Paul Raven

The Slesar tie in novel was The Seventh Mask On daytime dramas, -THE JOURNAL. OGPENSBURG, NY.- TUESDAY. NOVEMBER 15.1983 Veteran 'EON' producer defends show's new writer by Connie Passalacqua On daytime drama, where change is the only, constant, it's unusual to find" a long-term professional like Erwin "Nick"Nicholson, executive producer of "Edge of Nighf" Top producers at most soaps average a two-to-three year tenure. Nicholson has been at the helm for 18 of "EON's" 27 years. Perhaps no other show has undergone such drastic changes this year as "EON" and Nicholson has been the steadying hand behind them all. Most innovations have come from the pen of Lee' Sheldon, a young nighttime mystery show writer with no previous daytime experience. He took over five months ago *from Henry Slesar, who had been'writing for the last 15 years. »"l think Lee has made a marvelous transition from nighttime to daytime," says Nicholson. "He's picked up the pace of the show. Scenes are shorter. And we've taken the time it ( takes to tell a story and condense it. In the old days, it wouldn't matter that it took eight or nine months to tell a story. Now viewers won't sit that long. All of our story lines are now being told in 13-week segments." Many longtime "EON" fans feel Sheldon's story lines have been moving so fast that it's difficult to follow what's happening. Lee's story lines are very complex," responds the soft-spoken Nicholson? "But it's always been the network's aim to get audiences to tune into the show five days a week, not only two or three. So that's why we've got lots of action going on every day.'' "EON," which 20 years ago became the first soap to do outdoor shootings, (known as remotes), has done two such sequences*. since Sheldon took over. One' featured Jody (Lorj; Lougnlin) and Preacher (Charles Flohe)/ on a. Queens, N.Y., beach, white the other (Stan Hathaway's death). was shot on the roof of "EON's" midtown New York studio. 'I like to shoot outdoor|: only when the plot require, it's not just to provide needless scenery shots. They are very expensive to do. And I believe that these remote should only last one or two episodes, not two or three weeks work like on some of the other soaps."

Patti could have been a youthful early 40's woman-this was about the time that 40 plus was no longer considered 'old'. Did Kathy and Patti interact at all in the 70's? When Janet returned with older children did they play down the Patti/Janet friendship as Janet had been aged up and Patti was still a young mother. If so who was in Patti's friendship circle? Bringing back Len in the 80's to play that history would have been good, especially if Chris and Tracey were brought on. Len could even have hung around and he and Patti would be in each other's lives b/c of the kids and lingering feelings. Get back to the hospital as a central theme? Or was that too old hat by the mid 80's? There was no need to kill off Stephanie-she could just leave town. Same with Suzi-if they were unhappy with the actress, send her out of town for a while. There were too many deaths and murders. And the Kendalls had been through so many recasts and rewrites that I would have dumped the lot of them. Gary Walton and Laine Adamson returning was a story waiting to be told. So many possibilities that tied into the past.

And not one of those teams looked at the history and foundations of the shows. Instead it was -drop these newish characters in favor of our new characters. So Stu didn't see Janet, Tom, Gary and Danny for years. Sunny's sister and dad were MIA. And when they did try to use history it was often misguided eg Patti returning, younger, no longer a nurse and seemingly child free.

JEFF EAGLE RYAN'S HOPE ??? (he mentions picking up a script for RH in his unpublished memoirs) CHARLIE's ANGELS Waiter Season 3 E 20'Angels in Waiting' To me Jeff Eagle sounds more like a porn name than Jeffrey Hurst!

BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS, Monday,March 28, 1971 Soap Operas Roll on With Devout Audience by Jack Allen THE WORLD of the TV "soap opera'' is one dear to the hearts of millions of America's housewives. It is scorned by most men, treated with contempt as the lowest form of tearful melodrama by critics and intellectuals; and is the last bastion of "live" drama on television. Its fans are passionately devoted to the daytime drama. and for actors it represents a steady paycheck in a time of diminishing theater. Despite their critics, daytime series also represent a thorough training ground for young actors, and a haven for older ones , competent performers capable of meeting the severe challenges of "live" TV. RECENT CONVERSATIONS with participants in the davtime series convinced us that the skills required are not to be scoffed at. One such person is pretty, blonde Anne Jeffreys, who stars as Sylvia Bancroft on NBC-TV's ''Bright Promise." The series was recently bounced from Ch. 2 by a reshuffling of the daytime lineup that finds The Allen Show on at 1 p.m. and David Frost's Variety show moving to 3:30 p.m. Anne Jeffreys is a charming woman, who once showed ''bright promise'' herself as a budding opera star. She was a pretty big name in Hollywood as the star of 47 motion pictures, 28 pays and musicals, and 100 TV productions. SO WHY IS SHE, now the wife of former actor Robert Sterling and mother of three , tackling the rigors of daytime television? "Our show is done live on tape," said Anne. "This means we must memorize thoroughly, for there are no stops or repeat run-throughs if lines are flubbed. '"Everything is timed to the second, which makes this work challenging and sometimes too much for the actor. For this reason, many veteran actors like MacDonald Carey and others are best at this sort of thing because they have the benefit of many years' training and discipline in the art. For me, as a busy mother, I appreciate being able to fill my role in just two days a week. ANNE IS BEST known to viewers as star of the long-running '"Topper'' series, still seen in syndication in many markets. "I was also in a short running item called 'Love That Jill'," said Anne. "It was a sophisticated comedy for its time, but viewers didn't take to it, The series was superior to much of the psuedo-realistic things on the air now, and more intelligent than many present series. ''The same could be said for many of the old movies. I watch a lot of them on late-night TV. In fact, some of the sorrier ones I made come back to haunt me. The other night I saw my first starring film, "Riffraff," on TV. "'MY BOYS - Tyler, 11; Robert, 12; and 16-year-old Jeffrey - love to tease me about that one. "But back to daytime drama. These real things are, of course, 'horror-a-minute' shows. The situations are wild, and I guess you could X-rate a few of the happenings. "But, through my acquaintances and fan mail I have discovered to my amazement the intensity that women viewers relate to these things. Mist wouldn't miss their favorite soaps even if the house was burning down. I guess it's a form of therapy to hate the villains, and sympathize with the and heroine, and live a vicarious life that is more hazardous and not as dull as one's own. ANNE ADDED, Those who knock the daytime dramas, though, should be equally disappointed with the quality of most movies and stage plays today. The emphasis is on sex in a repellent way. In my movie days, shows could be sexy and cleverly sophisticated, but today they have been replaced by cliche filth." So anne will stick with Bright Promise, which stars another highly capable actor of many years experience, Dana Andrews. It is one of the first serials to be centered on modern college life, with Andrews as a college president, a widower with a confused and erratic son. Anne only lasted a few months in the role. And wasn't Dana Andrews gone by this point? I think the author just used an old press release without checking.

Buffalo Courier Express Sunday June 17 1973 Looks like Melinda #1 was her only soap role although she continued acting into the 90's. PATRICIA Pearcy is learning to be a day person. A strawberry blonde actress with delicate features, who graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas, Miss Pearcy plays the recently created role of Melinda Cramer on the ABC television network's daytime drama, "One Life to Live." As a product of repertory theatre that took her to Broadway, she explained: "I was a night person before because my whole life was geared to the 8 p.m. performance as the high point of the day. But now it's eight o'clock in the morning." That's the time the hectic daily production schedule begins on "One Life to Live." The series, which was nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding achievement in daytime drama, is telecast Mondays through Fridays. Miss Pearcy's new role also marks her debut in television. "NOW I'm having to learn a whole different technique," she explained. "The crew and my fellow actors are just fantastic, though 'They help me a great deal. After receiving a bachelor of fine arts degree with honors in only three years, Miss Pearcy acted in the professional company of the Dallas Theatre Center, At the same time, she started to earn her master's degree through Trinity University San 'Antonio. Her graduate studies were halted, however, when she won the opportunity through auditions to Join the repertory company of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven under Arvin Brown as artistic director. There Miss Pearcy appeared in the American premieres of Maxim Gorki's "Yegor Bullchoff" and David Storey's "The Contractor," and the world premiere of Robert Anderson's "Solitaire, Double Solitaire," in a production that moved to Broadway. She also toured with Shelley Winters in "The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-theMoon Marigolds," before joining the cast of "One Life to Live," which is produced in New York.

Courier Express 26 July 1980 Soap Report Mystery Tilt Keeps Viewers on 'Edge' By TOM JORY NEW YORK (AP) Somebody once determined that one-third of all the murders ever committed on daytime television were on "Edge of Night," the only continuing mystery show among the soaps. ''We used to get lots of letters forwarded to us by the police chief in Monticello, New York," says Erwin ''Nick"" Nicholson, executive producer of the ABC serial set in the fictional Midwestern community of Monticello. "Viewers would write to tell him who they thought the guilty party was. "I guess he just gave up sending them on. " THE SHOW STARTED 24 years ago, on CBS, structured as a romantic mystery, dealing with police activity and criminal law," Nicholson says, "and it has way, it is unique." Nicholson gives a good deal of the credit for the serles' continuing success to Henry Slesar, who joined the "Edge of Night" staff as head writer in 1967. He won an Emmy in 1974 for his "Edge of Night" scripts. "'Before coming with us, he wrote more than 50 shows for 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents," the producer says. ''This is his milieu, the mysterious, romantic story. And he's wonderful at it." "Edge of Night" premiered on CBS April 2, 1956, and moved to ABC in 1975. It is not aired by a Buffalo channel, but can be viewed weekdays at 2 on Toronto's Ch. 5. IRVING VENDIG, who wrote the "Perry Mason" program for radio, created "Edge of Night" as well as the series' leading man, lawyer-detective Mike Karr.John Larkin, who played Mason on radio, was cast as the original Karr. The part now is played by Forrest Compton, who joined the series in 1971. The show won an Emmy in 1973 as the best daytime drama. Aside from the mysterious story line, "Edge of Night" has distinguished itself in another way -- by avolding the traditional soap opera emphasis on sex and fashion in suburbia. ''Spending a half-hour making a pot of coffee, that's not our bag," says Nicholson, who took over the show in 1966. ' 'Edge' moves faster than most soaps, as a mystery story must. We do 45 pages of script for a half-hour, and some hour-long shows are only 60." THE SERIES WAS broadcast live until 1975, and now is recorded on videotape. Recent technology has allowed for some on location shooting. Early in July, for Instance, a chase sequence was shot at the Rye Playland amusement park outside of New York City. "* *Edge' probably was the first to do live location work,"" Nicholson recalls. ''We did a shootout on the rooftop of our old studio on First Avenue and 76th Street. It was very effective. "All of the shows are tearing out the walls now," he says. ''They're doing remotes as far away as Greece. "Edge of Night" is taped in a 9,000-square-foot studio on East 44th Street. "It doesn't look that big," Nichol: son says, "with all the scenery shoehorned In. We could use another 4,000 feet, but considering the limitations, we do pretty well.

The East Hampton Star, August 30, 1990 The Star Talks To: ‘All My Children’s’ Producer Nancy Horwich was at a cocktail party last month with her husband, Richard, a college professor. “And what does your wife do?” someone asked Mr. Horwich. “She produces all my children.” The man shot him a puzzled look. “It would be odd if she didn’t,” he remarked dryly. “No, no, you don’t understand. I mean, she — produces ‘All My Children’!” Which, in a field that can turn nightmarish faster than you can say Nielsen ratings, is a dream job. Being under contract to a popular, long-running soap opera (as Mrs. Horwich has been, on and off but mostly on, for some 15 years) is like writing your name in stone compared with the here-today-gone-tomorrow quicksand of, for example, a new game show. Not that new game shows haven’t been kind to Mrs. Horwich. Take the very first one she ever worked for, something called “Reach for the Stars.” She was a young production assistant then, in charge of contestants. It was her responsibility to weed out the dimbulbs from the bright lights, chiefly by means of a 20-question written test. (“What’s the only state in the union that ends in a ‘k’?” was a typical question.*) Fell In Love The unlucky show was axed after 13 weeks, during which time a hand some if penniless graduate student with an extraordinary knowledge of trivia tried out for it. The student turned out to be a shoo-in: “A perfect 20 with an exuberant personality,” said Mrs. Horwich. She slotted him in against a tough opponent, a woman from New Jersey who had won several days in a row, hoping he would leave the woman — who had a vacuum-cleaner mind but an impassive, audience-off-putting manner — in the dust. Besides answering questions the contestants had to do silly tricks. The young man was told to balance five pencils on a pie plate. “There was a closeup of him doing this,” Mrs. Horwich remembered. “He was very nervous. His hands were shaking and the pie plate was bobbing and the pencils were rolling — and everyone was laughing. I fell in love with him at this point.” The couple married two years later, in 1969. With their daughter, Danielle, they are longtime weekend residents of Springs. Periods Of Idleness By the early 1970s, Mrs. Horwich said, the reality of one of the profession’s glum little truths was beginning to sink in: TV production was — is — a freelance business, and a risky one. There may be enforced periods of idleness, during which one goes, resume in hand, from show to show — specials, game shows, quiz shows — hoping to catch a rising star, maybe not a rocket like “America’s Funniest Videos,” but at least something good for a year’s run. “I began to get tired of either working my head off or being out of work,” Mrs. Horwich said of those years. One day, almost as a lark, she said, she filled in on a soap opera, called “Dark Shadows.” The experience was an eye-opener. “This was a regular schedule! They taped every day, they aired every day, and they seemed to know that every Monday they were coming back to work!” Hit The Jackpot She had found her metier: The soaps are about as close as TV-production people can hope to come to security in the workplace. After “Dark Shadows” came “The Best of Everything” (which, despite Mrs. Horwich’s newfound faith, was canceled after a six-month run), and “How To Survive A Marriage” (canceled after 15 months). Then, in 1975, she hit the jackpot. ABC-TVs “Ryan’s Hope” was the show, a tremendous popular success and network darling that sustained its creators, casts, and crews in relative style and security until mid-1988, when it finally collapsed under the weight of a swollen budget (several hundred thousand dollars a week, she said) that could no longer be justified by the ratings. Mrs. Horwich was associated with the show from beginning to end, starting as a production assistant and eventually becoming an assistant producer. Constant Surprises What she likes best about her profession, she said, is its endless capacity to surprise. There was, for instance, the day the “Ryan’s” crew was on location at a West Side church near 60th Street, filming a wedding ceremony. In the story, a young man was to rush in, grab the bride at the crucial instant, and run out of the church, carrying her like a Neanderthal down Eighth Avenue. Traffic, as usual, was piled up, Mrs. Horwich recounted. “He’s wearing a T-shirt and cutoffs. She’s in a wedding gown, long train, bridal veil. He’s running in and out of cars. The cameras are hidden; no one can see it’s being filmed. She’s yelling, ‘Ben, put me down! Help! Somebody help me!’ ” “We did five takes” Mrs. Horwich concluded, “and not one person said, ‘What’s he doing to you?’ That’s New York City.” She also has fond memories of a camel that was brought in to lend a certain pungent verisimilitude to a desert scene, but took one look at the sand all over the floor of the set and refused to budge. Back where it was born — a New Jersey animal farm, explained its embarrassed trainer — it walked on grass. No problem. They shoveled a path down the sand for the camel to walk on. “Coping with the unexpected makes it fun.” Socially Conscious Plots Aside from the standard liaisons, family dramas, and illnesses, “All My Children” prides itself on having socially conscious story lines. Mrs. Horwich noted that AIDS, drunken driving, and alcoholism are among the subjects woven into the plot. Currently the show is trying to make people aware they can join a national registry for bone marrow transplants. Mrs. Horwich gets a lot of letters from college students who want to be TV producers, too. She advises them not only to learn to type but also to know how to read a stopwatch. “Everything we do — acting, producing, directing — is to the second,” she said. “We live by the clock.” She spends half her workweek on controlroom duty, supervising, editing, and making sure the show is properly paced, and the other half juggling the schedules of its four directors, 40 cast members, and 100-plus sets — deciding who will work where, which backdrops will be used, and when. Usually, she said, the hourlong “All My Children” has three or four story lines going at once (which is why soap-opera synopses sound like the plots of Russian novels). The different threads, depending in part on audience response, can be pulled out to almost excruciating length or cut off mercilessly. “The audience doesn’t always like [long-drawn-out plots],” Mrs. Horwich noted. “They call and say, ‘Please let Tad and Dixie be happily married!’ ’’But, she added, “that’s not the nature of the beast.” Soap-Opera Fans College and high school students are big soap-opera fans. But the largest segment of the audience, the one the sponsors key in on, is made up of women aged 18 to 35. The commercials on one recent episode of “All My Children” featured school supplies, diapers, self-administered pregnancy tests, American cheese, pet food, and toothbrushes (twice), as well as a lone pitch from the American Association of Retired Persons. (The show is popular with the elderly, Mrs. Horwich said, “which is nice, but this is a commercial business and we are looking for buying power.”) Before she landed her present job, Mrs. Horwich was out of work for the first time in over 12 years. She tried her hand at writing an after-school special, a wholesome tale, apparently. ABC-TV turned it down flat. The author manque laughs about it now, though the experience was clearly no fun at the time. “It was naive. I didn’t realize those shows now are about druggies and junkies and schizophrenics.” '

SECRET STORM Bob Hill. Val's son, dated Belle, Susan...divorced from Jackie ? Dec 64 Roy Scheider...67 ...Justin McDonough...67-68 Ed Winter...69 Jackie Hill ? Dec 64 Bob's wife Chuck Bannister...John Cunningham.. Dec 64 -65 lives in Janet's apartment block. Janet dates him as a cover for her affair with Kip Rysdale. Director of Ann Wickers TV show. Paul Britton...College Professor, married Terri, Amy,& Belle Nicholas Coster Oct 63-1964, April 1968-69. Terry____ Britton Marion Brash Oct 63-65 shrewish first wife, Paul Nick Cromwell .Byron Sanders...62-63...Myra was attracted to him Petey Dunbar... Mike Kearney 1964 .son, Alan/Susan .Mark Kearney...Dec 64-? Martha Norris Novotny(Warren) .Gretchen Walther Sept 61968-? .reporter fired by Charlie Jill______Stevens Claybourne Friend Amy +Ken, +Hugh Irene Bunde ...68 ...Audrey Johnstone...68-69 ...Barbara Rodell September 69-May 71 Bunny .... Jessica Rains Dec 30 66- 1967 friend Wendy Porter Belle Clemens Keefer ____Britton Kincaed Marla Adams April 68-74...rival Amy, mother, Robin dated Bob Hill Nick Kane... Keith Charles..April .68-70...reporter, fired by CC, liked Val, Amy Joan Borman Kane... money hungry wife, Nick ...Christina Crawford...April 68-69 Joan Crawford...(temp)... Oct 68 4 episodes

I don't believe Janet was anything like Liz. She was an Edith Hughes type character that Irna liked to write. The older single working woman involved with a married man-Ken Baxter. Then she got involved with Ernest Gregory under James Lipton before Agnes wrote her out. It's a pity she was forgotten. She was unable to have children but could have come back with an adopted child. Weren't both Pat and Alice unable to have children also? And of course the actress Liza Chapman was killed in a car accident just as she started a role on Secret Storm.

We had the Cane train and now the Jack boat. Next story will be set on a submarine. Next on The Young and the Kidnapped.

Winter Olympics played in every timeslot for ABC and ABC won the week. But NBC won Tuesday with A Team/Celebrity Pt 3. CBS won Fri Dukes/Dallas/Falcon Crest CBS won Sunday 60 Minutes/Master of the Game Pt 1. CBS had another airing of Gone With The Wind with it's worst results Pt 1 #31 PT 2 #39 Emerald Point was #45 TV Bloopers NBC Real People NBC Knight Rider NBC Magnum PI CBS Winter Olympics Wed ABC NIght Court NBC Gimme A Break NBC Diffrent Strokes NBC Scarecrow &Mrs King CBS Winter Olympics Sun ABC St Elsewhere NBC Hill St Blues NBC Family Ties NBC Silver Spoons NBC TV Greatest Commercials NBC

TV Guide 7/31/65 ROOM WITH A VIEW—OF HERSELF A young actress sees her own TV performance for the first time How busy can a young actress get? Well, beauteous, red-haired Julienne Marie has been so busy that she was a regular on CBS's nighttime serial, Our Private World, for almost a month before she got to see herself on television. It so happened that she was also appearing in the Broadway musical hit “Do I Hear a Waltz?”’, which kept her well occupied on the nights World was on the air. What made Julienne doubly anxious to view Julienne: She had never seen herself on_ television. She had done only one other TV how, a Golden Showcase called “Tonight in Samarkand.” ‘’But,’” she said, “it was live, so | never got to see myself.” Friends—some 21 days after World had premiered—finally moved a portable TV set into her dressing room in the 46th Street Theatre. Even then her viewing didn’t come easy. Since her dressing room was four flights up, she had to watch herself on the air for a few seconds as the impulsive, unhappy Eve Eldredge, then dash downstairs to become the impulsive, unhappy Jennifer Yaeger in “Waltz.” “What made it even tougher,” said Julienne, “I had already made that trip four times before the show came on the air.” As for her reactions, just see the pictures bordering this page. “At first I was very anxious and nervous,” she said, “but then I was surprised and delighted to see that I wasn’t so bad. I would say to myself every time | would come on the screen, ‘Oh, who is that? What is she doing?’ I would never say, "What am I doing?’ It was*hard for me to believe the girl on the screen was actually me.”

Is it ironic that Y&R's ratings are going up while the quality is way down ?