Another World, Agnes Nixon question

[EricMontreal22]

I've just had the pleasure of finally seeing a 1960s Another World episode--I didn't know any existed. VERY poor quality but still, because of the acting and writing, very watchable. Two actually--from July 1968.

Because One Life to Live premiered in Jully 1968, I wasn't sure if Agnes Nixon was still writing AW at the time, but according to Wikipedia she was until October of '68 (no big surprise, she continued HWing Guiding Light for 2 or 3 years while writing AW--although GL was still 15 minutes). The episode was Lenore and Walter's HUGE lavish wedding (shot on location in a gorgeous, massive, church). I actually have only some idea who these characters are... Full details? Lenore's friend is Lee, who was experimenting with LSD at the time I know cuz of depressionand soon died in a car accident while on the tabs!

Anyway, thrilling for me, was there were some scenes of Alice and Rachel interacting-_Rachel actually trying to befriend Alice and Alice being quite flippant--I think the man with them is Alice's brother who Rachel was married to. It's amazing to finally see such a young Robin Strasser as Rachel--and you really see the Erica Kane similarity. Surprising though was in these episodes Alice also meets Steve Frame for what seems the first time. I found this interesting that it happened near the end of Nixon's tenure as HW--when most books make it sound like the Rachel/Steve/Alice love triangle was the main reason for Agnes' huge success at AW. Was most of the early triangle written by her followup writer (Canedella? the guy between her and Lemay)? I guess AGnes could have set it up enough so that her story ran a while after she left...

Having watched this, and a handful of Agnes' 1960s episodes of Guiding Light and that one 1969 episode of One Life to Live, it's SO apparant what a strong writer Agnes was. Back then she still did many of the scripts too (for GL she did all, apparantly) and the level of dialogue, and story structure, is just so much more sophisticated than most of the other soap operas from the 60s I've managed to see (which are by now, a lot). You get drawn in so quickly, and already you see elements of her desire to add humour to soaps, and social relevancy (if only to make the characters feel like they live in a real world and not that, sometimes I admit wonderful, soap opera fantasy world). Irna Phillips is a huge talent but on the soaps she still wrote (As the World Turns being the big example--particularly before Bill Bell became a major assistant writer and in charge of dialogue) you do notice how much poorer the dialogue, especially, is.

(Bell did compelling wonders for DAYS in the late 60s but his style was alreadey becoming so different from Agnes'--slower, more "soap opera", filled with psychosexual melodrama and no humour)

[SteveFrame]

Yes Agnes did the early work for Rachel's story but the first time either Alice or Rachel met Steve was at Lenore's wedding.

I had thought for years that Rachel was based on Erica from the AMC bible that Agnes had done before she joined AW as headwriter. But I have just recently learned that Ada/Rachel and Mona/Erica were first intended or conceived by Agnes when she was going to be writing for The Brighter Day in the late 50's or early 60's.

She conceived the mother and daughter who were very similar to Ada and Rachel & Mona and Erica to be part of the story. I think this is when they moved the show to California and the Agnes deal didn't happen.

So in essence even though Ada & Rachel were taken from the AMC bible they were all originally supposed to be on Brighter Day.

Oh and Eric from my understanding William Bell was pretty much involved heavily with ATWT from 1957 until he left in 1965. Agnes wrote with Irna on ATWT from 1956 to early 1957 when she went over to GL and Bell moved from GL to ATWT.

[EricMontreal22]

That makes sense--still during that time Irna had the basic final story say at ATWT--unlike at GL where Agnes (from reading the GL 50th anniversary book) had final say--Bell wasn't given that luxury at ATWT.

Fabulous episodes--the last was the weddign reception and it made me wish I could see more of this era of AW. In some way I may have even prefered it to the handful of Lemay eps I've seen

[SteveFrame]

The story that really made Agnes' AW at first was Missy Palmer and Bill Matthews. They were super popular at the time.

Then she had the stuff with Lenore too, and of course the problems with Pat and John's marriage that had Lee fall for Michael but Michael was in love with Pat who was married to John, Lee's father. Michael was Michael Bauer who Agnes had brought over from Guiding Light.

All of those were the early big stories for Agnes during this time. But you would probably say that for most of Agnes' run as head writer Missy Palmer was pretty much the central heroine of the show.

I am really surprised by something I read today. Agnes was familiar with Lawrence "Larry" Keith from his work on Another World as Lefty Burns in the Missy storyline. But I read today that on AMC, Nick Davis was intended to be a short term character and be killed off. But Larry Keith so impressed her with his acting that she changed her mind and made Nick a bigger character. I just wonder if Larry wasn't that impressive on AW or she just didn't remember how good of an actor he was.

[EricMontreal22]

Right that Larry story is told in All Her Children--though she also says she knew him from AW. Maybe she just didn't think he'd click in the role? In All Her Children he mentions that he adde da lot of little touches from the start in hopes the role would expand. She used a lot of AW actors in early AMC it seems--J barcroft being an obvious example.

I always found it strange that there was no issue bringing Michael Bauer over from GL even though they were on diff networks seeing as AW wasn't allowed to be an ATWT spin off.

[SteveFrame]

Just a side note, the characters in this article I read today that were only intended to be short term and originally intended to die were:

1) Victor Newman (Y&R)

2) Julia Newman (Y&R) - Victor was supposed to kill her, and then get killed himself.

3) Frank Ryan (RH)

4) Nick Davis (AMC)

5) Bobby Ewing (Dallas)

6) Barnabas Collins (DS)

7) Audrey March Hardy (GH)

8) Luke Spencer (GH)

[EricMontreal22]

Opal would be another one wouldn't she?

When was the article from? and where?

[SFK]

I remember reading from a longtime fan over at WoST that over the years Nixon has gotten a lot of credit that belongs to Cendella especially concerning Alice/Steve/Rachel. But I'm not sure about how much he inherited story wise from Nixon.

I own those early eps you mention Eric, they are wonderful to have. I really wish there were more available. I just love that Robin Strasser, you can really see her mental wheels turning as she encounters Steve for the first time. Poor Russ. And Audra Lindley is also greatl.

[sonyab1974]

Having watched this, and a handful of Agnes' 1960s episodes of Guiding Light and that one 1969 episode of One Life to Live, it's SO apparant what a strong writer Agnes was. Back then she still did many of the scripts too (for GL she did all, apparantly)

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Really?!!?! Even all the dialog?!!?!!?!

[EricMontreal22]

A script is dialogue yes

SFK are these the only 60s episodes of AW you know that are easy to find out there? They are absolutely terrific, as you say. I dunno, it sounds like Cendella did a good job but largely just played off--for nearly his whole term--what Agnes had set up... (What other soaps did he work for?) Even by 69 too ratings were slipping a bit.

[SteveFrame]

Sonya B - Many writers back then up until the late 70's and early 80's wrote scripts and served as headwriter. During the Another World 90 minute shows that ran in 1979, Tom King once wrote that Harding Lemay wrote every one of those scripts word for word all by himself.

It wasn't until the WGA in the early 80's negotiated for all writers to have a specific job on the show and that alone did you start seeing an end to this. With that no longer could a head writer write his own scripts. There had to be Break Down writers and script writers and editors and all this stuff.

Used to basically there was a Head Writer who was pretty much responsible for the whole show and the other writers were basically there to assist them.

That was basically in the early days what Bill Bell was to Irna Phillips. It wasn't until around 1960 that he got a bigger role in the goings on at ATWT.

For at least 9 years Irna Phillips & William Bell wrote the 30 minute version of ATWT all by themselves. Same with Lou Scofield & Margaret DePreist who wrote Edge of Night for several years alone.

Then William J. Bell and Kay Alden were the only 2 members of Y&R's writing team for several years.

The increased number of writers is another thing that has increased soap opera budgets. What is strange that there are more writers responsible for the shows these days and the writing is worse. Go figure.

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Eric that article is a short article in the book Soap Opera Book of Lists by Gerald Waggert. I just got it in the mail today. I order it off Ebay.

Opal is not mentioned as one of the characters who was intended to be killed.

[EricMontreal22]

No wonder Lemay quit after a couple of months of those 90 minute shows! I know they completely wore him out--and he himself admits in his book they were far from his best work.

I enjoy Waggert's other books--well his Soap Encyclopedia (essentially an update with changes, to the better Schemering one) and his Lists/quizz books for AMC and OLTL--all are pretty surface but still fun--it sounds like this one might be similar?

In All Her Children from an interview around 1975, Agnes does every daily breakdown but then gets a script writer to do the dialog (I think she had 3 or four at the time?) and then theygive it back and she does the final re-write. She mentions that she just started doing some breakdowns on the phone with Wisner Washam, and even having him do some and then her editing them, though.

Agnes DID start having a large number of writers fairly early on though--AMC usually credited more writers (around 79 I've seen credits) than other soaps from that era I've seen (of course for long periods in the early 80s Agnes didn't even take writing credit although people have said she essentially still did the overall story/edit so she might have done that out of courtesy--for whatever reason the Wikipedia writing credits, so good for other soaps, are wrong for AMC if you go by the end credits ANYWAY--Washam certainly wasn't sole headwriter till 92...)

[SteveFrame]

This Waggert book has 215 pages and tons of lists. Some of course are outdated by now.

I know that a few of the lists that I have looked at so far have some that were left off even for early on.

I have read several things I did not know so far. He has basic information on several backstage feuds, but does not even list the feuds that Susan Hayes had with backstage ladies at Days from the 70's.

He lists a lot of stuff from both daytime and primetime shows.

As I read more I will add some of the stuff to my Trivia sections at SoapsWEB.

One other thing I read there was the producers early on at AMC threatened to fire Ruth Warrick when she refused to play Phoebe as being for the war. Warrick was against the war and had participated in Peach Marches, and she didn't want Phoebe to be Pro-War. So she chose to play Phoebe as ditzy and they warned her to play her right or be fired.

[SteveFrame]

I forgot to answer your other question.

Robert Cenedella had not really worked much in soap operas before Another World - not at least from what I have found over the years. Mostly his work was in Primetime with numerous episodes of Kraft Suspense Theater and Lux Video Theater. He also was a writer in radio but I have not found that he wrote for any radio soaps in my research of them.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah that detail abotu Ruth Warrick is from his AMC Trivia book--do u own that?

Did Canedella do anything after?