Where the Heart Is (1969-1973)

[DRW50]

As the saying goes, home is where the heart is. And for the charactrson the serial, now in its second year on television, some happen to be the city of Northcross, U.S.A.

Where the Heart Is evolves around the Hathaway family, lead by eldest brother Julian. Julian's two sisters, Kate and Allison, combine with the Jessup and Prescott families to create many exciting plots which viewers have been enjoying since the show's debut.

Diana Van Der Vlis (Kate Hathaway Prescott) has been married for eleven years to book editor Roger Donald. Diana, a native of Canada, was on her way to England by boat to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts when she met Roger, also a passenger on the ship. Following her studies in England, Diana returned to Canada, where she did a great deal of theatre and television work. Coming to America, she made her Broadway debut in The Happiest Millionaire in the role of Walter Pidgeon's daughter. This was followed by an accomplished career in Shakespearean and Broadway roles. Diana's also done several stings on nighttime television shows. Today, she and Roger own a ranch in Claverack, a small town on the border of New York and Massachusetts, and Diana is sure that their home there is also occupied by a ghost The Donalds have two children, Adrienne and Matthew, and they enjoy travelling up to the ranch on weekends and during whatever free time they have.

James Mitchell (Julian Hathaway) was born and raised in Sacramento, California, the son of English parents. He studied drama at Los Angeles City College, augmenting his studies by appearing as an actor/dancer in stock productions around the city. In New York, Jim was the leading male dancer in the Broadway production of Bloomer Girl, after which he was featured in such memorable shows as Billion Dollar Baby and The Deputy. The large movie studios in Hollywood, hearing about Jim's talents, were eager to sign him to contracts. First came Warner Bros., for which he appeared in several Western flicks. Then came a prolific association with MGM, which allowed him to appear in Devil's Doorway, Stars In My Crown, Colorado Territory, and perhaps the two films for which he is best remembered: The Bandwagon and Deep In My Heart (both with Cyd Charisse). Subsequently, Jim appeared in two Cyd Charissa TV specials and a segment of The Perry Como Show. He toured Europe and South America with The Ballet Theatre and starred in the Theatre's dance versions of Oklahoma and Paint Your Wagon. Seven years ago, Jim made his serial debut as a police officer on Edge of Night, but Where the Heart Is marks his first long-running television venture. Jim enjoys attending ballet and the opera and would like to do more directing in the future (he has previously directed shows in St. Louis and Hyannisport and has been the Visiting Director at Drake University in Iowa). Also an owner of a home in upstate New York, Jim looks forward to escaping from the city into the country whenever time allows.

Gregory Abels (Michael Hathaway), born in Jersey City, attended Providence College and City College of New York. While attending school, Greg also held down various jobs as an office boy for a Wall Street firm, an assistant surveyor, a department store salesman and a truck driver. He began his acting career when he came across an ad in The New York Times by noted director and acting teacher Stella Adler for non-professionals interested in acting. Greg signed up for Miss Adler's school and spent two years developing the talent which until then, he himself had never recognized. Greg's first professional acting job was with Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park, where he did a great deal of Shakespearean work. He then went on to the McCarter Theatre in Princeton and the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. At the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre in 1966 Greg fell in love with another resident actor, Janet Kapral, and the two subsequently married on June 24, 1967. Janet and Greg then joined Stage West in West Springfield, Massachusetts and the Cleveland Playhouse. Today Janet and Greg own a Greenwich Village townhouse and would someday like to own a country home. Greg has a young sister who is an executive secretary and a younger brother who is a drummer with his own jazz group.

Ron Harper (Steve Prescott), whose birthday is January 12th, was born in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania. As a young boy, he spent many summers at his grandfather's farm in Harmony, Pennsylvania. Ron's ambition while in high school was to be a lawyer, although he enjoyed appearing in all the school plays. An excellent student, Ron was offered, and accepted, a scholarship to Princeton University, and after two years there, he was offered a fellowship to Harvard Law School (which he turned down). Ron became very involved in dramatics at Princeton, and after graduation he came to New York to further his dramatic studies. After enlisting in the Navy, Ron was assigned to a TV station in Panama, where he was able to produce plays and act a great deal. When his service years were over, Ron returned to New York, where he understudied Paul Newman in Sweet Bird of Youth on Broadway. Tempted to try his hand at acting in Hollywood, he became a familiar face on the television screen as a star of such series as 87th Precinct, Wendy and Me (with Connie Stevens), The Jean Arthur Show and Garrison's Guerrillas. Since the latter show, he has toured with Martha Raye in Goodbye, Charlie and made a movie entitled Savage Season in Mexico. Ron, still a bachelor, lives in Manhattan with his Yorkshire terrier, Homer, and enjoys driving to Pennsylvania on weekends and holidays to see his family and friends.

Delphi Harrington (Chris Cameron), was born and raised inn Chicago, the daughter of Greek immigrants. As Delphi Nicopoulos, she attended Northwestern University as a drama major, and it was at Northwestern that she met a young English teacher, Norman Harrington. The two were wed on September 26,1960 at St. Andrews Greek Orthodox Church in Chicago. In 1962, Delphi became a resident member of the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival and appeared in major roles in Merchant of Venice, Othello, All's Well That Ends Well, and Love's Labour Lost. Delphi has appeared off-Broadway in A Moon for the Misbegotten, and on Broadway in Edward Albee's Everything in the Garden. She's done nightclub work at the Plaza 9, appearing in Baker's Dozen and Struts and Frets, and has also made many television commercials. Today Delphi and husband Norman, now a professor of English at Brooklyn College, live in Manhattan with their five-year-old son Spencer.

Louise Shaffer (Allison Hathaway Jessup) is the oldest of four children. She was raised in Connecticut, and once she decided she wanted to be an actress, her parents helped her in whatever ways they could. For two years Louise attended Connecticut College for Women and then transferred to Yale Drama School. In July of 1970, Louise was divorced from actor Toby Tompkins, and has since moved into an apartment with her poodle, Agnes. Eventually, Louise would like to do either a Broadway drama or musical. But right now she enjoys working on Where the Heart Is and learning more about acting. An excellent cook, Louise admits that she must watch her weight very carefully or else she can get carried away and become a compulsive eater.

[Paul Raven]

Joseph Mascolo looks cute 'n' sexy! In interviews he did when he first joined Days,he always inferred that this was his first soap,he was trained theater actor blah,blah,blah...never mentioned WTHI and i think he was on From These Roots also.

Ron Harper had a quite successful primetime career-several series,so I am surprised he turned to soaps so soon,when he was still young enough to continue in primetime.He later did Planet of The Apes.Never really had a successful series,but there were many like him in those days,that made a decent living from guest spots and TV movies.

[DRW50]

Daniel Keyes (Ben Jessup) was born in Concord, Massachusetts. He had regarded acting as a hobby until he decided to pursue it as a career shortly after the end of World War II. His first professional job was in the road company of Mr. Roberts, followed by roles in New York productions of Bus Stop, Inherit the Wind, Only In America, Take Her, She's Mine (with Art Carney), I Never Sang For My Father, and Our Town, to name just a few. Off-Broadway, Dan has appeared in such plays as Six Characters in Search of an Author, Hogan's Goat, and Arms and the Man. He had a role in the hit movie I Never Sang For My Father and will be seen shortly as the Representative from New Hampshire in the movie version of 1776. Dan has done small roles on virtually every one of the daytime serials, including a brief stay on Dark Shadows as "the 108-year-old keeper of the crypt" and a running role on The Secret Storm. He's married and has four children. He's married and has four children. In his free time, Dan enjoys playing tennis.

Alice Drummond (Loretta Jardin) calls Pawtucket, Rhode Island her home town and Pembroke College her alma mater. As a child she was very interested in acting, and after college she came to New York to begin her career. However, she gave up on acting for a time after becoming discouraged. She married and became a professor of English at Brown university. Eighteen years ago, Alice decided to give acting one more try, and has been a successful actress ever since. Some of her theatrical credits include roles in The Chinese and Dr. Fish (for which she won a Tony nomination), Malcom, The American Dream, The Sandbox, Ballad of the Sad Cafe, The Carpenters (at the American Place Theatre) and Royal Gambit. Alice can be seen in the movie, Where's Poppa?, and has done such daytime serials as As the World Turns, Love is a Many Splendored Thing and Dark Shadows (when the show first went on the air, she played Dr. Hoffman's nurse). She and her husband, an organizer of conventions for societies of engineers, have been married twenty years, and have a cat named Dukesbury. Though an accomplished stage actress, Alice was frightened at first about doing a regular daytime serial before a camera but now admits that she loves doing Where the Heart Is and finds it to be excellent experience.

Michael Bersell (Peter Jardin) is thirteen years old and has eleven years of professional acting experience to his credit. His first acting job was at the age of two when he was signed to be "The Citrus Kid." This was followed by jobs for both on-camera and voice-over commercials for television and radio. Mike appeared in the recent off-Broadway revival of Summertree, and can be seen in the movies Paper Lion and Eleven-Foot Giraffe. He was signed to portray the character of Bobby Martin when the serial All My Children began, but the part was written out shortly after the show's premiere. Mike enjoys playing baseball and bicycle-riding in his free time, and already has a steady girlfriend. He has three younger brothers and one younger sister, all of whom are actors appearing on commercials in movies and live theatre.

William Post Jr. (Joe Prescott) first took an interest in acting and the theatre at age nine when his aunts and grandmother took him to see shows very frequently. Admitted to Yale University, William became an English major minoring in philosophy, but he seemed to spend most of his free time appearing in college theatrical productions. At Christmas time, he and the other members of the Drama Club toured cities where Yale alumni lived, and produced such plays as L'Aiglon and King Lear. Coming to New York from Yale, William joined the American Laboratory Theatre of Drama, and from there went on to appear in over twenty major Broadway productions (including Ah, Wilderness with George M. Cohan and Richard II with Maurice Evans). Some of his movie credits include Mr. and Mrs. North (opposite Gracie Allen), The Moon is Down, Horror on 92nd Street and Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (a classic of the Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce). This accomplished actor also made his mark on the early radio serials, playing John in John's Other Wife, a regular on the Helen Hayes Lipton Tea Show and numerous other characters on the various live programs. William's also appeared on several television serials, such as Young Dr. Malone, Brighter Day, The Nurses and most recently, as Chandler Garrison on Love is a Many Splendored Thing. William has been married for twenty years, and his wife is now the Registrar of The Dwight School in Manhattan. William enjoys reading, travelling, sailing (on his friend's boat) and walking. He and his wife love living in New York, despite all its shortcomings.

Bibi Osterwald (Stella) hails from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and is a graduate of Catholic University. Although she had been a child singer, her distinguished career began in 1945 with her Broadway debut in Sing Out, Sweet Land with Alfred Drake. Her Broadway credits, all too numerous to be mentioned here, include major roles in such successes as Three to Make Ready, Bus Stop, Look Homeward, Angel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and the leading role in Hello, Dolly (for such people as Ethel Merman). She's been seen in such movies as A Fine Madness, Tiger Makes Out (with Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson) and Parrish. Bibi has been a regular feature on television since the medium's early days. She was familiar as a guest star on Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Theatre, Omnibus, Front Row Center, The Imogene Coca Show and Naked City. Bibi is happily married to musician Justin Arndt and has one son, Christopher. She loves to cook and is currently learning how to tap dance.

Joseph Mascolo (Ed Lucas) has recently been a resident member of the Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre, where he has appeared in The Good Woman of Setzuan, Operation: Sidewinder, Camino Real and The Time of Your Life. He has also been featured in Richard Rodgers' revival of West Side Story at Lincoln Center, Dinner At Eight and Night Life. He has been seen off-Broadway in The Threepenny Opera, A View from the Bridge and To Clothe the Naked. As part of the company at the Ahminson Theatre in the Los Angeles Music Center, he was featured in Captain Brassbound's Conversion (with Greer Garson) and a rock version of Othello entitled Catch My Soul. He has toured with Wait Until Dark, and has also appeared at the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo and the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami. Moviegoers may recall Joe from Diary of a Mad Housewife and will see him shortly in The Resolution of Mossie Wax, which will be shown on N.E.T. Also a talented musician, Joe has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra a and Paul Lavalle's Band of America.

David Cryer (Hugh Jessup) was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of a Methodist minister. David lived in many parts of Ohio as a child, due to his father's travelling. at DePauw University, he began his college career in pre-med but shortly switched to history. He spent much of his spare time appearing in colege productions and beng a drummer and trombonist for a small musical group. David won a Fellowship to Yale Divinity School but trnaferred to Harvard Law. While studying for a legal profession he appeared in several stock productions and again transferred - this time to Boston University, where he earned his Master's degree in directing. david was the star of the short-lived Broadway production, Ari, and has also appeared on Broadway in 1776, Come Summer, 110 in the Shade, and Fade Out, Fade In. Off-Broadway he has been seen in Now is the Time, The Fantasticks and The Streets of New York. Some of his repertory work includes roles with the American Conesrvatory Theatre in Tartuffe, The Rose Tatoo and King Lear. David is married to actress/writer Grechen Cryer and has two children, Robin, age eight, and Jonathan, age five.

by Barbara Silver

[DRW50]

Joe's aged very well. He is still recognizable today compared to this photo.

I wonder if Harper moved to soaps because of his love life issues - the magazines then used to talk about his many marriages (wasn't he married to Marlo Thomas at one time).

This show seemed to attract a very high quality of actor, a lot of theater people and those who could have been busy in primetime.

Did you know the boy who played Bobby Martin was on this show? I didn't. For some reason I thought Bobby was older.

I guess Diana Walker was gone by this time.

[Paul Raven]

Not sure about Marlo,but he was married to Sally Stark also.No,I didnt recognize the actor who played Bobby.

thanks for responding to all my posts. I'm just posting in the hopes that others might find them interesting and that this thread can be a a real treasure trove of stuff about the cancelled shows and a the best resource on the net.

[Paul Raven]

[DRW50]

I love all the stuff you post. I also sometimes feel like I am mostly posting this to myself and it may be boring or not widely read but it helps knowing another fan of the classic soaps (and sadly, soaps we will probably never see) is here, and has something to say.

I wish we could see this show. It sounds so different.

I love that cover. I barely recognized Diana.

[dc11786]

I don't think Diana Walker was gone; I just think she wasn't featured in the article for whatever reason. I remember the 'Bright Promise' Serial of the Month feature didn't seem to include everyone.

The Walker / Abels picture is so angsty.

[DRW50]

You're right. Do you know if Robyn Millan was gone?

[dc11786]

I don't know about Robyn Milan. I just know Diana Walker was there until the end. The Village Voice did some articles on soaps and they loved 'Where the Heart Is.' They recounted the Liz Rainey affair, which occured during Mary and Julian's marriage.

[DRW50]

Thanks.

Was there anyone in the article that surprised you, or you don't know anything about?

I don't know that much about the Jardins, or Mascolo's character. I guess I should look through the earlier pages and refresh my memory.

[saynotoursoap]

Diana Walker was in the first and last episodes of Where the Heart Is. She never left.

Robyn Millan departed the series in the winter of 1971 after Vicky caused Mary's fall down the stairs. If I recall correctly, she left circa February 1971. Lisa Richards assumed the role the following year, when Vicky was released from the sanitarium. Lisa played Vicky until the series left the air in March 1973.

[DRW50]

What did you think of Lisa Richards? I only know her from her very neurotic work as Sabrina on Dark Shadows (although the nightmare scene where PT Sabrina is dead on a lab table is one of soap's scariest, IMO).

[saynotoursoap]

Where the Heart Is was a wonderful soap, ahead of its time really. I remember it as a serial in the Santa Barbara vein only without SB's pretentiousness. WTHI was hip without the winking at the audience.

The production values were very good for a CBS soap, surpassed only by Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. Chuck Weiss produced the series well, and writers such as Pat Falken Smith and Labine & Mayer penned interesting, sometimes outrageous stories. Originally, WTHI was similar to Days of our Lives. It was supposed to be a psychological expose of a very dysfunctional family. The creators, Lou Scofield and Margaret DePriest, had previously worked on The Edge of Night, so a crime angle was also injected into the early plots. None of that worked, IMO. The soap improved greatly under PFS, who was particularly adept at writing bitchy women and getting to the meat of psychology, behavior, and emotions.

I loved how the plotting began to reflect the theme, with a constant roundelay of love between all the characters -hence "where the heart is". The plots moved especially fast for CBS, which is a partial reason I believe the series never rated more highly. CBS viewers tended to be staid, conservative, and older. Where the Heart Is appealed to a younger, liberal audience. The series probably would have prospered better on NBC or ABC. At that time, I personally favored CBS' house-produced soaps over the P&G serials, which I found highly over-rated despite their outstanding Nielsens.

The Jardins were kinky as hell. Margaret was an overbearing, slightly sadistic nutcase who tormented her sister Loretta. Loretta was a timid alcoholic who kept to herself reading poetry. They had a handsome brother Robert, who was dead and seen only in flashbacks. Robert's young son Peter had been orphaned after his mother Ellie was murdered by the thugs trying to kill Steve Prescott who fell in love with her while he had amnesia. Peter was mute because he had witnessed his father's death a decade earlier. It turned out that Margaret, played by the deliciously demented Rue McClanahan, had incestous yearnings for her brother and ran him down with the family car when he attempted to run off with Ellie. Peter had witnessed this, resulting in his inability to speak. When he finally mustered the courage to name Aunt Maggie as his dad's assailant, shje chased him through the woods to keep her secret, and she died falling through the ice in a frozen pond. Peter went to live with the Prescotts, but it was shortlived. He burned to a crisp in a flash garage fire!

Ed Lucas was Vicky's father and owned the local supperclub. He was secretly involved in organized crime. He hated the Hathaway family, and was constantly making deragtory remarks about that "Hathaway bum" Michael and of course Michael's piss-elegant father Julian, a prissy English professor. Ed did hid best to keep Vicky away from Michael, but she ended up sharing his NY bachelor apartment and became pregnant. Later Ed threatened to spill the beans to the family when Vicky faked paralysis to hang on to Michael, but Vicky counterblackmailed her father by swearing that she would report his illegal activities to the vice squad.

Where the Heart Is should have lasted much longer. Had it come along a decade later, it might still be running today. It was campy, but it had class.

Edited July 14, 2011 by saynotoursoap

[DRW50]

As always you paint such a picture for us. I would pay money to see this. It sounds so complex and yet full of basic human emotion which you can relate to. I wish CBS had given it more of a chance. It sounds like it would have been a perfect companion piece to Y&R.

Were the scenes in the woods done on location?

What were the opening credits like?

What happened to Loretta?