Douglas Marland interview

[Paul Raven]

He brought you General Hospital's Scotty and Laura love story,a romance so popular with teenage viewers that it catapulted the once dying soap into the number one spot. But,if it had been up to Doug Marland, GH's head writer at the time,Luke would have been long dead.

“There was going to be a long love story between Luke and Laura before he was going to be killed,”remarks Marland,who hastens to add that”'Luke's popularity would have been noted by then and it(the story)would have changed”.But before he had the opportunity to script Luke and Laura's storyline,he was fired. Although it has been reported that bitter disagreements with Gloria Monty as to how the Scotty/Laura/Luke triangle should progress was the reason behind Marland's dismissal,Douglas denies those allegations. After noting that he wanted Scotty and Laura's marriage to last longer than three weeks and Gloria wanted the marriage gone,”Marland says,”I wasn't fired because of Gloria's storyline demands. She wanted me to move to California and I refused. I had written the show for two and a half successful years from Connecticut so I didn't see why I suddenly needed to be in California.

Despite the fact that Marland missed out on the most popular story line in daytime history,Douglas says,”My only regret was leaving a wonderful cast I had become very close to. But I had no regrets about not staying on the show because I was so excited by what I was doing on Guiding light by that time.

Evidently others were excited by Marland's writing for he won a daytime Emmy in 1981 and 1982.”I was freer to do the kind of work I wanted on Guiding Light,”comments Marland,who strongly believes that when story lines are forced on a writer,”those are the stories people don't write well because they don't believe in them.”One of Marland's favorite story lines is the Nola/Quint gothic story which he believes he”would never been allowed to do on General Hospital..

Originally an actor,Douglas Marland joined Harding Lemay's writing staff on Another World. He advanced to headwriter on The Doctors and is credited with rejuvenating that serial. After stints on General Hospital and Guiding Light, Marland went on to create the cable soap a New Day in Eden,which was later cancelled. Next Marland co-created Loving and is currently the top scribe on As The World Turns.

During his three year tenure on Guding Light,Marland says,”I never had any stories I wanted to tell that weren't approved and I was never asked to tell any I didn't want to tell. Nevertheless,he left the show at the end of his contract. “My problem on Guiding Light,as everybody seems to know,”says Douglas,”was that when Jane Elliot's contract was cancelled, I had long term story plans already approved for the character of Carrie and I felt it was a terrible cheat to the audience and to the Carrie/Ross love story to have her go off so quickly. That was part of what prompted my leaving Guiding Light. Part of it was because I didn't get along with the producer”,says Marland who emphasizes the importance of the writer/producer relationship.”I think a lot of people don't understand it. They think this person does this job and that person does that job. But that trust,that mutual trust,has to both ways. A producer has to trust the head writer's instinct and the head writer has to trust his producer once that material is handed in.”Marland did not have that kind of relationship with his GL producer,a man whose name Douglas asks not to be mentioned.

“I didn't get along with him because,primarily,he wasn't as interested in the show and in producing it as I was in writing it. I wasn't getting enough back up from my producer.”In contrast,Marland says,”I had wonderful support and back up from Joe Stuart on Loving. And I have incredible support from Robert Calhoun on ATWT.”When I give him something,he is excited about producing it and putting it on screen.”

Marland's next network assignment after GL was Loving,which he left after two years amid rumours that he and the show's creator Agnes Nixon,were blaming each other for the serial's failure to rise in the ratings. Waving aside those rumours Marland says,”We had never collaborated ,either one of us before. But we certainly got along professionally.”

Marland scripted daytime's most daring storylines when he introduced incest to afternoon television. But the story ended abruptly and Marland thinks he knows why the network ordered him to wrap it up ahead of schedule.”This was the only time in my head writing experience where the network said,”This storyline must be over and never mentioned again by January 15th.”I kept saying,'I don't understand'.Well the reason became apparent when their (ABC)movie of the week about incest Something About Amelia,aired. ABC promoted it by saying that it was a subject that had never been on television before when their own network had been doing it sucessfully for five months on daytime television.(ABC declined to comment on Marland's statements.)

Returning to As The World Turns is a homecoming of sorts for Marland. He played gynecologist Dr Erich Londsberry on the show when it was live.”I was working with Eileen Fulton and Don Hastings and they are both still there. They were both seasoned professionals and Eileen was so dear to me during that time that it's wonderful now to be able to write for her.

Depite his current honeymoon on ATWT,Marland doesn't plan to settle there forever.”I am not a writer who is going to stay on the same show for 15 years. It doesn't work for me. I need new characters,new challenges. I look at a show that has been playing a long time like ATWT and I see what I can do with it for two or three years and then I want to move onto something else. By Andrea Payne

[Cat]

Oh, Douglas Marland. *sniffle*

I wish he could come back from the dead. Daytime needs him so. 15 years and he still leaves a void.

[Sylph]

Thank you, Paul!! Great read!

If you find an interview with Nancy Curlee, let us know!

[Paul Raven]

The producer Marland won't name is Allen Potter,who had been at GL for about 5 years when Marland came on board.

He had a long soap carrer and went on to produce Another World before retiring.

So,it seems it was a personality clash as Potter had worked with Dobsons(previous GL head writers )for a number of years without conflict.