Love of Life Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

have come about in his life. Unexpectedly. In some cases, almost casually...Like the way he began to date his wife, Judith, although they had known each other for four years before he really noticed her....The way he broke into radio because a lovely young actress, Jan Miner, happened to hail his uncle's taxicab one morning, and they struck up a conversation...The way he began a writing career, along with his acting....All of them big, important things in his life, growing out of small incidents.

Seeing Steve in his own living room - a pleasant harmony of greens and beige and tans and modern pieces - with Judy and their two boys, Eric and Peter, you sum him up as a handsome man, in his early thirties, tall (almost six feet), broad, athletic looking. A fellow who loves all active sports yet would be equally at home on a dance floor. His hair is black, his eyes hazel, with always a spark of humor.

Judy Gethers has a twinkling look, too, though she's a non-professional - "and expects to stay that way," Steve comments, as if delighted that there is only one career to be coped with in the family. Judy is a graceful, compactly built brunette. The boys have her merry smile and their dad's charm - and their own personalities.

Peter, who can hardly wait to be three this summer, is the family clown, with marvelous imagination. At the moment his great ambition is to be a monkey, rather than a policeman or fireman like some of his more prosaic young friends. The reason for this departure from conformity? "He wants a tail," Judy explains. "He's fascinated by the way monkeys can climb and hang by their tails." Peter admires cowboys, too, and bucking broncos, and things you can pound with and on, as an outlet for some of his bubbling energy.

Eric has the humor that is a family trait, and a more serious side, as befits a fellow going going on ten years old. He's the reader, the writer of poetry (free verse and the rhyming kind, and both unusually expressive for his age). He goes to the public school near the huge apartment development in which they live, right in the heart of New York, built around lawns and playgrounds and curving walks. Eric is crazy about baseball and isn't sure at this point whether to become a ball player, a writer, or maybe something he hasn't even thought about yet.

Steve himself always knew what he wanted to do, even at an early age, although the idea probably took definite shape when he played roles in school dramatic shows at New Utrecht High School (in Brooklyn, where he was born on June 8, 1922). He wanted to be an actor, and he knew it then, and because of that he matriculated at the University of Iowa, majoring in drama. After about two years, he came back to New York to enroll at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which he graduated and went on into summer stock.

There was another reason for coming back to New York, which may have outweighed the first. Judy had finally emerged as the, not merely a girl, and Judy lived in New York, a long way from Iowa. They had met at the same summer camps since he was fourteen. "It was this way," Steve says. "We said hello at the beginning of the season and goodbye at the end. That was about it.

"Until one night, four years after our first meeting, there was a concert at the camp and all the fellows had dates afterwards. They were going to the local ice cream parlor. Someone told me to grab a date, too, and Judy happened to be the girl sitting next to me. She said she would come. That was the beginning."

They became engaged while Steve was in the Army. "He took me into a neighborhood bar one night and pulled a ring out of his pocket, without preparing me at all," Judy tells you. "The reason we had to go to a bar was that there was just too much family around at home, and he couldn't wait to find a more appropriate place. I was too surprised and excited to make much fuss over the ring. We never did really plan our marriage. He spoke to his father, not to me."

"Because Judy wasn't home when I telephoned," Steve explains. "No one was home at her house. I was on maneuvers with the Field Artillery, in Louisiana, and i had asked my captain for a furlough to get married. When I couldn't reach Judy I called my father and asked him to tell her I was coming home for our wedding. He suggested that may be a girl would like to be consulted about such an important event, but I knew she was ready. We were twenty-one and twenty then, and had been going together a long time. We had only six weeks together before I went overseas for more than two years."

With separation from the service, finally, there came a period of readjustment for Steve. Things seemed rough for a while, but his training and his background of summer stock led to his getting a job as stage manager and understudy in a Broadway musical, "Toplitzsky of Notre Dame." He toured after that with another play that "died" in Boston before ever reaching New York, and he went on tour with "Joan of Lorraine," starring Sylvia Sidney. His one big chance to act on Broadway was with Mary Boland, in a play called "Open House" - but it closed in a week.

Kids he knew in show business were doing all right for themselves in radio, and Steve yearned to join them but didn't quite know how to begin. "My cab-driving uncle, Harry Silverman, took care of that for me, although I kept pleading with him not to. Whenever he picked up anyone in his cab who seemed to have any connection with show business, especially radio, he would turn around and start by saying, 'I have a nephew - '

"Usually he got the brush, of course. There seem to be plenty of New York cab drivers with talented members of the family - according to them at least! My uncle's fares had heard variations on this story before. But, one day, he telephoned in great excitement and said I must see him at once. It seems he had picked up a wonderful young actress in his cab. As usual, he had turned around and said, 'I have a nephew -' Only, this time it had worked. She said that any day, after her broadcast, I could see her at the studio and, if I really had talent, she would introduce to people who might help me.

"I didn't want to go. My uncle insisted. When I got to the door of the studio I stood outside, feeling foolish. I finally did go in and introduced myself to her. She was Jan Miner, who today plays Terry Burton, on The Second Mrs. Burton, and stars in many of the big night-time TV dramatic shows. Even ten years ago, when we first met, she was already established in radio.

"Jan asked me about my training and experience and told me how to go about getting auditions. She introduced me to people who could help. Through her introductions, a program called Radio City Playhouse began to give me bit parts and - finally - a big, fat part on one of their programs. After a while I was getting good parts on many shows and playing running roles in a number of daytime serials. All during this time, Jan was just wonderful about giving me advice and teaching me. She does more nice things for people than anyone else could count up, and I owe her a great deal. She is married to a great gut who is an actor, too - Terry O'Sullivan."

The way Steve got into Love of Life was almost as unusual. His agent told Love of Life's producers that he had just the right actor for the role, one who perfectly fitted the physical description and had all the other qualities to play Hal Craig. They had asked for two other actors to test, however, and felt time was too short to bother with seeing Steve. Neither actor got the job, nor did any of the others they tried out. Finally, they had about decided on one, although not completely satisfied with their choice. At this point, Steve's agent suggested again they see Steve. "Just let me send this guy over and you can take a look at him," he asked. "Reluctantly they agreed. Steve read for the part on a Thursday, went into the show on the following Monday, and signed for the usual thirteen weeks - which have now lengthened into three years.

On the show he plays opposite a stunning actress named Jean McBride, who is Meg Harper in the script. The mail about the good-looking, suave Hal Craig and the troubled, restless Meg has been rather overwhelming. Apparently the sight of these two handsome, strong-willed people being pitted against each other and setting off sparks in their acting has caught the imagination of viewers.

Steve admires Jean, praises her ability. "I can truthfully say that, although I have done some 300 shows on television and worked with many, many people, there has been no one like Jean. She never comes to a broadcast unprepared, she never does the wrong thing.

"There's no tension anywhere on the show. Everyone concerned with it is just great. Dick Dunn, who produces the show for the agency, Larry Auerbach, our director. The whole cast, the staff, and the crew. All just great people."

Steve's knowledge of television is no longer limited to the actor's side, either. Not since a couple of years ago, when he turned TV script writer. And this, too, happened in an odd an unplanned way.

He came home one day, complaining about the awful sameness of his roles on crime shows. He had played every gangster role in the world, he felt, and was dizzy from getting hit over the head - or hitting someone else over the head - as he expressed it to Judy. She had a constructive answer: "You always wanted to write, so why don't you sit down and write the kind of script you'd like to play?"

Steve thought she might have something there. He worked out an idea for his script, wrote and re-wrote, and eventually sold it to The Clock. They gave him the lead role. After a while, he added magazine detective stories to his writing schedule - until he realized that, in order to earn some fast dollars, he was turning out the same monotonous plots he had resented playing. So he quit, and determined to write more serious stuff.

When he had been on Love of Life about a year, he tried his hand at a one-hour dramatic TV script and, through his effort to market it, he met the woman who has helped him tremendously with his writing. For he finally submitted his play to Marion Searchinger, script reader for an important agency.

"Once more, however, I would have held back," he says, "if it had not been for Judy. One Monday, when I was going to rehearsal, Judy reminded me to take the script along to Miss Searchinger. It was late in the season to sell anything on the theme of baseball, and maybe it wasn't good enough. 'Take it in,' Judy said. 'You have nothing to lose."

Later, Steve learned that Miss Searchinger had agreed rather reluctantly to read the script, only because someone else in the office had asked her to, because someone had asked him. "As far as she was concerned," Steve notes, "I was just another actor who thought he could write. Next day, shortly before Love of Life went on the air, I had a call from her at the studio, asking me to get over after the show. The sum of what she said was that - even if she couldn't sell that particular script - she was sure I could turn out others, if I were willing to work hard.

"She did sell that script, five days later, to the US Steel Hour, in time for the World Series season. It was produced under the name of 'Baseball Blues.' Between her help and that of Mark Smith, who is editor for Maurice Evans and does the adaptations for his shows, I learned more about script writing than I imagined there was to know. I have since sold to Kraft Theater, NBC Matinee Theater, Lamp Unto My Feet, and others."

The way things were happening to Steve it could hardly have been a surprise when Long Island University asked him to teach a class in playwriting this season. He wasn't sure what kind of teacher he would make, but he liked the idea at once. In his opening speech to the class, he said that it seemed to be a choice perhaps of getting a teacher who couldn't write, or a writer who couldn't teach, but he would do his best.

At home, the family watches television together when they have time. Steve never misses a major sports event if he can help it, and Eric is right there net to him when it doesn't interfere with his work or bedtime. Peter, of course, likes the cowboys and spacemen. They see as many of the dramatic shows as possible, too, and all the big productions that everyone likes. And daytime dramas, when Steve isn't working.

Most of the time at home he's back in his room, pounding on his typewriter. As the keys click to the rhythm of his ideas, life goes on in the apartment around him. Peter brings his favorite pounding toy into the hallways and starts banging his colored pegs into the holes designed for them, until Judy gently draws him into the farther corner of the apartment where the sounds were muffled. Or she tactfully substitutes something less noisy. She doesn't even fuss if Peter jumps up and down a little on the big living-room sofa as and down a little on the living-room sofa and leaves his sticky fingerprints on the glass of the mirrored wall behind it, as , so long as he keeps quiet so Daddy can work.

Eric may come bouncing in from school, hungry as only a boy can be, wanting to talk about the day's doings and and the plans he has afoot. The telephone has been ringing, there is marketing to be done, but Judy has managed to keep this state of confusion well under control.

So...even if on Love of Life, Hal Craig is a suave, devil-may-care sort of fellow - the kind the movie sets used to say "you love to hate"...at home. Steven Gethers is a hard-working actor writer who wouldn't change his own satisfying life for that of anyone else in teh world. The glint of good humor which lurks in his eyes tells you so.

[DRW50]

November 1975 Daytime TV.

[Paul Raven]

I wonder at what point Sammy switched his alliance to ABC and OLTL in particular? Was this appearance the first time hat a genuine star had appeared on a soap?

[DRW50]

I guess Sammy was fond of LOL to the end - he appeared in that news piece on the show's cancelation. After that it may have been down to who asked him to appear. He said he watched a ton of the soaps.

It was probably the first time, although Johnny Carson had been on The Doctors in the early or mid-60's, as himself (was that before he hit it really big?).

[DRW50]

coolwafferman uploaded this 1975 episode. Apparently it had been on Youtube before, but that was before my time watching these, so it was new to me.

Tudi Wiggins was very theatrical wasn't she? It's entertaining. I can see why some were annoyed by that hammy accent John Aniston used.

My favorite scene in this episode is with Arlene and the mentally disturbed guy she's trying to comfort. It seems so real and so poignant. What was the outcome of that story? Was that David? Can someone remind me of David's story? I know he was the son of the mayor of Rosehill and he ended up killing his corrupt father, didn't he? Why did Meg want him out early? Was it to cause problems for Cal?

Is this the first or second Cal?

[saynotoursoap]

Yes, I previously had uploaded this episode to YT. I am glad to see it online again.

The Cal in these scenes, Deborah Courtney, is the first Cal.

Meg married corrupt mayor Jeff Hart after her return to Rosehill in 1973. Van and Bruce attempted to dissuade her, which made her even more determined to protect Jeff. He was involved with another baddie, Phil Waterman, and the two had a number of illegal schemes going, one of which was serving horse meat as roast beef in the school cafeteria (!) and pocketing the savings. Bruce decided to dethrone Hart by running for mayor. Hart and Waterman engaged in several dirty tricks to foil Bruce, but were unsuccessful. Hart treated his son David very badly. David had spent his entire life attempting to win his father's love but could not because David was a kind, honest, sensitive boy, which Jeff despised. David and Cal fell in love and planned to marry Christmas Day 1974. Jeff tried to foil the romance by suggesting to David that Cal was a tease and carrying on with other men. To prove it, Jeff got Cal alone and forced himself on her. David arrived during the attempted rape, grabbed Jeff's gun, and shot him twice. The bullets severed Hart's spine and lodged near his heart. If he survived, he would be a quadrapaleigic . David ran from the scene, and wanted by the police, later sneaked into his father's hospital room. David begged for forgiveness, but his father had an attack and died. David eventually turned himself in at Cal's urging.

There was some discussion of how David would be charged -depsite Jeff's attack on Cal, he was defenseless when David shot him. Jamie Rollins, David's attorney, convinced him to plead temporary insanity, as he would go to a hospital for observation rather than to jail. At the hospital, under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Bryson, David began to reveal his troubled childhood and how horribly his father had treated him. Meanwhile, Meg discovered that David agreed to stay in the hospital because he wanted to be well enough to marry Cal when he was released. Meg decided that she did not want a "psycho" for a son-in-law. She visited David at the hospital and encouraged his fears that Cal would not wait for him. Meg told him that Cal was getting very close to Meg's business partner Rick Latimer. After speaking with Jamie, Meg discovered that David could leave the hospital if he wanted because he had committed himself voluntarily. Meg knew that she had planted seeds of doubt in David's mind, and once released, he would see Cal and Rick together and have another mental breakdown.

However, Meg's plan backfired. Meg had become very close to Rick and wanted him for herself. Rick owned a nightclub The Club Victoria, and he and Meg were partners in a new entertainment/resort called Beaver Ridge. David did see Rick and Cal together, and remembered what his father said about Cal being a tease. Enraged, David set The Club Victoria on fire, unaware that a drunken Arlene had fallen asleep in Rick's office. David ran back inside the burning club and saved Arlene. Arlene had her own checkered past and understood David like no one else. She advised David to never confess to setting the fire, and they gave one another alibis for that night. Rick did not have an alibi, and his insurance company refused to pay for the damages until the police could determine that the blaze was not the result of arson.

By this point, Ben had married Betsy, and no one knew that Ben and Arlene were actually married and committing bigamy. When the soot stained dress that Arlene had worn the night of the fire was found, the police started digging into her past and were very close to discovering the secret that she shared with Ben, a secret that would send Ben to prison. Meg's scheme had backfired in another way, as well. David told Cal that Meg had helped him leave the hospital. She and Meg had a terrible row, and Cal drove off and crashed her car into a ravine. Her back was broken, and during her convalescence, she and Rick began to fall in love, much to Meg's chagrin.

With Arlene about to be arrested, David went to the police to confess that he was the arsonist. He became unhinged once more and climbed out onto the window ledge about five stories above the street. Feeling that he had lost everyone, he prepared to jump, but Arlene arrived and managed to talk him back in. He was sent back to the mental hospital, and when the district attorney decided not to press charges as long as he agreed to receive therapy, David had himself transported to a private hospital far away from Rosehill.

[DRW50]

Thanks for the details! Was that David with Arlene then, in this episode? Do you think they should have kept David around?

It sounds like such complex and rich emotional drama.

[thelma]

I don't know if this has ever been posted before. I never saw much of Love of Life, but this video is in great shape and contains a nice edit of the opening.

I assume this is the same character Christopher Reeve played in the previous video.

<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/V0T9OMInRyg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[rcsnj]

OMG. Thanks for posting that. I haven't seen that opening in so many years. Truly one of the best theme songs ever.

[DRW50]

That really is an incredibly beautiful opening theme.

The Betsy recast is very pretty but her speaking voice is annoying.

Who is playing her husband? He looks familiar to me.

Chandler Hill Harben is a very interesting recast for Christopher Reeve. I guess Ben was supposed to be hardened by the moments like prison. He is very intense and has some charisma. I'm not quite sure if he was suited to playing triangles with "good" women like Mia and Betsy.

The fight scene was hilariously bad but then that's true of most soaps.

[thelma]

The pictures in the theme are really nice too. I like them better than the Y&R drawings of the time.

I think the husband is the guy who played Andy Norris on Guiding Light. It sure looks like him.

[rcsnj]

Margo McKenna plays Betsy in that clip. She went on to play Emily Gault Michaels on The Edge of Night starting in 1980. I couldn't stand McKenna when the story first aired but actually grew to like her when I saw the story repeated on AOL a few years back.

Ted LePlat played the role of Betsy's husband Elliott Lange who had raped her, I believe. LePlat did go on to Guiding Light as Andy Norris and later Santa Barbara.

But what a treat it is to see the opening in its entirety. I saw a remnant of it some years back (maybe on WoST). Visually it's simple yet beautiful. And the theme music was composed by Hagood Hardy, who wrote the theme to "The Homecoming," the movie that spawned "The Waltons."

[dc11786]

That 1979 clip is neat.

I've never seen the whole final opening package. I really think it looks good with the still photos of the cast and I love how they seemed to be grouped based on story / family connections.

I think this is the order, can anyone confirm or edit?

Vanessa Sterling (Audrey Peters)

Bruce Sterling (Ron Tomme)

Meg Hart (Tudi Wiggins)

Ben Harper (Charles Hill Harben)

Betsy Lang (Margo McKenna)

Eliot Lang (Ted LePlat)

Betsy Lang (Margo McKenna)

????? (is this Richard Weber's Tom Crawford)

???? (I assume this is Peg Murray as Carrie Johnson)

Arlene Slater (Birigitta tolksdorf)

Ray Slater (Lloyd Battista)

Mia Marriott (Veleka Gray)

Dr. Andrew Marriott (Ron Harper)

Sarah Dale (Valerie Cossart)

Professor Tim McCauley (Sheperd Strudwick)

???? (Gary Giem as Paul Graham?)

Bambi Brewster (Ann McCarthy)

Tony Alfonso ()

The scenes were so long! 'I'm a man. I have needs.' lol. I cannot see a man say that on today's soaps without being cruxified. I did like how the show kept Ben in menial positions (working at the pro shop when he returned and later the club) because of his prison record. The stuff regarding Clay Walker does play out; Ben gets the job. Clay appears on several more occassions and I think is friends with Mia as well. Veleka Gray's short hair in the opening credit sequence is shocking. I'm so use to her pics from 'Somerset' with the long locks.

Ray mentions its the 4th of July. The rape would have already happened prior to this so that is what Ben is referring to with Ray Slater. I think Mia / Ben might have happened around the same time.

Carl, I might be wrong, but I don't think Mia was a 'good woman' as you put. Her story seems to be very ambiguous moving towards a much more vindicated Mia by the time she convinces Betsy she and Ben slept together setting in motion the show's final plot involving the boating accident. Even when Gillian Houghton created her she had the baggage of setting in motion the motorcycle accident which killed her stepson. I think the audience was suppose to feel for Mia, but soon it was clear she was the other woman. Ben wrote a novel that featured a love affair with characters similar to Ben / Betsy / Mia. Mia wasn't pleased when Ben paired the Ben / Betsy characters in the end. Of course, later Mia took pills and was alligning herself with evil Elliott. I get what you mean Carl about Hill seeming hard. He reminds me of Michael Levin in his looks and characterization. Actually, I can see a lot of 'RH' in 'LOL' even though Labine & Mayer have been long gone.

It was nice to finally see Maryanne Johnson as Dr. Liane Wilson; I never remember how to spell her first name.

The length of the scenes was shocking in a wonderful way.

[DRW50]

Thank you for filling in the extra details. I think the short hair suited Veleka more than the longer hair she has in the clip itself, although not that strange Jodie Foster circa 1978 style she has in the credits.

So was this during Holloway's run?

I wish I could see some scenes with Meg and Sarah. That's what I really wish for - the dynamics between the sisters and their mother.

[dc11786]

If this is July 1979, it is Ann Marcus' run. She would have only been around for two months at this point. The scene between Ben / Betsy seems a bit odd, but maybe I just don't fully understand the nature of the characters.

I thought that was Veleka Gray in the clip, but its not. That's Maryanne Johnson (?) the actress who played Lianne. Andrew refers to her as Lianne in the clip and Lianne was a doctor, which made sense considering how the scene played out.

Marcus played a Lianne / Andrew as friendly professionals with Andrew having a bit of an attraction to Lianne. If the show had continued, Lianne / Andrew would have probably have found their way towards one another during Meg's marriage to Tom Crawford. Complicating the situation between Andrew / Lianne would have been complicated by the Wes / Kelly / Cheryl triangle as Andrew / Wes had a fairly good relationship and Wes' attraction seemed to be with Cheryl moreso than Kelly. There was potential when the show ended, but it would have all amounted to the execution.

I know Tim was involved in a lot of the legal matters so I assume Sarah got some play during Marcus' time.