Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)

[Franko]

Not a bad idea. I wonder if P&G would have cared if Somerset went up against Search for Tomorrow?

[Broderick]

It would've likely been an anomaly, no matter where it was.  

When I "discovered" it around 1976, it didn't seem to exactly fit where it was (ABC), but chances are it wouldn't have fit anywhere else either.  It was so different from everything else.  

[Contessa Donatella]

I don't usually post there but I have a question and then I'll be out of your way. Have you ever seen a show opening that showed

The Edge of Night "with Donald May"? 

[danfling]

No performers on The Edge of Night ever had their names in the opening.

The only performer on a Procter and Gamble show who had a name in the opening was Beverlee McKinzee on Texas.

I don't THIINK that the name of Eileen Fulton was in the opening credits for Our Private World.   I am not sure, though.

[Contessa Donatella]

Thank you, Dan! I know about Beverlee, Macdonald Carey in '65, Dana Andrews on Bright Promise, Rosemary Prinz on AMC & How to Survive but someone has submitted 3 "with so-and-so" supposed openings, for Donald May, Mary Stuart & yes Eileen Fulton. Just got to mark them off the list! Here goes Donald May. 

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[Broderick]

I believe you can safely mark Donald May, Mary Stuart, AND Eileen Fulton off your list.  

Donald May had preferential treatment in the closing credits of Edge of Night.  He was the final name -- "and Donald May as Adam Drake".  That's the extent of his star billing.  Nothing in the opening.   

Mary Stuart had preferential treatment in the closing credits of Search for Tomorrow.  "With Mary Stuart as Joanne" appeared before the other cast members and even before the writer, director, and producer.  she got nothing in the opening.  

Eileen Fulton had no preferential credit treatment on Our Private World.  She was jumbled-in with the other actors in the closing crawl.  No mention of her at all in the opening.  Once she returned to As the World Turns, she got preferential treatment in the closing credits as the final name "and Eileen Fulton as Lisa".  

There are examples of opening & closing credits on You Tube for all four of those shows -- Edge, Search, Our Private World, and World Turns, from a variety of different time frames.  

[Contessa Donatella]

Thank you. This is indeed what I have found to be the case. But I really do appreciate this as a kind of a double check. 

[danfling]

Donna, two other actresses received star billing in opening credits on How to Survive a Marriage after the departure of Rosemary Prinz.

Joan Copeland and Fran Brill and one other (I cannot remember whom at this moment) received star billing on alternate days.

I wish that I could remember the third one!

[danfling]

Here's a TV Guide article from 1969 on Millette Alexander

This lady has a 17 room house, four children, six dogs, seven cats and a soap opera career, too -  by Judith Jobin

“Soap opera at its worst can  be black-and-white—but most of the time the characters are as a real and the conflicts are ones the average person really deals with. I’m proud of it and I'm livid because the industry ignores it. There are no Emmys for soaps!'

So says actress Millette Alexander—looking authentically angry—as she defends her membership in television’s much maligned soap-opera club. And it might smack of a case of sour suds if it came from a lesser talent. But by all accounts, Miss Alexander plays  soaps with a degree of involvement and intensity usually reserved, in an image-conscious profession, for more prestigious theatrical endeavors. The case in point is her latest role, a young, attractive lady doctor. For the past six months Millette has been feeling her way around the psyche of Sara McIntyre, M.D., one of the central characters on CBS’s The Guiding Light. Says producer Peter Andrews: ‘‘She’s quite an intelligent girl and she works very hard in preparation—much more than most. She always has a point of view—she has the whole edifice of her role constructed by the time she gets in.”

On the surface, the action is uncomplicated: Millette puts in upwards of 40 hours a week alternately clucking over patients and getting into clinches with a handsome colleague. But under the clucking and clinching is “much more than the words say,’ insists Edge of Night actress Teri Keane, who remembers Millette’s nimble portrayal of a dual role on that series. “She's complex. There's nothing surfacey about her acting.”” And a Guiding Light actor agrees, pointing admiringly to her ‘‘emotional quicksilver quality.”

But at this point, an inevitable question leaps out: after 15 years of landing television, Broadway and summer-theater roles with ease and regularity, why isn’t Millette Alexander more famous, a little closer to stardom?

“She could definitely have it if she tried,’ declares producer Andrews, confirming that her talent is widely acknowledged in the trade. Teri Keane agrees: ‘‘Absolutely. She's tops. But she doesn’t want it.” And Millette herself, recalling an early offer from 20th Century-Fox, confers a convincing air of distastefulness on the whole business: “They wanted me to sign a seven-year contract, move to California, become a starlet.I didn’t want to be locked in.” Her friend Ed Zimmermann explains: ‘‘l’d say she wants most to do good work.” Finally, Andrews points to her off-stage existence: ‘‘She thinks a lot about her home life.”

By any standard, it’s a life worth thinking about. At 35, she’s married to rangy Jimmy Hammerstein. He is the son of Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, is a respected director in his own right (most recently of a pair of off-Broadway Pinter plays), and was. undeniably a catch. They live in a 17-room Stanford White house in Nyack, N.Y., complete with a six-acre spread of rolling lawns, fruit-tree orchards, greenhouse, lavish swimming pool, and hilltop gazebo overlooking the Hudson River. Their four children are abundantly rosy-cheeked and well-fed. And they solved their servant problem by importing an entire family from Honduras—but the bargain included five more children and an  88-year-old grandmother, all of whom live-in.

After that the law of diminishing returns takes over and things look a bit raffish at the edges. There’s a bright red four-wheel-drive jeep in the driveway, and unwary visitors are assaulted by a friendly tangle of six dogs and seven cats. A tour of the interior turns up stray dolls and hobby horses, jars of freshly made fruit preserves in the kitchen, a pair of well-used pianos, an alarming assortment of electronic instruments and an open Dickens volume in the bathroom. Not to mention sound effects—the indecorous clatter of nine children, plus sputtering balloon sounds and Indian yells.

It all looks disarmingly like a television headache commercial featuring Millette as its miscast heroine. As keeper of the house and grounds, and Big Mama to that brood, she’s more like the earthy old lady who lived in a shoe than an other-worldly Cinderella. ‘‘! don’t even nose-count any more,” she laughs.

“She looks like quite a socialite,” says Teri Keane, ‘‘but she can get down there in the garden and weed!” And that’s not just a figure of speech. In off hours, Millette weeds with gusto, dips deeply into art and music (she’s a highly skilled pianist, also plays violin), finds time for exquisite needlepoint projects and generally has a disconcerting affinity for over-achievement. “She's got a helluva lot of energy,”’ says one friend, and another adds, “It must be pretty exhausting.”

Which raises a final question: How did an admittedly ‘“‘overly sensible’’ teenager from the Great Neck (Long Island) High School Orchestra find her way from first-chair violin to the center of such a helter-skelter life?

“I finally got sensible about myself,” she explains happily.

[j swift]

I remember that there were many iterations of the opening that ended with Raven's portrait, but did anyone else ever get final position in the opening?  I recall Jody had a portrait, but I don't know that she was ever in the final position in an alternate opening like Y&R used.  I think when Nicole or Nancy were the leading lady, the opening was just the name of the show, with no pictures of the characters, correct?

This whole discussion of credits makes me wonder if Sharon Gabet had her position in the opening in her contract, or if it was beyond her control?  I would not be surprised if Susan Lucci and Tony Geary negotiated their placement in the openings of their respective shows, but I don't know if Ms Gabet had the same bargaining power.

Edited August 19, 2023 by j swift

[Broderick]

I think Raven's positioning was just "luck".  

Draper had the spot first.  Beginning in June of 1980, when the photographs were introduced (along with the "disco" opening), they concentrated on three couples.  First were Nancy & Mike Karr, followed by Miles & Nicole Cavanaugh, and then they closed it out with April & Draper Scott.  

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Once Jayne Bentzen (Nicole) left, and they needed to update, Raven got the ending shot.  (She'd been omitted from the first sequence, as she wasn't part of a "couple").  From then on, it was various shots of Raven that ended it, as far as I can remember.  

(I believe for the final one in 1984, with the "techno" opening, we might've had Jody & Preacher on the beach for the last shot.)  

[j swift]

Gosh, forty years later, that opening is still thrilling!  Although, in my memory this clip is missing the announcer at the end saying, "The Edge of Night, brought to you by Liquid Prell" with the image of the pearl being dropped into the bottle of shampoo.   I agree that Raven's placement was luck, but I'd be eager for some confirmation.

Edited August 19, 2023 by j swift

[Broderick]

Put your mind at ease.  It was "luck".  

If Sharon had it in her contract, she was BREACHED in 1984, lol.  

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Jody and Preacher got the FIRST shot and the LAST shot in this one, which ran through much of 1984.  

I think the placement was "pet" based.  In 1980, Terry Davis & Tony Craig were Henry Slesar's "special pets", so they got the closing shot.  By the time the shots were redone in 1981, Sharon Gabet had joined them as a "Slesar pet" and she got the final shot (immediately following April and Draper). 

April & Draper left the show in the summer of 1981, so Raven was Slesar's sole Special Pet who remained.  She got the final shot through the rest of Henry Slesar's run. 

Lee Sheldon's special pets were Jody and Preacher for some unknown reason.  So they got it for a while.   

[j swift]

I'll never doubt your expertise. @Broderick

How long was SG's maternity leave?  I recall it was close to the end of the show, and I would imagine that would influence the emphasis on Jody.  Also, remarkable that Shelly made it into the opening, but no sign of Liz or Beth.  Either they spent too much on that greenscreen of Preacher & Jody, or the production had given up on new openings by the time they were introduced?

Edited August 19, 2023 by j swift

[Broderick]

lol, I honestly have no expertise.  But Slesar clearly LOVED writing for April, Draper, and Raven.     

I expect Sharon Gabet's maternity leave was a factor, along with a "demographic mandate" to feature more of Preacher & Jody, as well as Lee Sheldon's love of Preacher Emerson, Del Emerson, and Jody.