Paul Raven

Thanks for that. Was that Dr Bob Rogers in the hospital scenes with Cissy? Interesting that the Italian SFT had different music and titles...wonder why they didn't just replicate the US version? They anticipated later US soap openings with character names and visuals. FY! Mary Stuart returned to Search Sept 6 1955 after having given birth on April 30. Was this when Teri Keane took over?

Variety May 1954 Packagers Gros and Baer preparing two soapers scripted by John Haggart -'A Woman to Remember' and 'Look for the Woman' An earlier soap had aired titled "A Woman to Remember' - not sure if any connection between the two.

re Helene Dumas - obviously a typo, but Vivian Carlson LOL 60-71. I have read that she appeared after this occasionally esp when the Labine/Mayer were headwriters.

Re Woman With a Past these actors played the same role Bram Nossen/Maurice Burke Lilia Skala/Olga Fabian Dennis Harrison/John Conte

Re Road of Life Add Shirley Eggleston

Re SFT Grant Sullivan subbed for Terry O'Sullivan for 3 days in Feb 54.

Variety, in the review of the first episode lists Lillian and Anthony Spinner as writers. I've never seen them mentioned in connection with SS. Max Wylie soon took over I believe. Perhaps Roy Winsor was writing and they supplied dialogue?

Sponsor magazine 1962 ....The only way I know to beat the fallacy of the Saleable Flop is the kind of chicanery Bill Ramsey and I pulled once on P&G. Bill, then P&G's radio chief, and I wanted to buy a new daytime show by Irna Phillips, most successful of serial writers. When her sample scripts came in. Bill called me. "You and I know this is great daytime radio," he said, "solid, slow-paced emotional conflicts, and real characters. But it isn't what my people think a serial ought to be. What do we do?" What we did was have Irna write a hair-raising, cliff-hanging fire and-rescue script, which we auditioned for Cincinnati. "Great stuff," said P&G management. "Great stuff," echoed the P&G brand men. "But can you keep it up?" We assured them (what barefaced liars!) that we could. With their blessing, we bought Guiding Light and watched it zoom quickly up to the top of the ratings. But we were smart. We threw that damned audition script away and never used it. It was just a lousy, saleable, program. What the P&G brass didn't know didn't hurt; it helped them! ^

Gene H. Ellis: Actress Turned Writer Gene Ellis was talented on the stage, on the ice and on the typewriter. The former actress was for many years a writer of several of the most popular “soap operas” on television. Born Gene M. Hufeisen in Seattle, Wash., in 1933, she spent much of her childhood in Fairbanks, Alaska, where her father had a construction company. She began ice skating as a grammar school student. She also studied dance with a young man named Donald Saddler, who at the time was serving in the U.S. Army in Alaska, but who later became a Tony Award-winning choreographer for both Broadway and Hollywood. She returned to Seattle to complete her high school education, and continued to study both skating and dance, but ultimately decided to pursue the latter. She majored in drama at the University of Washington, but quit after a year to move to Europe to work on her acting and dancing. She dubbed films in Rome and studied dance in Paris. Ellis moved to New York City in 1953 to pursue her theatrical career. After winning dancing roles in summer stock, she made her Broadway debut in the Josh Logan production of “Wish You Were Here.” Her husband, Ralph, noted that the production was “complete with onstage swimming pool — she lied about not being able to swim so she wouldn’t have to get wet eight performances a week.” She then joined the national tour of the musical “The Boy Friend.” She danced many major roles in summer stock, “always to critical acclaim,” said Ralph, who had been a fellow actor; they met and married in 1961. Returning to New York City, she acted in several off-Broadway shows, including a revival of Shaw’s “Buoyant Billions” and “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” and became a featured performer in both winter and summer stock, appearing with such actors as John Raitt and Howard Keel. She also appeared on television in the 1957 musical special of “Pinocchio” with Mickey Rooney and Walter Slezak, and a year later she used her skating talents in the TV musical special, “Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates” with Tab Hunter and Dick Button. In 1963, she retired from acting and dancing — in her final performance, in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of “West Side Story,” she was two months pregnant. By 1964 Ralph had also stopped acting and had turned instead to a career as a full-time writer of daytime television dramas. After the birth of their third child, the Ellises moved to Ridgefield in 1972 where their fourth child — Ridgefielder Catherine Ellis Dulecki — was born. That same year, her husband persuaded Gene to try writing scripts. “Gene was always interested in writing,” Ralph said. “She wrote a weekly column for the Washington University paper when she was student there. It was humorous in tone and had a large readership, including a female student, who wrote her ardent fan letters. Needless to say, the fan was taken aback when they met and she discovered ‘Gene’ was a girl.” In high school, she had won first place in a Seventeen Magazine contest for a short story that was subsequently published in the magazine. Together with Ralph, and also separately, Gene wrote under the name Eugenie Hunt. The Ellises wrote for many years in the 1970s and 80s for “As the World Turns,” the second longest-lived of the television soap operas — started in 1956, it ran 54 seasons until 2010 (only The Guiding Light ran longer, by three years). For several years, they were the head writers on the show, which over the years had featured such budding young actors and actresses as Meg Ryan, Julianne Moore, Parker Posey, Matthew Morrison, Martin Sheen and James Earl Jones. They also wrote many episodes of “Search for Tomorrow,” a show that ran from 1951 to 1986. In all, Gene wrote nearly 500 episodes of the program. Among the future stars who appeared on ‘Search’ were Morgan Fairchild, Susan Sarandon, Jill Clayburgh, Kevin Bacon, Lee Grant, Sandy Duncan, Kevin Kline, and Wayne Rogers. She and her husband were also head writers for “The Doctors.” On her own, she wrote scripts for “Loving,” “One Life to Live” and “General Hospital.” Having both acted professionally was an advantage for the Ellises. “An acting background is a tremendous help in writing scripts,” Ralph said. “While some might be total failures at novels, which require descriptive passages, actors are very adept at improvisation and transfer that ability to creating dialogue. The best writers we ever hired were actors.” When her daughters, Catherine Dulecki and Susan Ellis, were teenagers, their parents sometimes sought their help. “They would often ask me and my sister to read a line or two and tell them if it sounded like something a teenager would say,” Catherine recalled. Both young women also got a chance to be a part of a show. “In 1984, my sister and I were in an episode where Jermaine Jackson and a relatively unknown Whitney Houston performed a concert in the fictional town of Oakdale on ‘As The World Turns,’” Catherine said. Their brothers, Steve and Tom Ellis of Ridgefield, were also on “As the World Turns.” In 1974 the Ellises won a Writer’s Guild of America award for best daytime show, “Search for Tomorrow.” In the years that followed Gene was also nominated for the Writer’s Guild Award for her work on “One Life to Live” and “Loving.” Gene Ellis retired from writing in 1994, but remained active locally as a member of the Caudatowa Garden Club and volunteering at the Keeler Tavern Museum. The couple had been married for 55 years when Gene died in October 2016 at the age of 82. Over the years, the Ellises were often asked where they got their plot ideas. “We never used Ridgefield experiences in any direct way, although the tranquility of living here certainly provided a more comfortable creative atmosphere than our years in New York City,” Ralph said. “Since we didn’t know any murderers, blackmailers, amnesia victims, and only a few adulterers, we made them up.”

So Warren Leslie, Bethel Leslie's brother and author wrote for SS. Didn't know that before. His novel 'The Starrs of Texas' was the basis of a proposed CBS soap in the 80's.

Could you add Fran Brill Jennifer Harmon Pamela King Mark Lenard Vicky Vola Henderson Forsythe Tina Johnson

Radio Daily March 62 Space Writer Glues Ear To Kid-Talk for Data Manya Starr, who writes CBSTV's "The Clear Horizon," daytime serial built around Cape Canaveral, said she gets much of her sidebar information from an unusual source: her children. Miss Starr explained that Walter Cronkite, CBS News correspondent and the web's Project Mercury anchorman, lives nearby. The Cronkite and Starr kids are good friends, and often the anecdotes her children bring home find their way into an episode.

The bandana isn't doing him any favours. He could have easily have used his looks to score certain types of roles, but seems to have fought against that from the get go.

1974 script cover.

Stephanie Braxton and David Gale

Margaret O'Neill Mona Bruns. Blair Davies Mary K Wells Lanna Saunders, Joe Sirola

So Peg Bundy and Dan Conner are supposed to be the same age? She's definitely holding up better... Was that a one-off by Katey? I don't think Dan should be having any romance this season.Way too soon. The Jackie story was so ridiculous it was funny and everything else was humming along nicely. And no DJ and Geena!

Radio /TV Daily August 62 Rex Ingram Dons Cloth For 'Brighter Day' Role Rex Ingram, veteran stage, screen and TV actor has been signed by producer Leonard "Buzz" Blair for a continuing role in "The Brighter Day," CBS-TV's daytime drama series. He will be seen as Victor Graham, an ordained minister who is forced to take a full-time job because his new church is unable to pay him a living wage.

I wonder what might have happened had Jim Reilly done an Irna Phillips and deserted his creation. Maybe with other writers Passions could have achieved its potential.

The script really let them down this week. It always falters when the premise is not strong. Matt Bomer's character attracted to Will? Will making a fool of himself over some guy? Had it been Jack trying to interest and fool him by acting smart, that would have worked. McCormack's delivery is woeful.

re The Clear Horizon Richard Coogan joined in Feb 62 in the shows second go round. Add Narda Onyx and James Gavin Lee Meriwether debuted April 5 1962

Radio Daily Feb 62 Producer Sees Male Trend In Daytime Drama Series Charles Polachek, producer of CBS-TV's "Th e Clear Horizon," which returns Feb. 26 because of viewer's letters, believes the demands of TV will dictate more story emphasis on m en in daytime drama s than radio ever did. "Excitement, action, melodrama —all are more successful on TV than they were on radio. So I think the trend in TV daytime drama will be more and more toward men than it was in radio, " he said. Behind the TV camera since 1945, Polachek notes that he has four times as much material to worry about as a daytime drama producer than the producer of a weekly half-ho r series But he calls his job simpler because he can operate "on a more established basis." "We have a basic cast, the same locale, the same settings. At a production meeting weekly , we discuss our problems. In many cases, three words take care of a description of a set. I just say 'Selby living room' and our crew knows exactly what we will shoot. It is t h e same for many other sets. We have done them all before. " Polachek had previously worked on Edge of Night and other shows in the 50's, but CH seems to be his last credit.