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Jean Holloway started writing in late 1978. Cathi Abbi was hired as producer in the fall of 1978 and Holloway came on around November / December. Abbi is credited for overhauling the production, but she also gutted the cast. In November 1978, a large number of characters were dropped from the cast, but, to be fair, a number of these characters were minor characters who were given expanded roles by Gillian Houghton. Holloway streamlined the storytelling to the Ben / Betsy / Elliot story and the Bambi / Tony / Ray / Arlene story. The Bambi story was convoluted and filled with bizarre characters and strange twists and turns. Holloway also introduced Ray's relatives, the Gaspero family who were cliched Italians with names like Guido.

Marcus cleaned up in like two to three weeks. She came on in early May 1979 and wrapped up the Bambi storyline the same week she started launching the focus on the college. To be fair, Abbi and Holloway laid a lot of the groundwork by introducing Timothy MacCauley in December 1978 and bringing Bruce into the campus set at the same time. Marcus just ran with it and made it work. She brought on Steve Harbach, an ex-con who had known Ben Harper when Ben did time for marrying both Arlene and Betsy. At the same time, Van entertained the offer to teach commercial art at Rosehill University. In the 1950s, I believe Van had done some work in advertising which would have made her job offer not completely out of line, but still a bit of a stretch.

Marcus did a good job tying the past to the present. Her creation, Steve Harbach, used his past with Ben to land a spot in the law program with Bruce and boarded in the Sterlings' garage apartment. Steve developed a romantic interest in much older Van and even had fantasies about her. Noble Van was horrified and kept Steve at bay, but it was nice to see Van involved in the story. I think the online audience appreciates that sort of effort, but I'm not sure if the audience of 1979 appreciated that story. To be fair, "Love of Life" underwent a timeslot change in April 1979, right before Hollloway was ousted, so that, too, effected the show's ratings.

Amy Russell was another character who seems well liked. In August 1979, Marcus brought on Amy, a law student who was vying for Bruce's attention in and out of the classroom. Slowly, her motives were made clear to the audience; she believed she was Bruce's illegitimate daughter conceived prior to his marriage to Van. Around December 1979, Marcus brought her two creations together and Amy seemed to be honing in on Steve in order to get closer to the Sterling family. The two storylines were heading towards a collision and I would love to find out what Marcus would have done with them.

At the same time, Marcus continued the Betsy / Ben / Mia / Eliot saga. By the time Marcus arrived, Ben and Betsy had found their way back to one another and Holloway was prolonging the divorce of Betsy and Eliot with some garbage like chaperoned dating between Ben and Betsy. In June, Marcus kicked the story into high gear by having Eliot rape Betsy, who was still his wife at the time. Soon after, Eliot announced his campaign for district attorney and Betsy discovered she had conceived a child via rape. Betsy was tormented and pulled away from Ben causing angst. Eliot used the pregnancy to try and reunite with Betsy in order to provide a proper image for his campaign. Mia hoped with Betsy pulling away from Ben that she would finally have her happiness with Ben. Betsy contemplated aborting the child, but, with Van's intervention, Ben learned the truth about the pregnancy and vowed to stand by Betsy.

In November, the story entered it's next phase when Ben and Betsy went away to a cabin by the lake. This was a location shoot clearly meant to be a ratings stunt, but also to move the story forward. A vengeful Mia phoned the cabin and led Betsy to believe that she and Ben were still involved sending an emotional Betsy into a tizzy. She ran from the cabin and out to the lake. Ben got on the boat with her and they rowed farther from the shore. A fight errupted and drew attention from the people on the shore. Betsy spotted a snake on the boat and panicked. Ben raised the oar to kill the snake and boat flipped over. Betsy ended up in a coma and lost the child she was carrying. Eliot was furious and planned to prosecute Ben for attempted murder. Despite the impracticality of this case, it certainly was heightened drama and led to the show's infamous cliffhanger where Betsy, after awakening and suffering amnesia, realized what had happened and rushed to the courtroom to save her beloved Ben.

If you read the above SOD synopsis, Holloway had Meg paired with Scott Carmichael, the hospital adminstrator who wasn't ready to settle. Rosehill Hospital was becoming rather prominent with the introduction of Dr. Liane Wilson, the hospital's ONLY female resident or intern (I forget which), and her romance with Betsy's mild-natured brother Tom Crawford. Andrew Marriott was still around not doing a whole lot. The Scott / Meg pairing comes off as a bit absurd as it is such a B-story when Meg was a A-character. Maybe if more attention was paid to linking Scott to the community, and maybe he was as synopses don't always paint the full picture. Marcus nixed Scott / Meg and used Meg as the catalyst to break up young lovers Tom and Liane. It was a rather effective use of Meg who probably hadn't had a story of much merit in some time.

Marcus shipped Scott out of town in June, and, by July, Meg was setting her sights on Tom by offering him money to fund his cardiology project. In turn, Tom was romancing Meg in order to keep the money coming in, while falling for Liane in the process. The Tom / Meg / Liane back and forth played for a few months before climaxing in a late October / early November confrontation between Meg and Tom over Liane. A staircase was invovled and, wouldn't you know, Meg took a tumble. At the hospital, Liane went against the orders of her supervisors and performed the necessary surgery that saved Meg's life, but left her paralyzed. Liane was suspended and Meg planned on mounting a lawsuit unless Tom agreed to marry Meg. Meg's paralysis was psychological in nature, I believe, and she was starting to regain use of her legs towards the final episodes. Stealthy Meg was keeping that information to herself.

Marcus wasn't perfect, though. Her teenage summer story was pretty bad. Virginal Catholic girl, Gina Gaspero, Ray's baby sister, was seduced by Wes Osbourne, Mia's kid brother who was working as a lifeguard before going off to Harvard. Wes took Gina's V-card and Gina had a pregnancy scare. Somewhere along the way Gina had an incident with some pot brownies. Later, Ray got involved and threatened to have Wes arrested for statuatory rape. The story wrapped up in mid-September and Wes was shipped out of town for about six weeks (I think Woody Brown was filming the 'Flamingo Road' tv-movie) before returning in November while Gina was gone for good. When Wes returned, he made up with Ray and went to work at the disco Ray ran. Liane's little sister Kelly arrived in January to attend Rosehill University and to pine after Wes and in the final week or two Cheryl Kingsford started working at the disco with Wes and became Kelly's rival for Wes' attention.

I think Marcus' story was solid, (by all accounts) Abbi's production was good, but I'm not sure the show would have been able to overcome the timeslot and clearage issues. Once a show is dropped, it's hard to get the stations to bring it back. The only issue I could see storywise was the cast was rather large for a half-hour and there was a lot of story to play. I have to wonder if the show didn't feel disjointed at times because of Marcus' canvas.

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Ann Marcus excelled with the half hour soap. I enjoyed her work immensely on Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and Search for Tomorrow. However, I do not think even a soap legend such as Douglas Marland could have saved Love of Life after it was moved to 4 pm. Over 40 affiliates canceled the show altogether as others time shifted it to other undesirable hours. Even on stations which did clear it in pattern with CBS, Love was clobbered in the ratings by Edge of Night.

Cathy Abbi was not beloved by the cast either. According to Chandler Hill Harben, who played the final Ben, Abbi was hired by Mike Ogens because he wanted Love of Life's time slot and knew her incompetence would kill it. She was a production assistant on Y&R and was more interested in clothes and lighting than the creative matters associated with interesting story and strong characterization. Before the series w canceled, she had decided not to renew Tudi Wiggins' contract, which would have been a truly stupid move.

CBS mismanaged the series for years. Claire Labine created so many splendid characterizations; under capable writers, it could have continued with solid ratings for years, but subsequent writers chipped away at L & M's foundation until there was nothing left.

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As always, thanks for sharing your insights. I had heard before that Tudi Wiggins might have left the show had it continued, but I didn't realize Abbi wasn't going to renew her contract. I think that would have been a horrific mistake given Wiggins' appeal despite not really having much story after they removed her from Cal and Rick's story until they paired Meg with Tom. Had the show continued, I have to wonder if there wouldn't have been more exits in order to accomodate the large canvas (plus the additions of Alan and Barbara that you spoke of). I misspoke in my last post about Abbi being behind the cast purge in late 1978. In the interview, CarlD posted with Cathi Abbi a few pages back, Abbi said the cast cuts had been made at the network's insistence prior to her arrival. I just assumed it was part of Abbi's overhaul.

Your comments about Abbi do clarify the sort of bizarre journey that was her tenure as executive producer of "Love of Life." Going from Holloway to Marcus has to be one of the greatest extremes in soapdom. Despite the inexperience, I get the impression Abbi cared even if she was making baffling decisions like letting Tudi Wiggins go from the series. If she didn't recognize the importance of story, why fire Jean Holloway? If the network wanted the show to go quietly into the night, I don't imagine they would have pushed her to hire someone else.

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Thank you both so much for that insight and information.

Is there anywhere online that has detailed information about the show and particularly, Vanessa? I can't seem to find anything in-depth about past storylines.

Can anyone fill me in on the Nell Saltzman story? I know she was having an affair with Jason and dressed in a wig to frame Van, but what was her motive and how did the story conclude?

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Nell's story was an offshoot of a much earlier story. When Van married Bruce, she attempted to befriend his daughter Barbara, who resented Van's presence. Barbara fell in love with Tony Vento and wanted to marry him. She knew that Bruce would object, but thought Van might prove an ally since Van had hitherto been unable to secure Barbara's approval. However, sensible Van realized that Barbara's feelings were immature infatuation rather than love, and the marriage would be disastrous. Van told Bruce, who stopped the relationship. Barbara felt betrayed by Van and vowed revenge. When Bruce was later paralyzed, and his new doctor Herb Saltzman appeared infatuated with Van, Barbara sensed an opportunity to get back at her stepmother. Barbara manipulated Bruce's insecurities as an invalid by suggesting that Van was having an affair with Herb. Herb did confess his love to Van, but she rejected him. A few years later, Bruce and Van bought a new home. Their neighbors were the Ferris family on one side and a widow on the other. The widow turned out to be Nell Saltzman. Herb had passed away, but before he died, he confessed to Nell that he had once fallen in love with Van. Nell had been unable to to gain Herb's love in their final years together, and she blamed Van. Jason and Sharon Ferris had an unhappy marriage, too, and Nell exploited their trouble to get revenge. She seduced Jason and encouraged him to take her out for clandestine rendevouses. She put on a blond wig and dark glasses, but made sure to tell bartenders and hotel porters that she was Vanessa Sterling. Soon, news of "Van" and Jason's affair spread all over Rosehill. Sharon eventually heard the rumors, and believing them, went crazy with jealousy, Her hatred grew violent, but before she could harm Van, Jason confessed to the affair and admitted that Nell was his lover. Sharon snapped. She took a gun and went to Nell's planning to kill her, but Van arrived and talked her out of it. Nell left Rosehill, as did the Ferris family, who sold their house to Charles and Diana Lamont.

Edited by saynotoursoap
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Can someone help me? I never watched Love of Life except for one summer. (heavily, I later watched it, but eventually dropped it).

Anyway, Barbara was being played by Lee Lawson. She had a neighbor who was German and was an older man. He was infactuated with her.

This was around 1964.

I THINK that Dennis Cooney may have been playing Allen at the time. I do remember that, a few months later, the actor who played Allen was changed. We hated the new one. Either Dennis Cooney or John Fink was the new one, but I think that it was John Fink.

Oh, I did not finish the question above. Who was the neighbor, and what actor played this neighbor.?

Any explanation of the storyline will be appreciated!

Edited by danfling
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I am certain that Abbi cared; I just do not feel she possessed the experience and competence to successfully guide a sinking ship. Holloway should have been terminated immediately, but Abbi kept her for at least six months. Clearly, Love of Life's problems originated with poor writing and characterization, not sets and costumes, but Abbi spent a quarter of a million dollars to build a new set for Van and Bruce, when money and attention should have been focused on tweaking the stories and characters. I am not saying Abbi did not recognize the importance of story, but it was not her first priority when it should have been. Even with a much better writer such as Marcus in place, Abbi apparently did not take a more active role in storylines, hence a 1979 summer filled with Ma and Pa Gasparo and the rest of Ray's family, hoary Italian stereotypes who looked and talked as if they just wandered out of a Ragu spaghetti sauce commercial.

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