Harding Lemay's soap Lovers and Friends

[EricMontreal22]

Because Harding Lemay's style and era at Another World fascinates me so much I've alwasy been curious about the shortlived soap that he and Rauch created in 1977 for NBC, Lovers and Friends. I've read a synopsis of its 4 or so months on the air and it sounds fascinating--but as usual NBC was trigger ready and they cut it to revampit as a much safer soap, without Lemay, For Richer and Poorer the following Dec where it ran slightly longer.

have ANY episodes of either been saved ANYWHERE?

[Sylph]

Is there any place online where these synopses can be read?

[Paul Raven]

I have never seen synopses of Lovers and Friends online.

The Soap Opera History site (now defunct unfortunately)did have synopses of For Richer For Poorer.

It would be great if this post could be used to share info on these shows,as it is pretty scarce.

Eric,what makes you sat FRFP was'safer' than L&F ?

Here's some comments made by Lemay regarding Paul Rauch and L&F

We were partners, particularly at that period. We created a soap opera together, LOVERS AND FRIENDS. That lasted a year or two. It was too much. I found it interesting to be working on one soap and to be able to switch my mind completely into a whole other set of characters. We had wonderful actors like Nancy Marchand and Richard Backus. It didn't work because I didn't have the energy to fight for what I wanted to do and they changed a whole lot of things. After the first six months I didn't write it anymore. I just collected the royalties.

[Cat]

OK, I'm officially intrigued now. Was L&F written in the same high melodrama style that characterized AW? Because I *love* that sort of soap.

[TC]

Don't think I ever watched either one, but I vaguely recall an introduction of two characters on AW, through Rachel. It was a young couple, the male was an artist like Rachel, that's how she knew him. Afterward there was a typical 'couple' scene where they argue about money, family, etc, and then kiss and make up at the end.

Around that time my sister and her friends were convinced Rachel would be leaving AW to join the other show.

[EricMontreal22]

Well if there's any interest I could type out what I have--it's from LaGuardia's The WOnderful WOrld of TV Soap Operas, 1977 revised (and final) edition, which came out late 1977 so I assume basically covers all of Lovers and Friends (and none of FOr Richer and Poorer). I doubt there are really any other published synopsises, it was just lucky enough to not have been canceled when the book came out. It's several pages but, like I said, I'd be happy to type it a bit every day or something

Cat--in fact technically the style Lemay wrote in for AW was called Drawing Room (based on drawing room theatre) and NOT melodrama. He always went out of his way to avoid melodrama cliches--amnesia, sudden coincidences, court cases, etc, and instead tried to bse every action from sound normal, not pathological, psychology. I think this is still waht you mean though because I sorta use melodrama to describe that too even if it's technically incorrect.

And yes Lovers and Friends was written int hat style from everything I rad--thatwas a prob, when NBC canceled it after 5 months, they never gave it time to sit with its audience and Lemay was busy setting up the complex backstories, etc, to all hsi characters that would set up the story--I think it was a slow start for sure.

Rachel didn't get involved, from AW, until For Richer and Poorer revamp (when some characters were reacast, hero Rhett was renamed Bill, etc). For that revamp characters were introduced on AW, and Rachel and Mac came to Richer and Poorer a number of times in its half year run. Lemay remained as consultant for it but wasn't allowed to HW, TOm King from AW's staff (who later HW) was headwriter and Richer and Poorer purposefully made everyhting much more soap--it opened with a wedding where Bill's ex girlfriend revealed she was pregnant, had amnesia, verything, shoved into it to try to pick up viewers.

Because it was from the late 70s I keep hoping SOME sort of visual record exists for this, would love to see it and like I said I think the Lovers and Friends set up and plot synopsis are *flawless*, exactly the kinda soap I'd be gagging to watch.

[MarkH]

Eric, if it is photocopy-able, you could scan it and use optical character recognition (no need to type).

On another note, if it was late 70s, was SOD around then? There might be something in the archives...

[EricMontreal22]

You know I have a scanner on my new printer and have NEVER tried to use it or even know how it works!

yeah it was Jan-May 1977 (Richer and Poorer was Dec 77 to Sep 78 or so I think...) There are decent but very short desctiptions of all in Schemering's 1987 Encyclopedia of Soaps and Waggert's 1997 one.

E

[MarkH]

Even if you just scanned it in as pictures.... Good time to learn the machine :-)

[MarkH]

You keep reminding me of these books I don't have...I may be heading to amazon even as we speak :-)

[EricMontreal22]

Well I'm truly a computer illiterate. My brother said he can help me scan it tonight so fingers crossed--it's actually only 5 pages but VERY dense and would take me a long time to type (and filled with my classic typos...)

I knwo at least one color ep of Richer and Poorer exists as wost has the opening

[All My Shadows]

I always wondered, were either one of the versions of the show produced by PGP? Given its connection to AW, I always thought so...

[EricMontreal22]

You know--I can't find out if they were in ANY of the books that mention it! Bizarre... Hrmmm It did replace Somerset--that was P&G right?

[Paul Raven]

Lovers and Friends played at 12.30 on NBC.

It replaced The Gong Show.NBC had never had a soap run in that timeslot.The competition was Search for Tomorrow on CBS which had held that slot since it's debut in 1951 and All My Children,which had moved to that time when it expanded to 60 min in 75.

Name That Tune debuted the same day as the L&F lead-in.

Somerset had gone off the air the previous Friday.The Gong Show moved to Somerset's 4.00 pm slot.

I wonder if L&F would have performed better at 4:00,following AW and up against EON and Tattletales on CBS?

[EricMontreal22]

Oh well I read that it was their replacement for Somerset. Maybe they meant in terms of number of soaps not necesarily timeslot I do suspect it woulda had more of a chance following immediately AW especially since it was written so similarly--and it woulda appealed to a diff audience than EON or Tattletales but maybe less so SFT and AMC