HOW TO SURVIVE A MARRIAGE

[DRW50]

That's interesting. I always heard that the Bachman story was the best part of the show.

Did Edelstein write any other soaps?

This show has always sounded to me like it may have been better as a mini series.

[Paul Raven]

Rick Edelstein also wrote for Bright Promise and Where The Heart Is.Like Cenedella he worked steadily throughout the 70's and then vanished from daytime in the 80's.

[vetsoapfan]

Along with HTSAM, Bright Promise, and WTHI, as Paul Raven mentions, Edelstein also worked on some primetime series like the soap EXECUTIVE SUITE with Mitchell Ryan, and STARSKY & HUTCH (!!!), which seemed rather off his beaten path, but for which he wrote excellent scripts. Never achieving the acclaim from soap audiences that some of his peers did, Edelstein remains an unsung hero of the genre, having produced better material than many of his colleagues in the industry who became better known (James Lipton, Robert Cenedella, Margaret DePriest, etc).

[DRW50]

Thanks for the details, both of you. It's too bad his work is mostly lost.

Was Anne Howard Bailey liked at any soap? It seems like her best received work was at GH.

[vetsoapfan]

In general, her work was dreadful. When she was the headwriter for SANTA BARBARA, its creators wanted to fire her, leading to a brouhaha with the network. Patrick Mulcahey, a respected scriptwriter, once commented that during Bailey's tenure, they always had to work to "hide things" because the overall writing was so poor.

She was the original headwriter on the 1975 CBS drama BEACON HILL, which was a "rip off", as it were, of UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS. The audience for the initial telecast was huge, but after witnessing the atrocious writing, viewers abandoned the series in droves, and the ratings plummeted. This was annoying, because as soon as Bailey was replaced, the series improved dramatically. (The same thing happened with HTSAM.)

Bailey was better at one-shot material, like The Trial of Mary Lincoln, but ongoing, everyday soaps were not her forte. That she won an Emmy for SB just shows again how messed up the Daytime Emmy system really is!

[danfling]

Her work was extremely wordy, and I read that the performers were not allowed to change anything - it had to be said exactly as written. And it was written horribly!

[dc11786]

I thought I would bump this thread.

I was looking at synopses for "The City" and I read a news item about Fran Brill appearing on "All My Children." Brill appeared as Robbie, Erica's counselor at the Betty Ford Clinic. Her first appearance was January 31, 1996.

[danfling]

Ms. Brill was on All My Children as well as The Edge of Night.

On The Edge of Night, she played a widow who blamed Deborah Saxon for the death of her husband. She was trying to get revenge on Deborah. This was a very shortterm role. It was during a period that ABC was trying to get The Edge of Night characters be challenged with more trouble each day. I think that tit was during the time that The Edge of Night was preparing to expand .

[EricMontreal22]

Wow! I know Lowry from her "art" bisexual porn film Metzger's Score (a really fun film--seriously.)

Randomly found the above article in a May 6 1975 New Yorker Talk of the Town section.

Edited July 19, 2013 by EricMontreal22

[DRW50]

Interesting they said Joan Copeland was the star. I thought Jennifer Harmon was.

I liked the little tidbit about the circulation numbers for Daytime TV, most of those being in retirement areas.

[DRW50]

From a TV by Day Yearbook

[saynotoursoap]

Originally Rosemary Prinz was billed as the star of How to Survive a Marriage. After she left, that torch was passed over to Joan Copeland. Harmon also had a nod on occasion in the opening credits, but Joan Copeland was considered the drawing power. It was Copeland who is credited as the star of the show in the final episode,

[saynotoursoap]

Edge NEVER prepared to expand. This is an urban legend of sorts. Fred Silverman considered cancelling General Hospital and expanding Edge in 1977, but Procter & Gamble refused. P&G owned the series and leased it to ABC. ABC could not expand it without the sponsor's cooperation, and it had no intention of cooperating. Also, Fran Brill appeared in September 1978 after the soap General Hospital had begun to rise in the ratings and had a far larger audience than Edge.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I never knew that about Copeland. I guess because Harmon's role gets the most attention in articles.

[saynotoursoap]

Jennifer Harmon was wonderful, as was Fran Brill. Jennifer's character of Chris was certainly a leading lady. It is not my intention to diminish at all her presence or contribution. However, as far as NBC was concerned, Copeland was the one with "star" power. Copeland was the one with name recognition from her electrifying performances as Andrea Whiting on Search for Tomorrow. It is in that sense that Copeland was the star.