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James E. Reilly Tribute


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My Tribute to James E. Reilly


I just wanted to talk about my favourite Jim Reilly stories and characters, and say something about the man who got me into watching soap operas and has been a reason why I love this genre so much. It was the summer of 1993, and I was 11 years old, when Jim Reilly wrote one of his most memorable storylines - Carly is buried alived. It was something I’ve never seen before and I thought it was so crazy! I was immediately addicted to the suspense and drama and the anticipation of what’s going to happen next. I’ll never forget moments like Vivian rolling and laughing on Carly’s grave, or Vivian taunting Carly through speaker system inside the coffin, or Bo finally seeing Carly alive again. Thus began my fascination with Days Of Our Lives and soap operas!

In the fall of 1993 I had to go back to school and at the time I didn’t know how to program my VCR until late 1994. Thankfully, I did, because it was just in time for probably Reilly’s popular, and hated, yet most talked about storyline he’s ever written - Marlena’s possession by the devil. Yes, storyline had all the typical Reilly craziness (the moon and stars falling, the panther, the bees, the devil pretending to be Isabella) that he was known for, but I saw it as a love story between John and Marlena, and so did Reilly.

Love was something he always tried to implement in his stories.



When the storyline ended, John and Marlena still weren’t together! I was a John/Marlena fan and he tortured us by not having them become a “couple” but he always played the love, the sexual tension, the longing between them and I loved it. Jim Reilly was really good at that, as he did the same thing for many of his couples (Carrie/Austin, Sheridan/Luis, Ethan/Theresa, etc). In fact, some of Reilly’s best John/Marlena stories were when they weren’t a couple: The Affair, Maison Blanche, the Possession, Aremid, Lady in a Cage, the Secret Room.

Triangles and quads galore.......Everyone knows Jim Reilly loved writing those! I, of course, enjoyed most of them, especially his triangles/quads in the 90's at DAYS which were the bases of pretty much all of his stories.

- Roman/Marlena/John
- Tony/Kristen/John
- Marlena/John/Kristen
- Peter/Jennifer/Jack
- Billie/Bo/Hope
- Sami/Austin/Carrie
- Vivian/Victor/Kate

Each triangle had their time on frontburner and that one of the things I liked with his writing in the 90's.

With Passions:
- Kay/Miguel/Charity
- Grace/Sam/Ivy
- TC/Eve/Julian
- Luis/Sheridan/Antonio
- Theresa/Ethan/Gwen

Of course there were many...many more (:lol:) but those were his big ones.


Jim Reilly’s humour.......I got it...I got his humour.....I think we had the same sense of humour because I laughed at a all the outrageous and hilarious things he wrote. Let’s face it, the dude was nuts! He must’ve been to come up with what he did :lol: And he didn’t mind making fun of himself too! On Passions there was Judge James E. Reilly who takes bribes, and characters would always bash him. LOL Or sometimes characters would praise him: Rebecca: “That judge Reilly is worth every penny that we pay him. He always delivers, day in, day out, with such passion.” LOL!! Or this scene here with Julian who’s in the hospital after getting his penis chopped off, then re-attached, but he he’ll die if he has an erection.......



“What sort of sick mind comes up with this stuff? It’s got to be some reclusive hack with too much time on his hands.”

Of course there was also Timmy/Tabitha, Norma/Edna and Precious the monkey....I mean orangutang! And all the fantasy and dream sequences that he came up with.



Jim Reilly had such a hilarious imagination. There was absolutely no boundaries when it came to his humour.


Another aspect I loved about Jim Reilly’s writing was his slow, his extremely slow (;)) stories.
I didn’t mind that the took years to tell a story because I all needed was to be entertained, I didn't care how long it lasted.

I thought Jim Reilly was amazing at building up stories and then having these huge climaxes. He was especially good in the 90's! It was the conclusion of the Secret Room storyline that came within .3 of Y&R in the ratings. Everything that happened during that climax was Jim Reilly at his best. There was suspense, humour, action, huge revelations, secrets coming out, cliffhangers!


Weddings.......Reilly was one of the best at writing weddings.....whether they happened or not. LOL He would use these weddings as a place where secrets come out, so you always knew that something was gonna go down! If there was a wedding on a Jim Reilly show, you had to watch it! Some for example.....Sami stopped Austin/Carrie’s wedding in (1995?) when she revealed that she was pregnant with Austin’s baby. John/Susan’s Elvis style wedding (the flying teeth!!! :lol:) during the conclusion of the Secret Room.




Carrie knocking out Sami at Sami/Austin’s wedding and the revelation of Will’s true paternity.



Here are more of JER’s weddings from DAYS. I kept this post by blueeaglex from the Passions Coffeerooms board which was posted on March 7, 2002:



On Passions, Ivy driving into the church to stop Ethan/Theresa’s wedding. Or the 2002 quadruple wedding.
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Julian and Theresa’s drunken wedding. :lol: And of course Ethan/Theresa’s wedding from the last episode of Passions.




How to create buzz with huge storylines.......Jim Reilly knew how to do it! I believe he called it “banging the drum”......and he sure did.....very loudly! He would create these larger than life stories that would be the talk of the industry or message boards or even at school! The big 2 were definitely The Possession and The Salem Serial Killer. And whether you hated it or loved it, you were definitely talking about it and that’s what he wanted.



When Reilly consulted for Sunset Beach in 1998, you could definitely feel his presence there. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that 1998 was Sunset Beach’s best year. There were huge storylines like Terror Island, Shockwave and The Cursed Jewels. Did Reilly come up with those storylines? Maybe not. But I like to think he had some hand in those storylines. :)

I definitely wish I could've seen his GL era.

More favourite Reilly moments.........Tony framing John in Aremid. I thought this was one of JER’s best plots ever.

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Here’s a beautiful montage of this storyline. Damn, DAYS was so gothic back then. Loved it!




At Belle’s Baptism, Marlena confesses about the affair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsTxZaRliCE


I think the John/Marlena affair story was the best all around story Jim Reilly ever wrote. It was pure human drama about love, betrayal, lies and family. I do wish he wrote more stories like this.


Here’s a thread I create a while go.....The Best of James. E Reilly: http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/index.php?showtopic=21940

There were so many other great moments! I can go on and on and on about Jim Reilly, as you all probably know, but this is all I can come up with right now.

I just can’t believe that he’s gone now. I’ve always dreamed of meeting him, just wanting to talk soap operas and pick his brain on all the things he wrote. He brought so much entertainment and joy to my life for the past 15 years. I was so proud of him, proud to be a fan, proud to be “JimReillyJr”......... And I hope he now knows how grateful I am for all the things he's done. Thank you, Jim! You are my passion for life. Rest in peace.
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EXCELLENT tribute, Toups! Well said.

It James that got me hooked to Days with the SSK storyline. I enjoyed it a lot. I was glued to my tv at 1PM waiting to see who will die. I remember my mom telling me it had to be Marlena killing those people and I told her it couldn't be her. LOL

I LOVED Passions! Always have, always will. Loved James' humor. He was a funny man.

R.I.P James E. Reilly. You will never be forgotten. You will forever be missed.

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Such a lovely tribute Toups, and I can certainly see that it came from the heart. Love him or hate him, JER left an impact that will never be forgotten.

As someone who did watch GL during the time he was there, I could definitely see some Reilly-isms in hindsight. Especially with the great stuff that happed in 1992. I know in particular the 1992 Springfield blackout was Reilly's creation and it bore his mark, though in a more traditional way. That event was used to bring to a climax several storylines, as well as a vehicle to create new ones (most of which would be carried out when he was gone). That was what JER was good at, for every climax, there is a beginning.

And come on, who else would come up with a storyline where Bridget putting on her blowdryder leads to the total colapse of the electricity in an entire city? I see a lot of the foundation in Bridget for what later became Sami on DAYS as well.

I also think one of the 1992 blackout epsidoes was submitted along with the Jan 1993 episode of Maureen's funeral that landed GL that writing Emmy in 1993, JER's only Emmy.

I'll always look back on this time of GL with great fondness, even if I give Curlee and Demorest the most credit for it. I'm glad JER at least has some contribution in making me a soap fan. If I didn't fall into GL somewhere in early 1991, I wouldn't be a fan of the soap genre right now.

I also found amusing, as I brought up in a another thread that both JER and JFP worked on GL in the early 90's. Two very controversial and polarizing soap opera figures, perhaps the two most controversial soap people from the past 20 years.

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I think the big climactic events from 91 and 92 bore a great Reilly stamp. The stories were built up and usually exposed in a big way, something JER would later be known for. Also, Bridget Reardon, though undoubtedly Curlee and Demorest created (they had much more knowledge of the Reardon family, having been there longer) had a lot of Reilly-esque qualities that I would later see in Sami Brady. Bridget, though only created in 91, was a pivotal part in many storylines from that era.

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Reilly's big successes cannot be faked, every head writer has tried to be like Reilly in some sense and only he could pull it out. Reilly was great at GL and alot of that writing was very much continued with DAYS. OMG when Reilly took over for DAYS it was a mess in that it was at the bottom of the ratings. He took it over and within 1993-1994 ratigns magic took place and continued. His climax's like the Marlena posession, Sami's comeupannce or his biggest the revelation with Susan-Kristin. Actually DAYS hit a 7.0 and almost overtook Y&R for number 1 during that week. Just utterly amazing his ratings successes were just fabulous. He made NBC daytime a fortune. The only reason why AW was on for 7 more years then it should have was Reilly's high ratings were able to keep that show on longer. He consulted for Sunset Beach and did the whole earthquake/tsuanami. Then he created Passions which was all Reilly and was a success until Reilly was doing both shows. It affected both shows. I am so glad Reilly got to write Passions last episode and finish it. I will just conclude no matter what anyone says this man left a HUGE MARK IN THE DAYTIME WORLD. He is a genius on several different levels. I heard that he never meet the actors, he only wanted to know them as the characters. I also heard Reilly would wakeup in the middle of the night and write all his dreams on paper. The man had such a creative vision in his writing. He will be missed. He was a very rich rich man but he earned every day. What a loss for daytime especially during such a bad patch. Reilly will be missed, I did not Reilly was in such bad heath but they better pay tribute to this man. He left such a legacy.

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A lovely tribute Toups!

I also will never forget his first couple of years on DAYS. I will never forget how exciting Carly buried alive was.

The one story I think about most though, is the Roman/Marlena/John storyline. From the begining of the affair, to the end of Marlena's marriage to Roman, and how that contributed to the posession, it was a good 2 years of drama, and every moment on the show was worth watching for me.

One of my favorite Reilly Days moments is the often mentioned return of Belle, who Sami had kidnapped, to Marlena at the church with O Holy Night playing. I still get chills.

My heart belongs to Claire Labine's type of storytelling, but I was thrilled by Reilly in those days too. Right writer, right cast, right show.

I am revisiting his tenure on GL thanks to Youtube, and I see Reillyisms all the time, his fingerprints are all over several storylines.

When was he on GH? I'm thinking it was during the end of Monty's first tenure right? Guza was there too if I remember a quote by him correctly. I'm thinking Reilly was during Robert/Anna time, not Luke/Laura.

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Wonderful Tribute Toups.

While I wasn't always a fan of his work, two of JER's storylines brought me to viewing Days over the years, the buried alive story while in college and the SSK story a few years ago. When JER was good, he was GOOD.

Rest In Peace

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I came to DOOL very very late, 2004 to be exact. I was an ABC watcher but at that point has given up on all three ABC soaps and aol had on their front news page that greets you a window telling you the TV highlights. And there it was, "see who the salem serial killer is" so I clicked it and saw Tony spitting at Marlena.

I of course knew who Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes were and then I remember reading he was killed off. I decided to tune in and see what the show was all about. I gave myself a week to make up my mind, and I loved what I saw. It was so dramatically different from the horrible abc soaps with their star system and lack of stories, I was so impressed with Days unrelenting adherence to plot and not just a fetish for couples.

Then I remember came the day when I think it was Marlena was pushed off a terrace and landed right on Sami. :D I knew the show was unlike any other. Jan Spears. How can anyone not love Jan Spears? Then came the whopper that had me regressing back to a kid watching Flash Gordon serials shown latenight on PBS: The island of dead people. I loved it. My favorite story and I know I am probably alone in that. But an island of dead people trapped by a forcefield with skeletons smoking cigars, volcanic eruptions, literal cliffhangers with Jennifer, John about to be diced by a giant fan...I felt like this was Batman 1966 (and that I mean as a compliment).

If there was any twist, no matter how crazy or how corny, JER took it.

Days led me to Passions. Alistair and his chalice. I love my villains extra evil, and Alistair fit the bill.

In my opinion Days has not been as entertaining since he left. I was hoping he would wind up on another soap.

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After cocreating ANOTHER WORLD with Phillips, he went on to found with his wife Lee Phillip Bell two of the most successful soaps of recent years, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and, later, THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.     Also in 1943, at near the same age her mother was when she herself was born, Phillips, unmarried and a career woman, adopted a child, Thomas Dirk. A year and a half later, Phillips adopted Katherine Louise.(47)     Throughout the 1940s Irna Phillips reigned as the undisputed queen of the radio soap opera. By the end of the decade a new medium was on the horizon and it would be that medium that Phillips (somewhat reluctantly) would conquer next.      By all accounts Irna Phillips was not anxious to move her shows from radio to television. With television, a fog horn could no longer substitute for the deck of a ship, and actors could no longer be brought in and replaced so easily. So reluctant was she to give up radio that after THE GUIDING LIGHT debuted on television on July 30, 1952, the scripts were rebroadcast that same day on radio. The two GUIDING LIGHTS ran concurrently on the two media for several years until finally the incredible success of the television version made the radio outlet obsolete.(48)     Around this time Proctor and Gamble [sic: My Note: This book spelled Procter and Gamble wrong over & over.], the soap manufacturer and a longtime force in soap opera broadcasting, began its long association with Phillips. Phillips sold the ownership of her current TV dramas to Proctor and Gamble Productions. Between the two of them (Phillips and P&G) they formed the biggest, toughest alliance daytime television had ever seen.(49)     In 1956 Phillips, in association with Proctor and Gamble, stormed onto television with what was to become her most popular (and some say, personal favorite) creation, AS THE WORLD TURNS. The continuing story of the Hughes and Lowell clans of Oakdale, Illinois, began on April 2, 1956, as TV's first half-hour soap. It was produced live until 1975 when it was lengthened to a hour. The show revolutionized daytime drama by gaining more viewers than ever before in the history of the genre (sometimes as high as a fifty percent share of the audience), and it launched soapdom's first all-out lying, scheming villainess, Lisa Miller (later, after marriage/s, Lisa Hughes, then Coleman, then Mitchell, then others). She was played by actress Eileen Fulton, who continues on the show to this day. Fulton's and the show's fame were so intense in the mid-1960s that CBS created a nighttime spin-off titled OUR PRIVATE WORLD. It, however, would only last a few  months.(50)     Irna Phillips's actual writing for her series, radio and television, was rather unusual. Every day at  nine in the morning Phillips sat down at a rickety, brown card table - the same one she had used for years - and began to devise that day's scripts from projected story lines often set down months in advance. From there she would dictate dialogue to her secretary and close friend, Rose Cooperman. "I really don't think I write," she said "I act."(51) Occasionally sitting still and occasionally moving around the room, moving as the character would, Phillips assumed all the characters in the scene - male, female, adult, child - changing her voice to indicate a change in speaker.(52) This process worked so well for Phillips it was later adopted by many of her proteges, including William Bell.(53)     As Phillips would talk, "Rosie," her secretary, would take down every word, following the various characters by following changes in Irna's voice and gestures. Rosie filled in the punctuation along the way. Both women became so involved with the story line they were creating that they found themselves in tears.(54)     The average time for Irna Phillips to dictate a half-hour script was about an hour and forty-five minutes. It usually took longer to type the finished manuscript than it did for Phillips to dream it up.(55) During Phillips's "writing" she seldom lost her place or became confused.  If she did, she could always consult one of her various genealogical charts she created for each show. They consisted of squares containing characters' names with solid lines connecting relatives, dotted lines connecting in-laws, and "X"'s over names of dead or missing family members.(56)     After the writing was finished Phillips would sit down and watch not only her shows but those of her competitors as well. While viewing her own shows, if she found something she did not like in script, performance, or production, it was switched immediately. This often meant a phone call to New York and a list of demands. A few times actors found themselves jobless after a phone call from Phillips. Not surprisingly, many actors, writers, and crew members feared Phillips's wrath. Once, when an actor playing what many thought an indispensable character asked for a raise in salary, Phillips refused and solved the whole problem by simply killing off the character. The show went on without him.(57) Don Hastings, who has played Dr. Bob Hughes on AS THE WORLD TURNS since 1960 (and wrote for the show for many years under the name J.J. Mathews), remembers Phillips as a tough but fair mother lion, ferocious in protecting her creation: "She was very tough on her writers but would protect them if the network or the producers criticized them. She always said that if she okayed a script it was as good as her writing it herself."(58)     Though Irna Phillips could be difficult, and a great many lived in constant fear of her, nobody would deny her skill. Don Hastings remembers a time when AS THE WORLD TURNS ratings had slipped. Owners Proctor and Gamble asked Phillips - then at work on another Proctor and Gamble show - to return and help WORLD. "Can you bring us up to a thirty share by the end of the year?" they asked. Phillips delivered the thirty share in thirteen weeks.(59)     Additionally, Phillips was not as difficult on a personal level as she might first appear. Throughout her career she was instrumental in starting other writers in their careers. Agnes Nixon, Bill Bell, and many other names benefitted from her support and guidance. Phillips was also known to take many young actors under her wing, sheltering and encouraging them.     In her life in Chicago, Phillips had a small but tight-knit group of friends and a fiercely devoted household staff. They admired and respected her enough to overlook her dramatic nature and her many pseudo-illnesses. Producer Lee Bell, who with her husband Bill created THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, was a friend and coworker of Irna's for many years; she remembers an eccentric but likable person. "She was a genius," Bell said, "A brilliant, intelligent woman. You wanted to be around her. Whatever eccentricities [she had] didn't matter."(60)      In 1964 Phillips formulated a new series for NBC titled ANOTHER WORLD. The title referred to the separate "psychological worlds" of its characters and the two separate economic worlds of the show's two major families. Not accidently, it also drew comparison with the previous Phillips creation AS THE WORLD TURNS.(61)     ANOTHER WORLD was the first daytime soap to run one hour. It was also the first daytime show to address the topic of abortion.(62) Phillips invited controversy again in 1967 when she attempted to introduce an interracial story line into LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, a show she was also writing at the time. When the network bosses balked at the idea, Phillips walked out. She abandoned the show, and it was canceled in 1973.(63)     Despite Phillips forward thinking, however, she did not always approve of the direction daytime shows were taking. She said in 1972: "The daytime serial is destroying itself, eating itself up with rape, abortion, illegitimacy, men falling in love with other men's wives, all of which is often topped by a murder, followed by a long, drawn-out murder trial.(64)     In 1964 ABC-TV put Irna Phillips, at age 63, on the payroll as a special consultant for its primetime soaper PEYTON PLACE, the serialized twice-weekly program based on the book by Grace Metalious. By taking the PEYTON PLACE job, Phillips achieved a rare triple play: she now had her hand in, and was receiving paychecks from, shows running on all three major networks.(65)     In 1965 Phillips cocreated DAYS OF OUR LIVES and composed what has since become arguably the most famous opening line for any show in television's history: "Like sands through the hour glass ..."(66)     All did not always flow smoothly, however. The early years of ANOTHER WORLD were filled with complications: major characters were thrown out with little explanation, and actors were replacedal,ost weekly. Frustrated, Phillips left ANOTHER WORLD to concentrate on a show for ABC that she was cocreating with her daughter (and was based on Irna's own life). That show would only air for a few months when it premiered. Agnes Nixon was later brought into ANOTHER WORLD as head writer to whip the show into shape.(67)     Since Irna Phillips had almost single-handedly created soap operas as a dramatic form years ago in radio, they had begun to change. The incedible success of her own AS THE WORLD TURNS made daytime soap operas an important, highly profitable part of the network schedule. To gain viewers and therefore money, soaps became more and more sensational. Gradually they became more scandalous, sexual, and action-oriented; Irna Phillips's stories of women sitting around the breakfast table were becoming passe. Phillips found herself being left behind by the genre she had created. Allen Potter, who worked on ANOTHER WORLD with Phillips during its difficult years, summed up the problem: "She was from a different era. [She was] still writing kids going down to the malt shop."(68)     Phillips was asked to rejoin AS THE WORLD TURNS in 1972.(69) She simplified some of the plots but failed to turn the recent ratings dip around. Proctor and Gamble, the show's producer, fired Phillips in 1973. Back in Chicago she began work on an autobiography, but nothing was ever published.(70)     On December 23, 1973, Irna Phillips died in her sleep at her home in Chicago. She was seventy-two. In accordance with her wishes news of her death was kept from the press for several weeks.(71)     What made Phillips a success - the Queen of the Soaps, as she was often called - is somewhat difficult to answer. Helen Wagner recently explained it this way: "We [AS THE WORLD TURNS] premiered the same day as EDGE OF NIGHT [a now defunct mystery-based soap on ABC]. What was important on that show was the story. For AS THE WORLD TURNS what was important was the character.(72) Phillips realized early in her career that the success of serialized stories depended on her audience becoming involved and knowledgeable about the characters on the show. She told BROADCASTING in 1972: "Characters have to be multidimensional. The story has to come from the characters, to the point where your viewers will get to know a character so well they can predict his or her behavior in a given dramatic situation."(73)     Phillips believes there were several reasons for her success, not the least of which was her self-described limited vocabulary ("my greatest asset"), which, she believed, made her programs universal. She also attempted in her writing to appeal to the basic instincts of self-preservation, sex, and family.(74)     Perhaps Phillips's greatest personal achievement, however, was creating a world. fully and believably, that she did not really know herself. Though she never married; nor did she give birth; nor did she ever own a  home. But somehow Irna Phillips knew enough about all those qualities to entertain millions for generations - to spin endlessly involving tales of day-to-day life; tales about the simple joys and daily dramas of paying the bills, raising children, belonging to a family, and falling in love.      Irna Phillips wrote in McCALL'S magazine in 1965, "None of us is different, except in degree. None of us is a stranger to success and failure, life and death, the need to be lovedthe struggle to communicate..."(75)     Four of the programs Irna Phillips created - AS THE WORLD TURNS, GUIDING LIGHT, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, and ANOTHER WORLD - are still on the air today.  IRNA PHILLIPS July 1, 1901        Born in Chicago, Illinois 1922             Graduated with bachelor's degree in education. 1924             Graduated with master's degree in speech; began career teaching school in Missouri and, later, Ohio. May 1930        Returned to Chicago; joined WGN as actress and ad hoc writer.  October 20, 1930    PAINTED DREAMS, radio's first "soap opera" debuted;created by Irna Phillips.  June 16, 1932        TODAY'S CHILDREN, second Phillips creation, premiered; departed WGN. 1934            MASQUERADE premiered.  1935            MASQUERADE aired last broadcast. January 25, 1937     THE GUIDING LIGHT premiered.  1938            TODAY'S CHILDREN aired final broadcast; ROAD OF LIFE and WOMAN IN WHITE premiered. October 16, 1939    THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS premiered.  1940            Phillips moved briefly to New York City; would return to Chicago after six months.  1941            WOMEN ALONE premiered; settled court suit with WGN.  June 29, 1942        LONELY WOMEN (title later changed to TODAY'S CHILDREN) premiered.  1943            Resided briefly in Los Angeles; adopted son, Thomas Dirk. 1944            Adopted daughter, Katherine.  Summer 1948        WOMAN IN WHITE aired last broadcast. October 11, 1948    THE BRIGHTER DAY premiered on radio.  January 31, 1949    THESE ARE MY CHILDREN premiered. March 4, 1949        THESE ARE MY CHILDREN ended. 1950            Second incarnation of TODAY'S CHILDREN ended on radio. June 30, 1952        THE GUIDING LIGHT debuted on television. 1956            BRIGHTER DAY ended  on radio. January 4, 1954        THE BRIGHTER DAY premiered on television.  December 13, 1954    ROAD OF LIFE premiered on television; show ended broadcasts on radio. July 1, 1955        ROAD OF LIFE aired last broadcast on television. April 2, 1956        AS THE WORLD TURNS premiered. November 25, 1960    THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS ended on radio. May 4, 1964        ANOTHER WORLD premiered.  1964            Worked as consultant on primetime's PEYTON PLACE. May 5, 1965        OUR PRIVATE WORLD, AS THE WORLD TURNS spin-off, premiered in primetime. September 10, 1965    OUR PRIVATE WORLD aired last episode. September 28, 1965    THE BRIGHTER DAY aired last broadcast on TV. November 8, 1965    DAYS OF OUR LIVES premiered. September 18, 1967    LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, soap opera, premiered.  March 23, 1973        LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING aired last broadcast. Late 1973        Fired by Proctor and Gamble.  December 23, 1974    Passed away at home in Chicago.  NOTES 1.    "The Creators," TV GUIDE (Commemorative Edition) (July 1991), p.59. 2.    Dan Wakefield, ALL HER CHILDDREN (New York: Doubleday, 1976), p.27.  3.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY (1943), p.590. 4.    Irna Phillips, "Every Woman's Life Is a Soap Opera," Mccall's (March 1965), p.116 5.    Ibid. 6.    Peter Wyden, "Madam Soap Opera," SATURDAY EVENING POST (25 June 1960), p.129. 7.    Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN: THE MODERN PERIOD (Cambridge: Belknap, 1980), p.542. 8.     "Script Queen," TIME (10 June 1940), p.66. 9.    Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, p.542. 10.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends With Tradition," BROADCASTING (6 November 1972), p.75 11.     Madeline Edmundson and David Rounds, THE SOAPS (New York: Stein & Day, 1973), p.43.     12.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590 13.    Sicherman and Green, p.542. 14.    Robert C. Allen, SPEAKING OF SOAPS (CHapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1985), p.111.  15.     "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends With Tradition," p.75. 16.     Edmundson and Rounds, p.44. 17.     Allen, p.112. 18.     Wyden, p.130. 19.     Ibid. 20.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590. 21.     "Queen of the Soaps," NEWSWEEK (11 May 1964), p.66. 22.    Sicherman and Green, p.543. 23.     Wyden, p.130. 24.    Sicherman and Green, p.259. 25.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.519. 26.     "With Significance," TIME (11 June 1945), p.46. 27.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590. 28.    Wyden, p.129. 29.    Interview with Lee Bell (4 September 1991). All other information and quotes from Mrs. Bell in this chapter were taken from this interview. 30.    Interview with Don Hastings (5 December 1991). All other information and quotes from Mr. Hastings in this chapter were taken from this interview.  31.    Wyden, p.129. 32.    Robert LaGuardia, SOAP WORLD (New York: Arbor House, 1983), p.20. 33.    Wyden, p.129 34.    Interview with Helen Wagner (10 October 1991). All other information and quotes from Ms. Wagner in this chapter were taken from this interview. 35.     Ibid., p.130. 36.    "Script Queen," p.66. 37.    Wyden, p.127. 38.     Wagner interview. 39.    Wyden, p.127. 40.    Phillips, p.117. 41.    Wyden, p.127. 42.    Ibid., p.130. 43.    Ibid. 44.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, P.591. 45.    "Script Queen,"p.68. 46.    Wakefield, p.28. 47.    Sicherman and Green, p.543. 48.    Wyden, p.130.  49.    Ibid. 50.    Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, THE COMPLETE DIRECTORY TO PRIME TIME NETWORK TV SHOWS(New York: Ballantine, 1981), p.571. 51.    Wyden, p.129. 52.    Phillips, p.168. 53.    Bell interview. 54.    Wyden, p.30. 55.    Ibid. 56.    Phillips, p.168. 57.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.591. 58.    Hastings interview. 59.    Ibid. 60.    Bell interview. 61.    LaGuardia, p.81. 62.    Ibid. 63.     Jean Rouverol, WRITING FOR THE SOAPS (Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books,1984), p.11. 64.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends with Tradition," p.75. 65.    "Queen of the Soaps," NEWSWEEK (11 May 1964), p.66. 66.    Rouverol, p.11. 67.     La Guardia, p.81. 68.     Ibid. 69.    "Week's Headliners," BROADCASTING (17 January 1972), p.9. 70.    LaGuardia, p.81. 71.    Landry, p.71. 72.    Wagner interview. 73.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends with Tradition," p.75. 74.    Sicherman and Green, p.542. 75.    Phillips, p.116.
    • So, Roman admitted that everything he did was to protect Johnny. I like that. It adds another dynamic to this storyline. And it’s also a much better use of the character of Roman. He’s been stuck in the Pub for too long lol I’m also really liking the way that Roman and Kate’s relationship has been written lately. As for Josh Taylor’s voice… no comment

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      And speaking of relationships, I’ve also been seeing improvements in the relationships between Johnny and Paulina as well. I enjoyed their scenes today. They really feel more like an actual mother in law and son in law. I’m cringing a little at the way that Paulina would’ve been written had Ron stayed on a little longer. This type of writing is the exact thing that the character of Paulina needed, especially for a storyline like this.  I am a little intrigued with the idea of EJ and Xander going head to head over buying the hospital too, mostly because of how it could drive other storylines, couples, etc.,like EJ and Belle. Him basically using Belle as his own personal fixer, both with Johnny and the hospital board could lead to something interesting happening in the future. And Philip, doing whatever he can in order to get back in Xander’s good graces is a good addition to this storyline as well.  Btw, I don’t dislike it at all but I still can’t believe that they’re 

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      And yeah, sorry, I know that Days means well but I think they’re making a little too much out of this Xander/Felicity thing. But Xander and Sarah were sweet today. I’m looking forward to seeing everything between them get blown to hell.  Seriously, one of the worst, if not the worst, team in soap history. 
    • Thanks for letting me know! I thought there was a preemption until CBS confused me by uploading Monday's episode on Friday.
    • Lucky Day is an awfully good Doctor-lite episode focused on Millie Gibson and Jemma Redgrave - I am glad the show brought in Varada Sethu who continues to give major Caroline John/Liz Shaw vibes, but Millie was always very good in what felt designed to be a single arc companion and she's very good here too. She deserves a bit more somewhere in the franchise. The depressingly relevant storyline aside, I was most impressed by the showcase for UNIT and Kate Stewart. Jemma is always good but she was amazing here, noting the Doctor would've stopped her from going all the way re: Think Tank if he were there. Yet it's the kind of brute force her father could and did resort to in extreme situations back in the day. I almost hoped she would allow Conrad to be killed right then and there, which is something I think the Brigadier also would've done when backed against a wall over operational control and the safety of the Earth. She came very close, and the steel Redgrave exhibited (as always) was amazing. Whatever spinoffs can still materialize given the current streaming climate and DW's uncertain future (I do think it will continue somewhere, but I would not be shocked if it's back to a run of holiday specials for awhile a la Tennant's and Whittaker's), aside from the upcoming odd Sea Devils miniseries that's in the can, I still hope UNIT and Kate can get a proper one sometime.
    • I think it was just him  And it gave good explanations as to why Alistair was the way that he was. By the time the series ended, he was just evil for evil’s sake 
    • To me, that made no difference. The point stands whether Eva wants to be a Dupree or not. Anita was 110% on top of things. Also it's a logical inference that Eva might be interested in having a place in her supposedly real family. Frankly though I wonder if Eva knows how to feel ... yet. She could really be confused.
    • Does Jack ever dress in drag during that early '00s period where he was trying to get Jennifer back...or does he just fake being gay around then?
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