Love of Life Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

This is a Daily TV Serials look at the controversial prison rape story.

[soapfave06]

Wow. That seems kind of graphic.

Wow. That seems kind of graphic.

[Khan]

And yet, as graphic as it was, they stopped short of actually raping Ben. I don't know WHAT to make of THAT decision.

[DRW50]

I wonder if it was a network mandate, not to have him actually raped, especially since he was probably their main younger leading man, wasn't he?

[Susan Hunter]

Even though he wasn't raped, that was a pretty edgy story for the mid-70s. I can't think of anything done in the last 10 years on daytime that would be anywhere close to that.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Carl, thank you! I was never quite sure if this story/subplot actually happened, or if it was some sort of urban legend. Claire Labine acted like she had no recollection of it in interviews, but as that July 1975 episode that surfaced a few years back in which Ben and Betsy were still "married" established - and as the dates in this article corroborate - Labine would have long since moved on to create Ryan's Hope by the time this prison story happened, even though she wrote the bigamy story that landed Ben in jail in the first place.

So it would have been Margaret DePriest who pushed this particular envelope? Well, I guess at its crux it was violence against a character who could be construed as promiscuous, which fits with her '80s and '90s serial killer stories, but for DePriest it was kind of egalitarian that in this case it happened to a male character.

I admit it is amazing that this story went as far as it did at the time, or at any time in soap history, and yet it's also illustrative of how paranoid the daytime PTB have always been about any sort of queer sexuality, in that the writers went to such lengths in the deus ex machina department to keep Ben from actually being raped. Cynically, I wonder, had the rape been consummated, if Love of Life might have ended up being the one soap that could have gotten away with bringing us daytime's first gay antihero and its first same-sex "supercouple" - namely, the ringleader of the prison gang rape and his and Ben's rapemance, respectively.

Edited May 5, 2012 by DeliaIrisFan

[DRW50]

This must be the only time a soap did a rape (or attempted rape) redemption story with a man. I guess next after that would be Michael on GH.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Oh yeah, I forgot that soaps finally went there a few years ago, via GH. It's funny, while reading the soap cliche thread, I also almost forgot, until someone brought it up, that Lulu on GH had actually had an abortion in recent years, unlike pretty much every other soap heroine with an unwanted pregnancy. I tend to overlook GH when making generalizations about what soaps have devolved into, because I have absolutely no desire to watch it in the shape it's been in for the past 15 years or so. Maybe they got away with those touches of realism every now and then because the show is otherwise so focused on invincible alpha males and women who only exist for their uteruses.

[Susan Hunter]

If I recall correctly, Ben was a very sexual character. When played by Christopher Reeves he was more pretty than macho, but he was definitely a character driven by his libido. It would have been very interesting to see what rape would have done to the character.

[DRW50]

From Daytime TV. This refers to 1971.

Marsha Mason (Judith Cole) joined in October.

[Paul Raven]

Variety 12th May 1971

Geraldine Brooks joins the cast.She had been a young star at Warner Bros in the late 1940's.

As Carl reported upthread,she was out by September.Does anyone know how her role as Arden fitted into the story at the time?

[DRW50]

March 1973 Daytime TV

Trip Randall began as Johnny Fletcher in September.

[DRW50]

September 1974 Daytime TV

Leaving the cast July 8 were Drew Snyder as Dan Phillips and Terri Cohen as his daughter, Rebbeccah Phillips.

[JohnTudor]

Hi, I'm new here, doing research.

I'm writing a book about my mentor, Coe Norton (He was a stage magician as well as soap actor).

In 1959 he played on 68 episodes of Love of Life, in 1963-'64 he did 32, playing John Dennis (the school headmaster).

I'm not sure if he played the same character on both runs.

Does anyone have any:

1.) info on storylines

2.) photos of him and the cast

3.) video in which he appears? (I have one episode)

Thanks so much!

John Tudor

[Paul Raven]

The John Dennis character was revealed to be the real father of Alan Sterling. I don't know how much you know of the characters and storyline John. Vanessa discovered that Bruce's deceased wife Gaye had had an affair with John and Alan was the result. Van kept that a secret so as not to bring up the past and upset people,including Gaye's mother Vivian,who idealised her late daughter. Not sure if John was aware of that fact.

Hope this helps.