Where the Heart Is (1969-1973)

[DRW50]

[SFK]

I could be very wrong, but I want to say that WoST did an interview with Delphi. I know they did one with Jada Rowland, maybe I'm confusing the unusual names...

[DRW50]

I posted this in the Secret Storm thread, but it's a 10/71 TV Dawn to Dusk interview with Chuck Weiss, who produced SS and WTHI at this time. He talks a bit about the sequence where Vicki pushed Mary Hathaway down the stairs.

[Brent]

Just read the threads about the fall down the steps. Hadn't read these synopsis before now and don't recall these plotlines in detail. Can't recall one woman pushing another--but my recollection is clearly of the blonde going down the steps in the wheelchair...in any case a wheelchair was involved--even if it managed to stay on the upper landing.

Brent

[DRW50]

Thanks for sharing your memories. I have a few other articles from around this time, interviews with cast members like Diana Walker. I will share soon when I get my scanner going again.

[saynotoursoap]

Vicky definitely pushed Mary down the stairs. Vicky and Mary were both played by fragile blondes, Robyn Millan and Diana Walker. Vicky was in the wheelchair. She had accidentally on purpose gotten pregnant by Michael Hathaway to trap him into marriage. Michael's mother had died in childbirth, causing his father Julian to be cold, distant, and resentful. Michael could not do that to his own child and agreed to marry Vicky. Michael had been in love with Mary, his college classmate who married his father. Vicky overheard Michael declare his love for Mary. Vicky ran out, drove off wildly in her car and crashed. The accident apparently left her paralyzed, but in time it was revealed that she was faking it to hold on to a guilty Michael. Claire Labine recycled this story on Ryan's Hope with Delia and Pat, and interestingly enough, Robyn Millan played Delia temporarily during the period when Ilene Kristen left and before Randall Edwards took over.

Mary also felt guilty and waited on Vicky hand and foot. Vicky had a little dinner bell which she rang constantly, causing Mary to run up and down the stairs to adjust Vicky's pillows, bring her food and drink, and whatever else Vicky could think of to annoy her. One day Mary caught Vicky standing. As I remember it, Vicky had wheeled out of her room on the second floor and stood up. Mary saw her and threatened to reveal Vicky's schemes to Michael and Julian. The two argued with the wheelchair between them. Somehow, Vicky managed to steer the chair around so that Mary was standing with her back to the stairs. Vicky shoved the chair into Mary, sending her tumbling down the staircase. I don't recall the wheelchair falling, but as Brent wrote, the sequence was very well done. It was certainly superior to the laughable stunt on Dark Shadows when Janet Findley fell down the great staircase at Collinwood.

[DRW50]

That sounds great. It's a shame that all that is known of Diana Walker's soap work is her one day stint on Dark Shadows. From her interviews she seems very interesting.

[DRW50]

From the June 1972 Afternoon TV. (Roband Publications Inc)

Edited December 3, 2010 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

[DRW50]

[MichaelGL]

Chuck Weiss is a producer that I'm eagerly wanting to learn more about. Not only did he produce WTHI and SS, but if I'm correct he also was EP of How to Survive a Marriage for some time, another soap that pushed the envelope in the 70s. Not only did he produce that soap, he would later be transplanted over at The Doctors, where the soap engaged in some unique storytelling around that time as well. Seems as if it was a signature of Weiss's to display storylines, that were often seen as taboo in the 70s, on the front burner. Unfortunately for him, such storylines didn't really garner much ratings at the time, nor did it help him retain his the position of EP for very long.

Edited December 6, 2010 by MichaelGL

[DRW50]

I hope the article I typed up helped you some then. I'd like to know more about him too. I would say he seems ahead of his time, but considering most of the producers in daytime haven't been great, perhaps not. I do wonder how he might have been on, say, SFT in the early 80s, if he could have turned them around. All of his shows seem to have a very unique character.

What unique stories did he do at The Doctors?

[DRW50]

From the June 1971 Daytime TV (Sterling House Inc).

[DRW50]

[MichaelGL]

From the synopsis’s I’ve read and still have from his time at TD from 78-79, The Doctors seemingly tackled more social issues, or at least more sexual oriented stories, under Weiss than under anybody else in the show’s history. It was under him that the show had teenagers Billy and Greta deal with their sexual desires, and experience the repercussions of it, such as her becoming pregnant. Elsewhere you had good girl Sara Dancy torn between town baddie Dr. Colin Wakefield and the noble Mike Powers. The story would conclude after a rage filled Mike took to Sara to bed, and funneled his frustrations into their love making. Sara, having never seen such a side of Mike before, would express to her sister Nola that Mike’s anger had improved their love making and she now valued her marriage to him more than before.

There were more stories like this, such as the plot where Billy and Greta attended a swinging party and felt out of place, Carolee dealing with her rape and the emotional and physical affects it had on her marriage with Steve, hints that a character named Kim had a “Sex addiction”, and finally the Luke/Missy romance where Missy was hesitant to have sex with reformed womanizer Luke Dancy, after a traumatic experience.

Perhaps unique isn’t quite the word for it, for a better word the stories were more racy, being that they pushed the envelope for its time period and gave an entirely new layer to the canvas of characters.

Edited December 6, 2010 by MichaelGL