Ellen Foley also appeared on OLTL.
Lucy Ferri Ritenburg was a huge part of GL's first two decades. She finished up in 1974.I hope she enjoyed her retirement. I wonder if she kept watching or made a clean break?
THE DAILY NEWS, TARRYTOWN, NY, UKDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. I967
NEW YORK-Lucy Rittenberg is one of the most unlikely looking and best qualified television producers you will ever come across. For the past 17 years, Lucy has been associated with the daytime drama, The Guiding Light, beginning as a production assistant. Today she is executive producer. The spry and slender Mrs. Rittenberg looks quite like a healthy young sapling. And one can almost see her being buffeted by the variety of windy problems that blow daily through the world of soap operas. "Oh yes, you have to have a certain resiliency to stay in this business," Lucy admitted. " I know many people, producers and directors mainly, who can succeed with other types of shows, even the best, but would crumble here. "Most are rock hard and demanding like any good executive. But you can't be like that in daytime dramas."
Lucy again reminded us of the sapling who takes the wind and bounces back while the staunch old oak is uprooted and blown into the sea. "People have often asked me what the secret of the daytime dramas is: what makes the audience relate so much to the actors and the situations. If there is a good answer to that, it must be an all encompassing one. "I hate to say that our whole production crew is like a big family. It's so corny and trite, but there is no other way to say it. And it is that that makes the show. And any other show like this one. "If you don't have a well knit, completely coordinated an d smooth running machine to put on a 15-minute or half-hour show every single day, you are never going to be successful. Not because you won't get a show on the air. "Anybody can get a show on. But getting one that will hold the audience is the trick. It is a total effort from scenic design ers to script writers and carpenters to cameramen."
Mrs. Rittenberg knows what she is talking about and she learned It the hard way. She came to New York to become an actress and like the thousands of other bright-eyed and disappointed youngsters, wound up a secretary instead. Fortunately, she was gal Friday to a lady radio producer who introduced her into the wonder world of the soap operas. "I've seen all kinds of changes," she admitted, "right from the radio-TV transition, to the introduction of tape and now into color. "And I've lived through every joy and tragedy known to the human race and a few unknown . . . not only in the story lines, but in the lives of all the people in the crew with whom you must be on close, even intimate grounds. "And sometimes when the 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. grind, five-daysa-week, starts to eat me up. I wonder what I'm doing In this crazy business. "But that lasts for about five seconds. The thought of being in any other business scares me stiff. I love this. I really do."
By
Paul Raven ·
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.