Irna Phillips as a Storyteller & Mentor

[Sylph]

I don't know whether there were many topics specifically about Irna Phillips, but there are some things I would like to know about her and her method:

1. Apart from being the first to introduce "scheming female characters" and the first one to introduce doctors and lawyers as soap opera staples, what other things did she 'invent'? And I'm interested in these small, little details more than things that defined the genre (e.g. cliffhangers). But big things are good, too!

2. What was she known for as a storyteller? Very, very broadly, Agnes was known for her socially relevant stories, William J. Bell — as we mentioned in that other thread — for his angst-ridden tales of unfulfilled longings etc. But what types of stories did Irna like to tell?

2. What were some of the most sensational stories she penned? Like "the car accident that shook the nation" (TVGuide referring to the death of Jeff Baker in the fall of 1962) or the tale of "Kathy Roberts, killed off via kids accidentally pushing her wheelchair into oncoming traffic".

3. How much input did she have in the creation of Days of Our Lives and Another World? Given that the first one was co-created by Betty and Ted and the second one by William J. Bell?

4. Is there somewhere a possibly a little more detailed account of her work with Agnes Nixon? Did those two part ways on good terms?

[DrewH]

Ooo, I'm excited to hear people's input on this. I love hearing about the great daytime legends in writing.

[AddictedToSoaps]

WOW.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I believe Agnes once said that when Irna killed Kathy Roberts on GL, she gave over the reigns to her and said, "Here it's your problem now!"

Of course Agnes would have a lengthy run at GL, and would go on to save AW from cancellation later on. I guess they had a rocky relationship, but Agnes still seems very fond of her.

[EricMontreal22]

She invented Amnesia as a soap opera cliche--I think for Right to Happiness (which, from listenign as a strange teenager to almsot 100 eps of various radio soaps I thinkw as maybe her best--it was a spin off of Guiding Light).

She actuallyw as the first, again on radio to have crossovers--Right to Happiness being the first in 1939 but then in the 40s three of her shows were joined with a talk format show or something as the General Mills Hour (i *think*)--and characters from each show would interact and cross over. (of course she wanted Another World to be a spin off of ATWT as well--but she definetly saw her soaps as happening in the same "world" something that ABC sees with their soaps now, and P&G adn Bell with theirs).

LaGuardia's book from the 70s Wonderful World of Soap Operas, as well as Chris Shemering's 50th Anniversary of GL book and the AMC/AGnes Nixon book All Her Children prob go into this the best--but so does that wonderful Museum of TV and Radio 3 hour interview with AGnes Nixon which has about 30 minutes all about her radio soap work--but Irna's radio soap days basiclaly created what TV soaps would be.

Remember back then radio soaps wer every much divided between the myriad of Irna creations (I think she created 8 or 10 total? Gudiing Light being the main one she stayed writing herself completely) and then the other ones--a good deal by the ultra rich "factory" overseen by Frank and Anne Hummert. These ones (MA Perkins, Romance of Helen Trent, etc etc) were VERY different. Fantastical stories with a lead heroine--often who could become ap ricness, travel the world, have spies after her, etc--they also moved very quickly. They had the kidns of stories soaps, in the early tv eyars, simply couldn't tell cuz of budget. But if anythign they were as popular as Irna's "realistic" soaps.

So Irna brought stories that dealt with early social issues (yes before Agnes), 'real" people, ":real" problems, and a slow deliberate pace. She really did create what became the TV soap in her radio days.

One of her most famous stories--and one I have largely on audio tape and listened to as a kid on a really long car ride lol (youc an hea rmsot of it ofr free now on some radio show websites) was from the very late 40s on Guiding Light afte rthe Bauers ahd been introduced when Meta Bauer was the major heroine/villainess. She ended up killing the father of her born out of wedlock child Chucky afte rhe led to Chucky's own death, and was put on trial for murder. Irna let the audience decide if Meta should be innocent or sent to the chari--they voted. CBS was scared no one would want her free--irna knew nealry eveyrone would and she was let off on temporary insanity (I believe some fo this was dramatised in that annierversay ep of Guiding Light last year with Beth Ehlers playing Irna).

But yeah even back then Irna had a mean streak--she liked to punish characters for things she didn't see as moral, or if auidneces got too attached--somethign that cause huge probs when she returned to ATWT in the early 70s and went amuck.

Agnes remained friends with Irna thru the end--she discusses her a LOT in that youtube interview. SHe called her every day for all her life and actuallyc alled her the christmas she found out she died I believe. Agnes has said that Inra had a reputation for being very cruel and cold (always refering to her actors by their character name etc) but that she was always kind to Agnes (I think Agnes sees her as saving her--when Agnes' father was convinced Agnes had to follow him in his trade as a funeralist and had no talent as a writer to prove himself right he asked a friend who knew Irna to read one of Agnes' scripts thinking she'd say it was awful--she loved it and asked to hire Agnes)

[LoyaltoAMC]

From the little I've heard of her, she was very erratic, both in terms of her personality and writing style. I know that her last stint at ATWT in the 70s was bizarre, with the infamous death of a character, one of the Stewarts I believe, falling UP the stairs. She also let her personal views of actors dictate storyline. I read that she supposedly loathed the actress playing Mary Matthews, essentially the Bay City equivalent of Nancy Hughes, and just killed her off, just like that. From what I've read, she was extremely frustrated that AW was not an immediate hit. She wanted it to have a structure similar to ATWT's, with lots of drawn-out coffee-klatch conversations about mundane day-to-day things and the minutiae of the characters' relationships. However, the very showy, melodramatic elements she introduced early on in quick succession (rape, illegal abortion, murder) in order to draw attention to the show didn't really allow naturally for the conversational scenes and intimate character interactions that were ATWT's hallmark. So essentially she was trying to play out these over-the-top plots against a structure similar to ATWT, and none of it really gelled. That had to have been a huge personal failure for her.

[EricMontreal22]

I agree with your early comemtns--but in the huge chapter abotu Another World in that LaGuardia book they say the prob with AW (and they quote an early director of the show) was that Irna wanted it to be a huge melodrama--unliek her ATWT (which Agnes Nixon helped create BTW Sylph similar to how Bell helped create AW--ironic as Bell became an early writer on ATWT and Agnes on AW) She set it up with the same family structure as ATWT but from what I read *didn't* have those drawn out coffee scenes etc--isntead just having action action action. Many felt it didn't work cuz Irna just couldn't do this kind of story--and her ehart wasn't in it. She found illegal abortions, rapes, etc kinda distateful anyay, so... Plus the ATWT setup of characters clashed with the pace of the story (the Matthews Matriarch having nothign to do without those coffee chats)

[LoyaltoAMC]

Eric, I remember reading it differently, but maybe you're right. I thought the only difference Irna wanted for AW was showy stories, and that she wanted to duplicate ATWT's deliberate style. I remember reading that she would have characters have intimate conversations in the kitchen over coffee, a la ATWT, but instead of the conversations being along the lines of "Oh, did you hear that Chris does not get along with his new partner at the law firm" or "I'm not sure how I feel about Penny dating at such a young age," the conversations were more like "Hopefully Pat will recover from her illegal abortion in time for her murder trial for killing the baby's father." It just didn't work. So, I thought she wanted the showy stories, mostly to draw immediate attention to the show, but against the ATWT structure.

[EricMontreal22]

I need to check that LaGuardia book again but I stand by how I read it Either way we're kinda saying the same thing--in a way as I read it was the ATWT structure for the start--but the speed of story alogn with the kinds of stories was a prob. Either way in the brief time she was HW she plowed thru a LOT of story. Only the orphan girl one really lastedand made an impact I heard.

[SteveFrame]

From everything I have read I do not think William J. Bell can be credited with creating Another World alone. They did it together and she was heavily involved. She even admitted in one interview that it was a bad decision for her to go into the realm of melodrama with it. She talked in depth about in one of the Daytime TV yearbooks that I have but cannot find right now. I thought it was in my filing cabinet but it is not there now.

She stayed with the show for a year but soon realized she was out of her element and the reason for the shows failure to take off.

She was also heavily involved in the creation of Days of Our Lives too. I am not sure when Allan Chase came into play but in one of the many books written about Days, the biggest part of the show was created by Ted Corday and Irna Phillips while sitting on the porce of home in Southhampton, Long Island. The idea was conceived there and much of the core concepts of the show. I do know the name "Days of Our Lives" came from Charles Gussman who wrote the pilot script for Days. He had worked with Betty Corday on radio on Young Dr. Malone as a writer.

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As to the part of her creating scheming women, I am not sure if that part is really true too. Soap operas really didn't have villianesses at first. You had misunderstood women who were did bad things, but not out and out scheming villians. Irna always said her characters were all flawed in some ways, and I think she wrote women who sought wealth and that sort of thing but her first real schemer was Lisa who debuted in 1960.

The Edge of Night had introduced really villianess women first I think but the first real one was Claire Bannister Steele on Young Doctor Malone I think. She was really evil and a real schemer.

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I think Irna was a storyteller to some degree - maybe not as much as today - but her stories were good. Particularly one that I have enjoyed following in some of the radio shows I have heard and in reading is the story of Meta Bauer on GL. It was filled with lots of twists and turns, murder, being rejected by her father, and so on.

then you had the story of Ellen Lowell on ATWT in which Ellen went through lots of trials after being disappointed by her father's affair - a man she had looked up to and felt could do no wrong. Ellen slept with one of her professors, got pregnant, gave the baby up for adoption, got close to the family that adopted her child, eventually fell in love with her son's adopted father, ended up charged with murder, and many other things.

She even wrote her good characters as I said with some type of flaw - no one was perfect when written by Irna. Nancy Hughes was heard wishing that it had been her daughter Penny who drowned and not her daughter Susan. Today you could never imagine Nancy saying that but she did under Irna.

Papa Bauer a very loved Patriarch is the one who turned his back on his daughter Meta.

Irna seemed to write her characters without the fear of whehter the audience would accept it or not. She wrote them as real people. She always said none of her characters were perfect - they were all black and white. But she always believed that every person paid for their sins or misdeeds in some way.

Jim Lowell on ATWT died because he had committed adultery. His daughter Ellen had a child out of wedlock, so she suffered before she could be happy.

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I know this wasn't part of your original questions, but Irna from the interviews that Don Hastings and Eileen Fulton gave and then some others I have read - ruled with an iron hand. Even scaring some of the people who worked under her. They loved her. Respected her. But often feared her.

She had an image of all her characters in her mind, and she didn't even like actors or actresses to change their appearances without telling her.

She fired Helen Wagner because she didn't like an outfit she wore.

She fired Fran Sharon from Another World because she cut her hair.

She often hired actors particularly for Another World and then when she saw them onscreen didn't like them and fired them - very quickly.

She fought hard against the bosses at the networks in both radio and television to tell the stories she wanted and she didn't let them push her around. They felt they could because she was a woman.

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I may have more thoughts later. But I will stop there for now.

[SteveFrame]

Oh I didn't see the comments from Loyal and Eric before I made my post.

From the Daytime TV article, it was stated that AW was originally to be a spin off of ATWT but CBS didn't have room for it - so all the ATWT references were knocked out.

From that article it also stated that AW was totally different from anything that Irna had ever written before and was totally based on the success of The Secret Storm - even to the point of debuting with a death - something that Irna had never done.

The Secret Storm had the matriarch of one of the families dead when the show premiered or early on - same as with Search For Tomorrow had killed Jo's first husband off 13 weeks in.

Roy Winsor had created less shows than Irna but he had been successful with just about all of them. His shows were highly melodramatic. So Irna was copying a style pretty much for the first time.

She had AW debut with the death of William Matthews - the opening scenes followed the funeral. It was very very different from anything she had ever written before. She was very much out of her element.

As to the killing off of Mary Matthews - Irna Phillips was no longer around this earth when that happened. She had already gone to Heaven. Irna loved Mary Matthews. It was Harding Lemay who hated Mary Matthews and wanted to change her from the character she had been since the debut of the show. He wanted to make her a busybody meddling into the lives of her children. The protrayed Virginia Dwyer would change things that were written for her - so Paul Rauch and Harding Lemay fired her. Virginia Dwyer refused to play the death scene so they just killed her off. That happened in 1975. Irna Phillips died in 1973.

[EricMontreal22]

Oh I didn't mean that she'd killed Mary--just that because this wasn't a show liek ATWT, Mary had very ltitle to do on screen.

yeah Meta was a fascinating characte ron the run of GL on radio--the end of the radio run. by the time it moved to tv she was a "good character' by and large and the focus was on her duaghter Kathy (who basically took after Meta) andothers.

[SteveFrame]

Eric I wasn't talking about your remarks about Mary Matthews. I was replying to this that Loyal said:

[Dan]

Here's an entertaining anecdote about Irna from Days of Our Lives: A Complete History by Maureen Russel

BTW, according to the book, Bill Bell also helped out unofficially in the creation of DAYS, not enough to be credited though obviously.

[Dan]

And then killed off her daughter Robin when she returned to GL in the round robin of writers that came to GL after Nixon left.