Love of Life Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

September 1976 Digest.

[DRW50]

July 1973 TV Radio Mirror

[DRW50]

October 1976 TV Mirror

[DRW50]

doing TV and very often if you have a fluid moment that works you give yourself a stamp that you were acting and really did a good job. But the truth of it is, in my opinion, that it is never acting. It may be good and fluid and one or more of those particular skills that are compatible with television that an actor needs...but it's never acting. It is a difficult job," he emphasized, "and I have great respect for those who do it well."

Since Rick has now experienced both nighttime and daytime shows, we wondered if there was a difference and which he preferred. "It would be hard for me to say whether I prefer daytime or nighttime. The differences are, in nighttime you get paid better, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's a fact. And, of course, the exposure at night gets greater attention even though daytime has as large an audience. Love of Life is not rated number one, but we do have some 7 1/2 million viewers a day, whereas a nighttime TV show may have 12 million a week. But in terms of exposure you get valuable exposure both ways - it just seems more people make the change to doing bigger and better things from nighttime than from the soaps. So, I'm hoping that my stint with nighttime was not all in vain and I'll eventually get back to doing it as a stepping stone to films, which is really what I want to do. That's the closest chance you get to do any acting in the commercial aspect of the business. It's a conflicting sort of desire to want to make something that's so close to an art and still with the idea of selling it. You can imagine what would have become of the Mona Lisa if Michelangelo were concerned with selling it!"

However, theatre and television is only one fact of Rick's life. One of his favorite pastimes is strumming his guitar and singing. "It's one of the most honest forms of expression," he tells, and surely would like to see his talent in this area take hold. More than anything else, however, Rick's deep attachment to nature is quite evident. One of his favorite haunts in California is Point Lobos, a small area located between Carmel and Big Sur, "It's a living museum. You can't take rocks or sticks or leaves out of the place - it's just incredible. The area is teeming with wildlife and what the entire Pacific Northwest must have been like before it was inhabited with civilization. It's the most beautiful piece of land I've ever seen!" Rick continued talking of nature and it's beauty and inevitably of the pollution that plagues inevitable of the pollution that plagues all cities. "Maybe this will be the summer when people begin to die and something will have to be done about it. It's really bad in Los Angeles. They have a worse pollution than in previous summers. And it is all due to the relaxed requirements on sulphur content in the fuel they've been burning in the industrial places in the area. Some years ago, I heard the statistics of how many tons of pollutants a day are dumped over Los Angeles City - not the county, mind you, the city - from the exhaust of jets. Tons...and it was in the thousands of tons of matter. There really needs to be a shift in values that is only going to be brought out by a catastrophe unfortunately."

Rick misses his home, Los Angeles, and all that goes with it. His move to New York, he admits, was a bit scary since he's never lived in the Big Apple. "I wold never have come to New York without a job," he explains, and the impression he has of the city so far is constant deterioration. "Naturally, the balance and harmony in nature is deterioration and creation all happening at the same time. In New York, the deterioration far outweighs the creation and I mean that very much in the physical sense. Everywhere you look things need to be cleaned or replaced, swept up or covered up. And I'm sure it would be just as unrealistic in a place where there was more creation going on than deterioration. But creation seems to be somehow affirmative and deterioration is negative. Logically I would strive for a balance of those things. But emotionally, I prefer the creative environment where it appears that new things are coming into being all the time instead of old things dominating all the landscape."

Richard K. Weber is a man who is very much in touch with his surroundings and more importantly with himself. Quite frankly, he's a very honest and decent human being.

- PAT CANOLE

[Paul Raven]

Has it ever been mentioned that Beverlee McKinsey was on LOL? Variety reported in July 66,Bev, who was noted as having understudied leads in Barefoot in the Park and As Wednesday on Broadway,was joining LOL in a 'running lead'.

[DRW50]

I never knew that. I wonder who she played.

[Paul Raven]

In a 1964 Variety article ,writer Jack Paritz recalls being brought on to Love of Life after another writer,caught up in a backstage feud,wrote the soap into a corner and Paritz had 'four weeks of impossible work' to get the show back on track.

[DRW50]

That's interesting. I wonder who the other writer was, and what damage they did.

[Paul Raven]

Reading over Beverlee's interview in LIAMST thread,she mentions playing an analyst on LOL and that she was totally unsuited for the role.

[DRW50]

Thank you for clearing that up. I missed it.

[Paul Raven]

1958 Harry Junkin was headwriter,John Taylor script editor.

[DRW50]

August 1952 Radio TV Mirror

[DRW50]

him. Looking back over his young life, I remembered the time when I opened my apartment door in New York to find his forlorn little figure, tense with fear and antagonism, waiting anxiously to see if he could find shelter with me. Hearing and seeing what he wasn't supposed to, and not comprehending what he did hear and see, were at the root of the fear-ridden trip he had just made to me from Barrowsville. Beanie had a fear, common to many children - the fear of being an unwanted child whose mother consequently doesn't love him. The basis for this fear was very real in Beanie's mind, for he had heard Charlie, his father, his father, and Meg, his mother, quarreling about the way he was being brought up. Charlie was blaming Beanie's faults on Meg, forgetting in the heat of anger that, as Beanie's father, he was as responsible as Meg. Meg, lashing back at Charlie in unbridled emotion, had screamed that she had never wanted a child anyway.

In the white heat of temper, Meg had, with her own lips, voiced the fears which Beanie secretly harbored. No wonder he had taken his mother at her word (words which she really didn't mean) and had come running to me for comfort!

While Meg was on her way to get Beanie, I tried to make Beanie see that he was not the cause of the discord between his parents. I discovered that he heard them arguing frequently, often mentioning his name, and he had begun to believe he must be doing something very wrong which made them both unhappy and angry.

Then, hard on the heels of this experience, Beanie found himself the object of scorn both at home and at the school, through no fault of his own. Meg became the defendant in a murder trial because of an indiscreet meeting with attractive Miles Pardee when Charlie was away. Meg had witnessed the killing of Pardee. Because she was the last person to see him alive she was accused, tried and convicted on circumstantial evidence. The fact of her complete exoneration and legal acquittal later could not erase altogether the wounds of the whole tragedy - the scars of which Beanie will probably always carry on his soul.

In my ignorance and innocence I thought the best place for Beanie would be with my father and mother. What I didn't know, and probably wouldn't have admitted if I had thought about it, was that my father does not approve of Meg. To Dad, a human being is either all good or wholly bad and he could only see bad in his daughter Meg. To Beanie, he transferred all his pent-up anger at the situation Meg now found herself in. It was the same situation I had seen so many times in so many homes where the child is left defenseless because one of the parents takes out anger, really felt toward the partner, on the child.

At school, indignities were heaped upon a child who already, at home, had almost more than any little human should be asked to take. The other children, hearing scraps of conversations about the sensational Dales through their parents, began to taunt Beanie, ridicule him. Beanie struck back the only way he knew - with his fists. With all the strength of an eight-year-old, Beanie fought the bullies who had taunted him the most. He had to defend his mother for, in attacking her, they were also attacking him.

At this point, what Beanie needed from his grandfather was understanding. What he got was punishment for having torn his clothes and dirtied his face. Dad in his stern and righteous code of ethics had no patience, no tolerance for wrong-doing and he felt it was right for his grandson to bear the burden of Meg's mistakes and, if bearing up under his classmates' taunts was part of that burden, then so be it.

All of this, coming to a head, was what was speeding me on my way from New York to Barrowsville. The school principal had thought it might be a good thing to remove Beanie from the school for his own sake. Dad was willing for him to leave, too. I think everyone concerned felt that if Beanie were put in another school, far, far away from the scandal of the past few months, he would automatically be all right. In my heart of hearts, I could not feel this was so. To me, one of life's principles is that, if you fight through and win, you will be a better person for having stood your ground.

When I arrived at Dad's home and saw the draw, haunted look upon Beanie's face, I almost weakened. For a few minutes I felt the cruelty foisted upon Beanie was something he should not be asked to take, but then I talked to him. Beanie told me that, until this time, this school had been the one place where he had been happy, and that among the children he had some friends whom he liked a lot. Knowing this, I explained how I felt about his standing his ground and fighting it out, not necessarily with his fists, but with his whole spirit. Dad and the principal at last agreed to try, for Beanie's sake, once more.

I almost regretted interfering within a week. One of the boys taunted Beanie by drawing a picture on the ground with his pocket knife, showing a woman shooting a man. Beanie knew the boy meant his mother and Miles Pardee. With coolness which would have done justice to an older man, Beanie took the knife from the boy and threw it away. That night the boy and his father came to my dad and said Beanie had tried to kill the boy by threatening him with the knife. It was at this point, I was proven right. For once, Dad stood firmly on Beanie's side. Unceremoniously, he put the boy and his father out of the house.

In that moment, Dad and Beanie had learned their first lesson in living together. My father had learned simply to trust Beanie. Beanie had learned that, instead of running away as he had once run to me in New York, he had the power within him to stand up for what is right and solve his problem.

I wish I could say that Beanie's difficulties were over. But isn't the process of growing up actually the meeting of difficulties and overcoming them in ever more efficient ways? We Dales seem born to get ourselves out of one dilemma and into another - especially my sister Meg, who in this case also happens to be Beanie's mother. I only know that Beanie will never lack for love and understand - will never lack for love and understanding and it will come from his mother ultimately. Every child needs at least one person who stands solid as a rock to protect him and give him the unwavering love and comfort he must have. It should be his mother, and eventually Beanie will find that it will be.

In the meantime, I shall do everything in my power to establish a fine relationship between Beanie and Meg. It's a job I'm proud to accept. I have always known that Beanie is not a problem child - only a child with a problem - which is always a heartbreak child.

[dc11786]

This was an interesting read. I'm surprised it was told in first person from Van's POV. Thanks for this.

[DRW50]

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