Paul Raven

Have you seen her in Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice ? with Miss Ruth Gordon? Often grouped into the hagsploitation genre but based on a good little thriller by Ursula Curtiss (one of my favorites in domestic suspense) La Page is fantastic in this.

From September 1948. Grace Matthews roles courtesy of Slick Jones RADIO BIG SISTER Ruth Evans Brewster Wayne between 1936 and 1952 THE BRIGHTER DAY Liz Dennis between 1948 and 1956 HILLTOP HOUSE Julie Erickson Nixon Paterno between 1935 and 1955 ROAD OF LIFE Dr. Carson McVicker Fowler between 1937 and 1955 TELEVISION ROAD OF LIFE Unknown Role (probably Carson McVicker) Unknown Year AS THE WORLD TURNS Grace Baker Unknown Year THE GUIDING LIGHT Claudia Dillman 1968-69; 1972 Actress Grace Matthews left Canadian radio to reign over the weepy world of the daytime serials. Maybe it isn’t art but it sure pays HUGH KEMP SEPTEMBER 1 1948 Queen of the Soap Operas MISS GRACE MATTHEWS, a bachelor of arts from the University of Toronto, alumna of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England, and recently a star of Andrew Allan’s “Stage” series on the CBC, has a new title. She is now being hailed by the radio trade of America as the “Queen of the Soap Operas.” Since Jan. 10, 1937, the talented Canadian has been Ruth Wayne, the star of “Big Sister,” one of the most profitable and interminable of the soap operas (known also as cliff hangers, strip shows, washboard weepe:rs and defined by James Thurber as “an endless sequence of narratives whose only cohesive element is the eternal presence of its bedeviled and beleaguered principal characters”. Miss Matthews is Big Sister on the Columbia network at. one o’clock each weekday except Saturday. Then, at three-fifteen on the same days, she is Julie Ericksen, female lead of Columbia’s sustaining serial “Hilltop House.” And every Sunday night she becomes Margot, girl Friday to the Shadow in Mutual’s thriller of the same name. She does other odd jobs of radio acting, too, but by the soaps she is known. Sometimes in the late night silence Grace Matthews admits to some surprise at her present position. For it is something that, she never meant to Income. But, she says, “You decide to forget about art and call it business.” As business it provides Miss Matthews with a .$25,U00-a-year existence in Manhattan. Miss Matthews looks more like the $25,000 a year girl than the fictional characters she represents. She is a svelte woman with a Fifth-Avenue look and a big-boned handsome face that would suggest a fashion editor to Hollywood. She has what Andrew Allan, drama director of the CBC, describes as “a personalized glamour which is more than the sum total of her physical attributes. It is a rare kind of magic.” Strangest of all, these very qualities come through in her voice. Her cultivated contralto reflects a social-university background in every well-formed note. Miss Matthews, a contemplative person by nature, often puzzles over how the millions of her soap audience can accept her unquestioningly as the small-town middle-class woman known as Big Sister. This doubt certainly never enters the thinking of the producers of the show. They know only too well that there is no relationship between realism and the soap operas and that in the dream world of the kitchen sink the most banal problems can be solved most satisfyingly by a voice which is a cross between Cleopatra and Marlene Dietrich. The only thing finally demanded of Grace Matthews by the producers is that she be personally liked by the audience. In her present roles it is not difficult, but even if she were the vixen of the piece she would still have to be liked—or, at worst, not disliked. Once on “Big Sister” an actress used a raw, guttural voice to play the part of a nasty woman. Immediately a batch of protests came in from women of the audience. The producers didn’t change the nasty woman; just gave her nicer vocal tones. Everybody was happy. It’s that kind of a world. It’s also this kind of a world. Miss Matthews lives with her husband, Court Benson, a Canadian announcer and radio actor, in a swank apartment in New York’s east 70’s. That’s the district where four-room apartments start at about $250 a month. And she has a wardrobe that starts at about the same price. And a maid who comes in every day at noon to do what the press releases describe as “Grace loves to to do her own cooking in spite of an exhausting daily schedule.” By Miss Matthews’ own admission the daily schedule is not in the least exhausting. She rises slowly about nine o’clock, nibbles through breakfast., selects the suit with which to face the day and then saunters down Madison Avenue. Just before eleven-thirty she presents herself in the grey-blue soundproofed air-conditioned vault in the Columbia Broadcasting System Building from which “Big Sister” is sent forth to North America. There is no noise, no confusion, no inspiration, no temperament in evidence. There is no studio audience, nor is there any feeling of the audience out there in Canadian and U. S. homes. The actors involved in the day’s episode sit on tables, slump in chairs and lean against walls. They do a “first read-through,” get to know what the script is about, mark up tricky spots in their lines. On most soap operas this first run-through is the occasion for actors to make wisecracks about the characters they are playing and to moan and groan about the more fatuous of their lines. Miss Matthews never kids the lines; she thinks it’s naïve. Her attitude is that she’s doing a job and she’ll do it well. This approach is much appreciated by the businessmen who are responsible for the shows. In their view “Big Sister” is not a story but a property. It runs through $18,000 a week; represents an investment of some $8 millions in its 12-year history. At those prices the wisecracks from the hired help have to be good to make a sponsor laugh. After the run-through the actors gather around the microphone and the director slips in behind the glass window of the control room. Then they do it again on mike and take a timing. As a rule there is very little rehearsal of detail. The actors are all skilled craftsmen who do this stuff hundreds of times in the course of a year. Besides, soap opera acting is very mannered and easy to do for anyone who has the basic equipment. In the words of one normally cynical director, it is “a composite of very sad readings, very long pauses.” Grace Matthews follows the turtlepaced developments of the plot with mild interest, though this is in no way essential to her acting of the part of Ruth Wayne. The acting she can do with the front of her head while she compiles her income tax at the rear. Just before one o’clock the actors break off and go out into the corridors for a smoke. At one o’clock they stand up to the mike again in the silent studio and 15 minutes later another episode of “Big Sister” has gone out to housewives of Canada and the U. S. Ruth, Then Julie The plot of this serial has gone through many convolutions during the past 12 years. In its early days Ruth Evans Wayne, a nurse, was a big sister who tried passionately to become mother and father to her orphaned sister Sue and her crippled brother Neddie. Today she is married to Dr. John Wayne and is symbolically a big sister to husband, friends and strangers, too. Like all good soap operas, “Big Sister” went to war after Pearl Harbor, suffered through rehabilitation maladjustments after VJ-Day, and is just now getting back to being thoroughly self-centred. At one-fifteen each day, after the “Big Sister” broadcast, Grace Matthews goes downstairs at CBS for a quick lunch, generally at Colbee’s, a popular hangout for the radio-acting crowd. Her lunch is frequently interrupted by a call from PLAZA, a radio actors’ telephone agency which undertakes to find its clients anywhere in New York at any time of the day or night to tell them that they are wanted by a director for another show. At two o’clock Grace is back upstairs in the studios where the mood is the same, the people are roughly the same, the pacing is the same and the wisecracks are the same. Only the words are different, because this time the serial is “Hilltop House.” Miss Matthews plays the part of Julie Ericksen, the attractive young matron of an orphanage whose sympathy and understanding develop confidence, respect and love in the often unruly and unhappy youngsters assigned to her care. By three-thirty Miss Matthews is usually through for the day and the days are roughly the same Monday through Friday. Saturday is clear and then on Sunday afternoon she spends four hours preparing to be and being Margot, female helper to the Shadow at MBS. This routine goes on through 50 weeks of the year. By the terms of her American Federation of Radio Artists contract, Grace Matthews must have two weeks’ holiday from each show. To accomplish this the writer of the serial has to write her out—send her to the mountains, or the hospital, or on a mysterious errand where the microphone discreetly does not follow. So far this day in the life of the Sarah Siddons of the soaps sounds fairly easy. And it is—so long as everything remains normal in the studio and sickness stays away from the door. Trouble with being a leading lady of the strips is that when everything goes wrong in the studio and you are personally suffering from an attack of influenza, you still have to go on and sound like the brave cultured woman you are. Miss Matthews has been before the microphone with a temperature of 102 and with a violently throbbing tooth and with a racking cough. If you would like an idea of what radio actors must sometimes go through, try this one: next time your throat is really tickling and you are dying to burst out in a series of racking coughs, don’t. Instead, talk for 15 minutes in a natural pleasant voice. Fortunately, Miss Matthews is rarely ill. Only once has her voice disappeared completely. A doctor was rushed to the mike side, where, to the fascination of all, he pronounced the ailment, “globus hystericus.” He succeeded in getting the lump out of her throat in time for Big Sister to become her fascinating self. Some Hate Soapers As Queen of the Soaps, Miss Matthews plays to an audience estimated at close to three million people a day, a figure determined by telephone surveys made while the program is on the air. The popularity of “Big Sister” has varied this year between first and 13th place, in competition with 45 other soaps heard on the American networks. The fan mail for “Big Sister” is fairly large. The letters of high praise are generally passed along to Miss Matthews, but critical letters are kept from her on the grounds that they might dampen her enthusiasm. There is probably no one in all of North America without a definite attitude toward the soap serials. These attitudes range from a pathetic dependence and love through bitter and undying hatred to a kind of academic puzzlement. Psychologists can t stay away from them. In the Columbia Broadcasting System’s Reference Library there are more than 40 serious studies of the strip show, varying in length from 10 pages to entire books and bearing such titles as “Daytime Serials and Iowa Women,” “The Day-time Serial Drama—Its Psychological Background and Its Current Popularity Trend” and “What We Really Know About Daytime Serials.” The most determined opponent of soap operadom is a New York psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Berg. He has issued a number of studies which set out to prove that soap operas: “foster anxiety conditions in the listeners; induce mental fatigue; induce all those physiological changes in the listener which are concomitants of anxiety states—rapid pulse and respiration, high blood pressure, etc.” Through all of the studies the soap operas go on their way unchanged and unaffected. And Grace Matthews continues to draw her fat cheques and go on her very urban way. Because she is comparatively new to the business, she is now making about $25,000 a year. Ina couple of years this income should go up considerably. The union pay scale for each of her soaps is only $152.50 a week, but as a personality she gets considerably more from “Big Sister” and may soon get boosts all around. Bess Johnson, the actress who played the lead in “Hilltop House” before Grace Matthews, and read the commercials as well, got a walloping $1,600 a week for the job. Big money like this is not for everyone; over half of the 2,600 radio actors in New York make less than two thousand dollars a year. Training of a Queen Miss Matthews was born in Toronto ¡ in 1913 to a prominent family of normal business traditions. There was no theatre blood anywhere in the lineage. She attended a private school for girls, Bishop Strachan in Toronto. It was presumed that she would make her debut in her 18th year, but she surprised her former associates, and her family to some degree, by repudiating the social season and going on to the University of Toronto. There she took her B.A. and a series of summer courses in acting at Hart House. Among her fellow students were several who have since become well-known on the English stage; notably Florence McGee,David Manners, Kirbey Hawkes and Judith Evelyn. Following graduation from the U. of T. she did a casual tour of Italy and France for educational purposes only and then settled down for two more years of study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she was taught by Sir Kenneth Barnes,Charles Laughton and Sarah Algood. From there she returned to Canada and easy admission to the John Holden Players in Winnipeg. In 1938 she went down to New York, auditioned for and was signed by the New York Theatre Guild for “Dame Nature.” From there she went to summer stock at Marblehead, Mass., where she appeared in “Spring Meeting” and “Burlesque.” She was playing “Spring Meeting” at Saratoga Springs on the day war began. The following day the show closed and she returned to Canada. Back in Toronto she turned to radio and shortly became accepted as the leading lady for almost every major show. At the same time she got her introduction to the soap operas. She was “Soldier’s Wife,” and “Dr. Susan,” and Judy in “John and Judy.” She slipped into these without knowing quite how it happened. When Andrew Allan started his “Stage” series in 1944 she took leads there, too, and developed new power in the better-than-average radio vehides that were available. In that year she won three national awards as Canada’s leading radio actress. On a broadcast in 1940 she met Court Benson, an announcer who was on the hockey broadcasts from Toronto on Saturday night, and they were married shortly after. Court went overseas almost immediately with the 48th Highlanders and the romance continued by air mail. Their particular postwar dream was of a joint return to New York, where they would spend their lives acting together. Part of the dream, at least, came true. In the spring of 1946 the Bensons put up the shutters on their pleasant way of life in Toronto and took off for that very tough town to the south. Storming the Citadel Now, it would be nice to record their dramatic struggle to break into the closed circle of New York radio. But it didn’t happen that way.Two hours after their first audition, at Columbia Broadcasting System, they both had leads on a show called “American Portraits.” The Bensons continued to take general auditions; turned down jobs individually in many cases in order to be able to act together. All of the good New York things happened to them and none of the bad. Then, one day late in 1946, the radio world trembled. It was reported that Mercedes McCambridge, the actress who was then playing Big Sister, was preparing to leave the show. The Queen of the Soap Operas was abdicating her throne and across New York hundreds of young radio actresses spent sleepless nights visioning themselves as wearers of the crown. Miss Matthews gave it little thought, but when the preliminary tryouts for 20 actresses were announced she was among the chosen. Radio Butters the Bread Miss Matthews auditioned four times; was heard each time by an earnest panel of experts including the producer, the associate producer, the director of the show, the audition director, the account representative of the advertising agency, the publicity man of the agency and, finally, the client, Procter and Gamble. These people chose Grace Matthews straight across the board and without ever knowing what she looked like. The Bensons set out for New York originally with the determination to go into the legitimate threatre, but it took them no time at all to learn that the money figures of stage just don’t add up to a living. The sad fact is that a month is a long run for the average play that opens on Broadway and $300 a week is a high wage for an actor. And if an actor gets two plays a season it’s considered pretty good going. That’s why actors turn to the soaps without any feeling of shame. Some very, very good actors have made their bread and butter and cakes and wine in that medium. Don Ameche used to play four soaps a day. Van Heflin was in the cast of a serial called “The Goldbergs.” In anybody’s language the thing that the Bensons have built up is nice work if you can get it. Their combined income is over $40,000 a year and that buys comfort even in Gotham. In the view of husband Court and of the world at large, Grace is a success. In her own late-night reflections she is not so certain. In Canadian radio, she recalls, she played Shakespeare and Greek tragedy as well as modern tragedy and sophisticated comedy. She growled her love scenes, ordered a mean cocktail and uttered the occasional emphatic “damn” and “hell.” In American radio her range has been much more limited. The classic parts are simply not in existence and the modern tiger women of American broadcasting are really just painted kittens. In the soaps—where self-censorship is extreme—women do not smoke and they go faint at the mention of sherry. Once every six months the Bensons decide that New York is not really for them, that its values and its tempo are essentially false. “Then,” says Grace, “we talk of London all the time.” This past spring they almost packed their bags and took off; only the fact that Mrs. Benson was shortly to become a mother deterred them. Two months later they were again in love with “great warm stimulating New York.” The future in radio seems somewhat uncertain to Grace, as it now does to all American actors, for television seems to threaten the other media. Certainly television will make obsolete some of radio’s more extravagant practices and will make it impossible for Grace Matthews to be Big Sister at one o’clock each day and the head of an orphanage two hours later. Or will it? Will the great American housewife fall in love even more deeply with Miss Matthews’ image than with her voice and be only too happy to see her pretending that she is six or seven different things during the course of a day? After the experience of the soap operas, daring is he who would be a prophet in this field.

From what I have gathered, Irna considered Bill her right hand man and they worked together on ATWT, OPW and AW. Maybe the feeling was that at some point, Irna would 'gift' a show to Bill. Perhaps co-creating was a step towards that but AW wasn't a great experience. So when Bill was approached to take on Days it was obviously tempting. Maybe the fact that the show was up and running but not really established was appealing and he was offered free reign.

Thanks for taking the time to dig up all this info. Never thought we would learn more about these shows. I can see why Road to Reality flopped. Watching a bunch of people in therapy day after day would be a big ask. Maybe if we saw their lives outside and then the therapy sessions were interspersed somehow, it would be more appealing?

Thanks for posting. I had seen one of these before. I also recall an ep from around this time featuring Dan(?) in a freaky dream sequence. This is Irna's writing. all of those pauses. Live of course and originally in color. Dean Santoro as Paul. By March of 73 Irna decided to drop Dan/Susan etc.after having killed of Liz and Paul. Then the strike hit and Irna never returned.

Re Charles Baxter/William Bogert - Jeff Carlson. I wonder what his relationship was to Henry and Vivian Carlson ?

Melinda believed she was a targeted individual - a cover up conspiracy using mind control https://youarenotmybigbrother.blog/2020/04/01/actress-melinda-fee-dead-by-stroke-march-24-2020-was-she-death-ray-silenced/ The unified effort and goal were then and today to expose a well-hidden, heinous high-tech technology focused on U.S. citizens, and various types of nonconsensual mind invasive patented technologies in full use for ongoing massive human experimentation for what it is. It is a monstrous, official high-tech targeting program, for social and mass population control that is now highly perfected which has marginalized anyone, men, women, and children to scientific objects, dating back DECADES in research, TESTING, and development!

Looking closely at the Chancellor set makes you can see that over the years much of the decor/furniture was changed. Yet it was very subtle. The curtains for instance changed to a burgundy velvet set .I wonder when and why those changes were made. SPW did a story on that set in the 90's and they stated that only one or two pieces were part of the original set. I think the wing chairs in front of the fireplace survived. Love Jill fondling the furniture like she was in the palace at Versailles and settling into that rather hard chair as though it was super plush.

Glad you enjoyed it! As you know I have been collecting soap articles/downloads for years and as I go through various files I'll post stuff that I hope others are interested in. Here's another glimpse into early Y&R (love the Snooper reference from Lorie) #181 Monday 24th December, 1973 (Tape date: Thursday 6th December) The show opens in the upstairs hallway, as Chris comes from her room to Leslie’s room and the door is slightly ajar. Chris looks in on Lorie and happily reflects on having her older sister home again. Chris tells Lorie how much it means to her to have Lorie there for her wedding. Chris tells Lorie that she’ll be meeting her future brother-in-law tonight. Lorie inquires after “Snooper” – Chris smiles and corrects her to “Snapper”. Lorie wonders why Chris isn’t wearing her engagement ring. Chris touches on how Snapper is already working all sorts of hours at his outside job in addition to his work at the hospital. Snapper and Stuart talk in the Brooks living room. Stuart asks Snapper where he works and what time he’s due at work tomorrow morning. Stuart offers to give Snapper and Chris a loan after they’re married but Snapper declines and says they’ll make it. Chris proudly introduces Snapper to Lorie. After the niceties, Lorie suggests to Stuart that maybe Snapper and Chris might like some time alone, so they both leave the room. When Snapper gets home, he’s surprised that Jill is still awake. She’s made a hot toddy each for them. They share a tender brother-sister moment as Jill says she’s going to miss him. Snapper picks up on the fact that Jill is a little troubled. She says it’s been a kind of an emotional night for her- the fact that Snapper will be getting married, how unsettled she is with her own life, how much she misses Brent. She said she misses the Christmases they had as a family before their father left them- they didn’t have much but it was a special time. She reminds Snapper how much he idolized his father and how they would pick out the perfect tree together. She wonders if their father will come home for Christmas, yet they don’t know if he’s dead or alive. Jill observes how lucky people are to have their parents and how often they don’t stop to count their blessings. Leslie and Lorie catch up with each other in their bedroom. Lorie’s been away for four years. Lorie eventually inquires into Leslie’s personal life and asks about there being any man. Leslie keeps quiet about Brad. Lorie says relates Leslie’s lack of men to spending all her time at the piano. They eventually talk about Snapper and Chris. Lorie says she likes Snapper, but thinks that Chris doesn’t realise that struggling without money is not as glamorous as it sounds. Liz comes out into the Foster living room and sees Snapper apparently asleep on the couch and says “I’m going to miss you, boy”. She said she’d been waiting for him to come upstairs – he said he was about here but was just lying here thinking about weddings, apartments, etc. Liz is mindful of the fact that he hasn’t given Chris an engagement ring. Snapper says he’ll give one to her one day, but right now it doesn’t matter to Chris. Liz says she has a ring which she never uses but would be mighty proud if he gave it to Chris. Snapper accepts the ring from her. They go upstairs together. (Fade to black)

So who played Brent? #136 – Tuesday 16th October, 1973 (Tape date: Tuesday 2nd October) Chris is in her bathroom, rinsing off her face when Jennifer comes from behind and mentions that Greg is downstairs. Chris knows that the women are coming from the rape crisis centre tonight – but she doesn’t know when. Chris tells her mother she’ll slip on something and come down. Greg waits with an obvious penetrating curiosity. Jen comes down and says Chris will be down in a minute or two. Greg expresses his feeling that there’s something everyone is keeping from him and he suspects that something is going on there. Jen handles the moment with sensitivity. Greg tells Jen that he happens to love Chris, and whatever it is why won’t they tell him. Chris comes down and says how grateful she is that he’s here. She’s just wanted some time to herself and that it has nothing to do with him personally. Chris graciously touches on the idea that she’s expecting someone. When she opens the door for Greg to leave, the two women from the Rape Crisis Centre are there and said they were just about to ring the bell. Greg asks Chris privately about why she’s talking with women from the Rape Crisis Centre. She tells him that she has to go in now, but perhaps they can talk in a day or so. The two women leave having made an impression on Chris to report her rape. Brent walks Jill home after an evening together. He asks her if she enjoyed herself and she says yes, very much. They talk for a while and she complains about her work at the beauty parlour, yet she’s good at it and is lucky to have a job. She complains that she doesn’t want to grow up and live like her mother – and yet she thinks her mother is super. Brent reassures her that there’s nothing wrong ever with a person trying to improve herself, reach beyond what her parents have had. Jill tells of how she answered a modelling ad and Chris Brooks was there. The photographer told them the kind of pictures he wants and both she and Chris decided to leave. After they left, Jill lingered in the ladies’ room until Chris had left, then went back and asks the man if she could try out for the job, but by then he had hired someone. Jill admits to Brent that at that moment in time she would have gone ahead with it. “How about that for looking for a way out?”, Jill says. Brent suggests to her that they discuss this on their next date.

Could you post Sally Kirkland Tony Musante Natalie Priest Danielle Brisbois Bettye Ackerman Jay Bontabinus Peter Fernandez

No matter what the year, there is always a gap b/w #8 and the rest. Days or OLTL for example were in 8th place but moved up at various times and another show was bumped down. But AW never jumped to say 7th or 6th - always mired at 9th...

Brad Bell interview from 199? Bradley Phillip Bell, head honcho of The Bold and the Beautiful, is one of television's youngest — and most successful — writer/producers. The Chicago native moved to Los Angeles, with siblings Bill Jr. (B&B's Director of Business Affairs) and Lauralee (currently on sabbatical as The Young and the Restless's Christine), to help his parents, Y&R Co-creators William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, launch B&B. He started as a dialogue writer and was promoted through the ranks over the years. B&B is holding strong and steady in the No. 2 position at a time when soaps are losing viewers, recently scoring a 5.0 in the Nielsen ratings. Never one to let the success go to his head, Brad recently chatted with TV Guide Online about the Forresters, the Spectras and B&B's future.— Michael J. Maloney You must be pleased with the show these days. Yes. I was very psyched to see the show hit the 5.0 rating [the week of Aug. 2 to 6]. It was very gratifying. You refrained from creating a teen story on the show for a long time. What prompted you to go ahead with the Amber/Rick/Kimberly/C.J. saga? I wanted to do a story with family members. So it was kind of a waiting game — literally waiting for the next generation of Forresters and Spectras to get to the right age where you can start telling story. I waited and then I aged them a bit. We've heard there are plans for a remote at the end of the year. Yes. Right now we're tentatively booked to go to Venice [Italy] for a location shoot in the first week of December, and it will air the first week of January. Which characters get to go? I'm still formulating that. Brooke is likely [to go]. Thorne, too. Possibly Ridge and Taylor as well as the younger group, Amber and Rick. It will definitely be one of our full-scale extravaganzas. Given that the soaps's audience has dwindled over the years, would you do anything different if you were launching a show today? I would do a lot of things the same way. You have to create families that the audiences care about and create real situations as opposed to fantasy. What's important is to have human drama where people will watch it and say, "Wow, that happened to me, or to my mother or my aunt." That's what any good drama will be about. When Stephanie was driving up to the cabin to confront Brooke over her relationship with Thorne, viewers were treated to a series of flashbacks detailing the long-running Stephanie/Brooke rivalry. A show really can't buy that kind of intense history. You really have to put the time in to get a payoff like that. Definitely. It sure is great to be able to draw upon that kind of richness. When the Brooke/Thorne relationship began, some people thought, "Here she goes again with another Forrester man, and this is just because she can't have Ridge." However, Katherine Kelly Lang and Winsor Harmon (Brooke and Thorne) share a surprising chemistry. Definitely. The chemistry Jeff Trachta (ex-Thorne) had with Bobbie Eakes (Macy) was fantastic. But I didn't necessarily see it [between Jeff] and Hunter Tylo (Taylor) and at the time I was taking the story in a Thorne/Taylor direction. Now I'm seeing chemistry with Winsor and Katherine. It comes organically off the two of them. He's a very chemical guy. Right after the first on-screen kiss they shared, I thought we have the opportunity to build a relationship and have some very attractive and sexy scenes. B&B has gone through a number of cast departures over the last year. Clearly, though, your decision to refocus on core families and teen storylines paid off, as indicated by the 5.0 rating. It's difficult and, in many ways, a gamble to get rid of people you know are talented actors, like Kimberlin Brown, Ian Buchanan, Barbara Crampton, and Paul Satterfield (ex-Sheila, ex-James, ex-Maggie and ex-Pierce). They were all fantastic actors and great contributors to the show. You're never totally sure that the direction you're going in at the time is the right one. But what's never let me down is building things around families and bringing in new family members. Scenes between family members are always much more riveting than ones between friends and strangers. The Soap Opera Encyclopedia, by the late Christopher Schemering, calls the Mike Horton paternity storyline on Days of Our Lives, written by your father, "probably daytime TV's longest held secret." On your show, the secret of baby Eric's maternity seems to be unraveling now that Becky knows that he is really her son. Had you thought about extending that revelation? At first I was eager to break the record by keeping the maternity of Amber's baby a secret even longer, but I decided to keep the story fresh. Becky finding out has brought more dimension. And at this point, the Forresters don't know. That secret is going to be held at least a little bit longer. The medium's ratings are plummeting but Y&R and B&B stay at the top by sticking to the basics: strong storytelling and consistent casts. Where are the other shows going wrong? I've noticed that [shows] have been following what tends to work for the short-term. If you get too far away from the family and reality-based stories then your audience is going to splinter. If a show tries something different, sure, it may look good in the short-term and get some attention, but in the long run it's going to do more harm. Do you get direction from the network? Not really. The vision for B&B is the other writers — Jack Smith and Teresa Zimmerman — and myself. Also, my father [who serves as B&B's Executive Story Consultant]. So, yes, the show is really our vision coming straight from the writing staff with no interference from CBS. I can't tell you how grateful I am to [the network] for having the discipline and the faith in us to let us tell story the way we tell it. Everyone from [CBS Entertainment President] Les Moonves and [Sr. Vice President of Daytime] Lucy Johnson have been wonderful in respecting us. They know we won't go too far in terms of bad taste, too much violence, or things that are too sexually explicit. They know that that's not our style. Your wife, Colleen, has worked on the show in various capacities. Does she still? Yes. She's a production assistant in the booth a few times a month. We'll watch the show together and I'll bounce some ideas off of her. But she's really into being a mom right now. How do you juggle your busy life? It's become manageable. I do work long hours. Yesterday I worked from 7:30 am to 10:30 pm. It was a big day. We don't really talk about the show on the weekends. Saturdays and Sundays are my days off. We had a great two-week break over the summer and we'll have another one at the end of the year. I've taken up surfing. Really? [Laughs] Have you told CBS? [Laughs] No, but I think they've seen the surf rack on my car. Sounds like fun. I just started a few months ago and I'm hooked. Speaking of hooked, Brooke seems to have given up her obsession of Ridge. The character seems more sympathetic when she doesn't have him. I think that Ridge and Brooke will always have some magic between them. But [Brooke's pursuit of Ridge] was a story that people were tired of watching and one that I was, in a way, tired of writing. Something had to give. The Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle, in terms of being a solid front-burner, three-to-four-day-a-week, carry-the-show-story went on for as long as any I could ever think of. It was the heart and soul of the show for a long time. It was limiting as a writer. I was ready to throw away the security blanket and strut my stuff in other ways. I've found the show more manageable by going in different directions and by bringing in new characters. It's much easier to write and more fun, too. Sounds like the future's pretty bright. We're very excited right now. We started in 1987 in the mid 5.0s [ratings-wise]. When I took over the show, we'd dipped into a 4.6 or 4.8. To maintain the ratings in this kind of climate is something very exciting. Our international market continues to grow. We're looking forward to a very bright future.

AW was facing cancellation as early as 1987 To continue growth in the afternoon, Frons said NBC has signed writer Sally Sussman, who spent the past five years with CBS's The Young and the Restless, to develop a new serial for NBC. "Sally expects to deliver a bible [treatment) to us by January and, if we push the button, we could have a new NBC -produced serial on the air by the second half of 1988," he said. "We would schedule this show as a half -hour or as an hour. This should motivate Procter & Gamble to continue to improve and invest in Another World. P &G has gotten the message that they must meet a higher standard (since the cancellation of Search for Tomorrow)." The weak Another World lead -in has hurt Santa Barbara's share, as affiliates are painfully aware. The network has "taken a hard look" at Another World and completely refocused the story by getting back to basics and adding new talent, said Susan Lee, vice president of daytime drama. "Our goals in daytime drama are to continue the growth of Days of Our Lives and Santa Barbara and to drastically improve Another World by year's end, or replace [it] with a new NBC produced drama," she said.

Why is CLB on contract? The character is played out and never on.

NOV 1985 A DAILY soap opera depicting the lifestyles of the black community is under development by O.J. Simpson's Orenthal Productions and Ralph Edwards Productions in association with Columbia Pictures TV. The serial, called Heart and Soul, is being developed for syndication. It will revolve around the music industry and will feature original music produced in stereo. Stephen Karpf, Elinor Karpf and Jason Karpf, whose previous credits include the daytime soaps General Hospital and Capitol, will serve as head writers and producers on the drama.

Let's post and discuss ratings from that era here. To set the scene an article from Oct 96 NBC daytime- empowered by ratings growth in households and key female demographics - is looking to 1997 as the year in which it begins to enjoy the same success as its prime time counterpart. Consistently shadowed by the monolith that is CBS's The Young and the Restless and The Price Is Right and by the strength of ABC powerhouses All My Children and Genera! Hospital, NBC plans to drop the viewer -challenged magazine show Real Life in January to make way for Aaron Spelling's Sunset Beach. Another soap, network executives say, may be in the works by next fall for a potential launch in spring 1998. Promising a coastal drama different from NBC's former Santa Barbara, Sunset Beach will focus more on 20- something friends and less on the traditional family units that anchor soaps, says Susan Lee, senior vice president, NBC daytime. At least four actors have been cast, including Ashley Hamilton and Randy Spelling, the producer's son, who has already had acting stints on Fox's Beverly Hills, 90210. "I think there is more pressure on us [from prime time counterparts] because working here you certainly feel that you want to be performing as well. You want to be able to say 'I got an A on my report card too,' " says Lee. "We decided on a new soap because our feeling was it was a branding issue, particularly with so many channels where you can get a lot of different programing. What networks do that's unique is daytime dramas." And it's something CBS seems to do best with its number -one The Young and the Restless, which finished last season with a 7.6 Nielsen rating /27 share, up 4% over the previous year. Coupled with the strength of Price Is Right and Guiding Light, CBS won for the eighth year in a row in households (5.3/20). ABC followed, with a 3.9/14, and NBC had a 3.2/12. Yet the #3 ranking didn't tell the whole story for NBC, which enjoyed the largest growth in households, with a 17% jump over the previous season. Strides also were made in women 18 -49, up 20 %, and women 18- 34, up 22 %, Lee says. She attributes the growth to over- the -top Days of Our Lives stories of exorcism and stolen human eggs. Yet ABC still took the top prize last season for women 18 -49 (3.1), followed by CBS (3.0) and NBC (2.4). To boost its share of those viewers this year, ABC plans to expand its practice, started on All My Children last season, of incorporating recaps and teasers to keep fans updated. "We're not in the household games, we're in demographies," says ABC's Pat Fili- Krushel, president, ABC daytime. "Women 18 -49 -that is our goal, and we have been number one since 1975." Whether Sunset Beach represents a threat to ABC and CBS and a boon to advertisers remains to be seen. ABC, for instance, already has its own investment in The City and worries more about the loss of talent from an already small writing pool than about an increase in competition. "Writers burn out. It's very intensive," she says. "We call it the Venus flytrap of storytelling. It would be great to give them a hiatus so they [could] regenerate. We're talking 52 weeks, or 260 episodes." "Now is an excting for NBC to introduce a third soap," counters Michael Maloney, West Coast editor of Soap Opera Digest. "Days of Our Lives currently is number two in ratings, and Another World has had its demographics improve over the last year as well. Since soap fans tend to put one channel on and leave it there for a whole day, adding Sunset Beach to the lineup will help produce a strong soap block for NBC." Media buyer Bill Sellers of Western Media Inc. in Los Angeles warns that recent network attempts to add soap operas "have essentially failed or have been no better than the syndicated fare that's come across." In 1995 ABC's The City -a new version of the network's Loving, which had debuted in 1983 -was the last soap introduced to daytime. Earlier, NBC said farewell to three of its soaps: Santa Barbara, dropped in 1993 after eight years; Generations, which debuted in 1989 but was canceled less than two years later, and Search for Tomorrow, off in 1986 after four years on the network and 31 years on CBS. CBS's The Bold and The Beautiful, launched in 1987, ranks as one of the most successful new soaps since the launch of sister show The Young and the Restless 24 seasons ago. "The expansion doesn't have as much to do with distribution as [with] getting affiliates to go along.... It's been a struggle," Sellers says. "If they are going to expand, affiliates are going to have to give up time and inventory for syndicated stuff and work for both parties." NBC says its has clearance in at least 90% of the country and promises to be available for promotional support to stations over the next two years - roughly the same time period that networks give for a new soap to succeed. "History suggests it's a long haul to come up with a project that changes viewership patterns," Sellers says. "I'd bet against it, and I'm right probably 90 percent of the time."

That's interesting regarding Katherine Meskill/Helena. i wonder if she played the role in the same timeframe as Augusta Dabney as a temp or earlier /later?

Posted earlier in the thread. Yes the GH rating is higher than TPIR in 84. That statement may have been CBS network spin. Although the Daytime TV ratings are never clear on what they represent - is it a monthly average or just a random week from that month?

Thanks for posting. Yikes at that Brad/Leslie scene of him telling her she could lose a few pounds. Wonder how Janice Lynde felt about that?

Agnes with Doug Marland and Joe Stuart

Never really seen many pictures of Linda Gottlieb. Soap mags always used the same headshot.

Never knew there was a GH tie in paperback. seems to be from around 74/75. This was #3 so at least that many in the series.

It seems that the Dobsons created Chad and brought in Andy Norris.Had he always been mentioned as apart of that family but never used till then? Interestingly Doug Marland brought him on again 5 years later. Both stints were short lived. Seeing TJ (Tim) befriending Billy Fletcher again suggests that Billy could have been aged Like Tim and been part of Springfields new teen scene under Marland., rather than inventing Kelly. Billy already had history on the show. Does anyone know why the Dobsons departed GH? Were they dropped because the ratings had fallen or lured away for big bucks by P&G? GH was a family legacy for them, but were they merely employees with no financial stake?

The Derek/Jill story suffered from muddled motivations and eventually just fizzled out. Derek was forgotten by Jill, Kay and Bill Bell.