, he was widely respected as tough, aggressive and genial, notes Cook County Criminal Court Judge James Bailey. A street-smart, rumpled Yale University graduate, his clients had included the late Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, reputed mob ''hit-man'' Joseph Lombardo, TV weather forecaster Jim Tilmon and the late Metropolitan Sanitary District Commissioner Chester Majewski.
''This was just an opportunity to climb another mountain and get some sunshine,'' he said last week, content and at ease in short pants and sports shirt in the house that serves as his home and computer-filled office.
Magidson may know the often byzantine, ethically clouded Chicago courts better than anyone. His mother was secretary to Charlie Bellows, a legendary Criminal Court defense lawyer of the 1940s and `50s, and Magidson was helping to write briefs by age 16.
After completing Northwestern University Law School, he worked with Bellows and, later, with Harry Busch, another fabled defense attorney. To some, Magidson was exiting his mentors` vast shadows at the time he headed west.
But he always had reflected eclectic passions and intellect. Sure, he was a lawyer, but he also was a military history buff, professional photographer, scuba diver and founder of the Lawyers Assistance Program, a successful drug and alcohol counseling service in Chicago.
His double-life is traced to 1960, when he had met Chicagoan Irna Phillips, a cantankerous grand dame of the soaps who wrote many episodes of
''Days of Our Lives'' in the `50s and `60s.
That acquaintance, and a friendship with Bill Bell, a young Phillips aide who took over the writing on ''Days of Our Lives'' in 1965, spurred a second career unknown to most.
He`d be lawyer by day and soap writer at night, crafting stories of murders, custody fights and even a critically acclaimed rape trial for ''The Young and the Restless.'' It was an exhausting schedule but one derived from the mix of his diverse talents and longtime suffering from insomnia.
Two years ago, Bell sold the idea for ''The Bold and the Beautiful'' to CBS and asked Magidson if he`d come aboard full time. He initially declined because he was nervous about leaving his hometown, mother and two of his four adult children. But he relented.
Bell`s timing was fortuitous. Magidson was spending as much as 40 weeks a year in courts, getting worried about his health and chagrined over the ramifications of Operation Greylord, the federal investigation into Cook County court corruption.
Greylord was at its height, and public respect for the profession Magidson loves was plummeting.
''When I was a kid, you said you were a lawyer and people looked up to you,'' he said. ''In the mid-1980s in Chicago, a lawyer became synonymous with `crook.` It was deeply painful to me.''
In March, 1987, he came to Los Angeles in a move that took by surprise even those who knew his ties to the soaps.
''I admire him for having the guts to make a change,'' said Loop attorney George Cotsirilos, underlining that Magidson was blossoming into
''one of the real big guys in town.''
Magidson, who is not a member of the writers guild, concedes tremendous difficulty in adapting to the ''social milieu'' in Los Angeles. He gets along well with Bell, Phillip and their colleagues, many of whom are Chicagoans, but gets queasy around most others.
''People in this world are different,'' he said. ''The criterion is often how much you make, not what you contribute. You`re gauged by the car you drive and the diamonds you wear.''
He misses ''the action of being an attorney, though not the heartbreak. I miss being the big dog in the courtroom. Here, I`m a speck.''
At times, he even finds himself playing drama coach, perhaps showing actors the small gestures and attitudes that can bring an air of reality to law-oriented, especially courtroom, scenes.
But there also are realities he`s happy to leave behind.
''The money is better in that you don`t have clients who give you stiff checks and hollow promises, especially in criminal practice.''
Anyway, you can always take a loan from the underhanded Nikki Anderson if she ever steals $40 million from Arthur.
Y&R to air classic episodes
in Discuss The Soaps: Archive (2021 - 2023)
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I know 2005 is generally considered as the end of the second golden age (or the VERY end of it), I loved this period. Ashley B. as Mac is always a treat. As an actress, she was one of the few younger actors who could go head to head with Jeanne Cooper, Jess Walton, and the established Y&R crew.