Love of Life Discussion Thread

[will81]

Not sure if you have checked out frenchfan's Look into the past thread. I posted Sep - Dec 1973 synopsis from Bryna Laub's daytime serial newsletter and frenchfan has posted Dec 74 onwards. So almost all of their run is there if you haven't already read it. 

Same. It is also maddening when trying to research this information as I am sure there are details I have missed simply because names and details were wrong. 

[vetsoapfan]

Their work on both shows was outstanding. I firmly believe that if they had been with WTHI from the start, the show would have been a success.

Unfortunately, the show was launched by the dread Margaret DePriest, one of those daytime scribes who kept getting recycled from soap to soap, no matter how tepid her material was. I firmly believe her initial writing was what doomed WTHI to failure. DePriest also followed the excellent Pat Falken Smith on Days, the wonderful Rick Edelstein on How to Survive a Marriage, and even Labine and Mayer on Love of live, all to negative results. But when she  was not involved, all those soaps were mesmerizing.

[will81]

I was waiting for someone to react to this, haha. Everything I have heard/read suggests Days fell into a great big mess once Ann Marcus took over. Oddly enough in 1977 the Daytime Serial Newsletter readers voted Days best 1hr show. 

[vetsoapfan]

Probably the Best Show vote for Days was residual appreciation of the soap under Pat Falken Smith, who wrote into 1977 before Marcus took over.

To be fair to Ann Marcus, while I thought her Days was a disaster, she performed very well on Mary Hartman and Search for Tomorrow. Even her Love of Live was an improvement over some of the boring writers who had preceded her. Her Knots Landing was not the worst, either. But...UGH, her Days was atrocious. I wrote an angry letter to TPTB in 1977, condemning how she had slaughtered a once-great show.

[will81]

I also noticed Gabriel Upton a.k.a Gillian Houghton was the kiss of death for many shows too. I believe she was the last HW on The Secret Storm and Love of Life's ratings tanked when she joined. The show lost a whole ratings point during her run. I assume this is also why producer Jean Arley got the boot around the same time. 

[MichaelGL]

Any opinions on how the Shapiros did on this show? I've always been curious about their daytime stint. 

[will81]

Yeah fair enough, based on her Emmy Legends interview it sounds like she just wasn't the best fit for Days. At least what Days was when she took over. 

[MichaelGL]

Thanks I'll definitely make my way there and get buried in the plethora of information in that thread. Thanks to you and @FrenchFan for your hard work

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[vetsoapfan]

Upton was also horrible, and another writer who was shipped from soap to soap.

Today, fans complain about hacks like Josh Griffin, Ron Carlivati, Charles Pratt, Jean Passanante, etc., stinking up one show after another, but the practice of recycling hack scribes has always been a problem on daytime TV.

[robbwolff]

The name Margaret DePriest makes me cringe. Right after she assumed head writing duties for DOOL, she had to deal with the aftermath of Brenda Benet's suicide and phase out the character of Lee. I don't know who wrote the script, but as I recall, there was a throwaway line where one character mentioned about cleaning up Lee's bathroom. I found it utterly distasteful as the news reports at that time had stated that Brenda's death had taken place in her bathroom. That line seemed so insensitive and it stunned me that it made it to air.

[amybrickwallace]

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[te.]

I'd assume that the bottom line is that daytime has always been about being able to churn out a product on daily basis with a very set budget (even when there was a budget). While there's obviously been very creative people who've come from daytime, it's not exactly the place that encourages creativity if you fail to deliver a product so many probably fail out under the pressure of having to deliver something daily, while a lot of people who can not only keep delivering a product but also come in under budget have an easier time failing upwards. I assume DePriest is someone who kept failing upward.

[vetsoapfan]

I was still watching Days back then because of Pat Falken Smith's stellar work, and I was morbidly curious about how bad DePriest's follow-up would be. Not surprisingly, I found her material to be as awful as always.

 

I agree: the bottom line on soaps is finding writers capable of churning out material day in and day out. Quality may have been preferred, decades ago, but that was an added bonus, not the number one priority. The most important criterion (back then and especially today): finding scribes who can fill up the pages quickly and consistently, regardless of the material's integrity and quality.

We were just lucky in the 1950s-1980s that so many writers could do both: write quickly AND infuse the soaps with high-quality drama. I took for granted that soaps would always be principally guided by scribes like Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, William J. Bell, Roy Winsor, Henry Slesar, Pat Falken Smith, Harding Lemay, Claire Labine, and their ilk. Little did I know that we would end up with painful-to-endure hacks like Charles Pratt, Thom Racina, Ron Calivarti, Megan McTavish, Jean Passanante, James Reilly, Josh Griffin, etc., running once-great soaps into the ground...endlessly.

Edited August 26, 2021 by vetsoapfan

[will81]

Me too. I could find nothing on them other than an old post by @saynotoursoap who recapped some of their main story about bringing back Paul Raven and the murder of John Randloph.

It is still unclear if Oliver Hailey actually took on LOL and replaced the Shapiro's. Watching their emmy legends interview it sounds like he did as Richard Shapiro mentions "he go into too many arguements" or something like that. But I wonder if that was during story conferences before he actually wrote anything and, if he did, how long was he there? 

In the same interview the interviewer states they started in 1969. Paul Raven/Matt Corby "returned" by June 1970 (as far as I can tell, may have been May) and Robert Shaw was HW again by either Oct or Dec 1970 (at the latest)

[will81]

I did some more research @Paul Raven Tell me what you think, or if maybe you already had this information if it lines up. These dates are still estimates but seem more accurate and pretty close.

Loring Mandel (Jan 31, 1972 - Sep 14, 1973) - Based on his script archive I took the weekly summary breakdowns and calculated based on tape dates. The scripts they have for him pretty much line up to this. His first episode is #5287 taped Jan 24, 1972, which probably aired a week later Monday January 31, 1972. His last is #5696 with a tape date of Aug 27, 1973. Taking into account the pre-emptions from Watergate and the week or so between taping and air date, I figured his most likely last air date was Sep 14, 1973. 

Claire Labine & Paul Avila Mayer (Sep 17, 1973 - May 30, 1975) - This would suggest that Labine and Avila Mayer started approx Sep 17, 1973, which seems to match up to general consensus and the first mention of them as HW's in soap press. Based on the previous info I provided, it would place their last date as May 30, 1975.

Margaret DePriest (Jun 02, 1975 - Dec 01, 1975)  and The Schnieders (Dec 02, 1975 - Sep 17, 1976) I have listed above with approx start and end dates and the most likely start date for Gabriel Upton being Sep 20, 1976. Based on newspaper articles and script archives. 

I also found Ann Marcus' script archive and it lists her episodes as #7134 - #7316. Since we know #7316 was the last episode on Feb 01, 1980, I counted back and adjusted for pre-emptions and it landed me at approx May 21, 1979. This matches with articles stating Ann would start in late May. I assumed that meant she would begin writing late May and her work would start airing a few weeks later, but I guess the announcement coincided with her episode air dates.

This then made me wonder if the Oct 13, 1978 announcement for Jean Holloway occured as she took over and was just starting to write the show or if her episodes had or were about to air. So this one is still up in the air. It still places her roughly Oct 78 or Nov 78.