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Those episodes can be a tough slog.

It's nice to see the end of Dorothy Lyman's run. I got the feeling they hadn't planned to write her out, as they were hinting at a future relationship with the Holloway father. Then...she was gone, reunited offcamera with Willis. And the Holloway father was soon on his way out.

I felt like the Holloway brother, Rick, was sort of the tagalong in the family, the one who never fit in. Yet he was the one who lasted longest.

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From the Sunday, May 11, 1975 issue (p. 20) of The Anniston Star (Anniston, AL):

Home names are heard on 'Another World'

By DIANE HARTMAN

Star Staff Writer

Is Anniston really "Another World?"

All serious discussion of that matter aside, regular viewers of that popular daytime "soap opera" may recognize some very familiar names once in a while. Tom C. King III, son of Dr. and Mrs. Tom C. King Jr. from Anniston, and a writer for that show, throws in an occasional hometown name just for fun.

"And oddly enough," King said, "sometimes the story line is like things that happened in Anniston."

KING, 28, now lives in New York -- where he's wanted to be for as long as he can remember.

His eighth-floor apartment in Manhattan is large and roomy and overlooks the Hudson River, he says. Some of his neighbors in the building are actors, writers and artists.

King spends three days a week in his home/office writing a script for one day's segment of "Another World." Four other writers come up with dialogue for the rest of the week.

The head writer, King said, outlines the plot and also does rewriting.

KING SAID he knows the characters on the hour-long show so well that continuity is not a problem. "They talk in my head all the time," he said. The producer on the show, he said, believes all good writing comes from character, not plot.

"We have no amnesia or murder trials, like other soaps. We write about people falling in love -- sometimes with the right people, sometimes with the wrong people. Our philosophy is that the romantic side is a very important part of people's lives," he said.

One of the show's characters, King said, reminds him of a woman in Anniston many people gossiped about. The character's name is Rachel -- "She used to be one of the 'bad' characters, but now she's reformed. Love changed her. She was a villainess when she was deprived of love -- she broke up marriages and such things. But now she has a husband who loves her and she's 'good.' I guess if she loses him she'll be 'bad' again."

IS THAT going to happen?

"I can't tell you!" King laughed. "That's against the rules."

So viewers will [have] to keep watching to find out what "Rachel," "Iris Carrington" and "Carol Lamont" will do next.

King said he watches the program every day and also "All My Children" because "they have a real witch I love to see."

King said fiction writing was one of his three ambitions -- the other two, being a newspaper reporter and working for an advertising agency -- he's already done.

AFTER WORKING as an Anniston Star intern in summers away from Harvard, King worked as a Star reporter nine months after his graduation, but decided not to stay in the newspaper business.

"I enjoyed the work -- it was satisfying in a way. But most of the stories excited me because I saw fictional possibilities. I always wished I was writing a novel -- but you always had [a] deadline."

He took off for New York with no promised job, but he had a few friends willing to put him up.

AFTER TWO "harrowing months" of hunting, he landed a job with J. Walter Thompson, one of the biggest advertising agencies in New York.

"It was the only one receptive to new people. They were willing to train me and teach me copywriting. Of course the salary was low, but raises were good," he said.

At first the ad business was fun, he said. He was only writing the kind of ads he likes to see. "But none of them were produced, and after awhile you find out you'll only succeed if you do things the client likes. And they like a hard sell. But I never agonized over it."

He didn't write much on the side while he worked at the ad agency.

"AT FIRST I had no inclination -- New York is a hard town to adjust too [sic]," he said. "There's a lot to learn. It takes a long time to make close friends. The people are friendly, contrary to popular belief, but it's hard to go beyond a surface friendship."

He had the usual trouble getting a place to live -- the first apartment he found to live in was one-room for $225.

But slowly, he said, he made friends -- many of whom were writers. After he began to meet screen writers and read their work, he decided he could do that too. He finished his first screen play in three months. "It got tremendous response from educators and producers. Even though it didn't sell, they encouraged me to try writing for daytime television."

BY THIS time, a good friend had become his manager. They sent out about 40 resumes to different daytime shows and got two responses, one from "Another World." After a rather grueling interview, the producer tried him, liked his work and he became a regular writer. King has been with the show for almost two years.

This year, writers for "Another World" have been nominated for an Emmy Award for Daytime Television, to be announced May 15.

He's still writing in his off time, and has done four screen plays. "One of those has been placed with a nighttime television producer, who's trying to sell it to a network or sponsor," King said. He's also trying to sell ideas for TV movies.

"WHAT I really want to write is plays -- they're the hardest to do. I've written about two that I wouldn't show to anybody, but they're good enough to convince me I could write plays."

Also on his things-to-do list is writing for nighttime TV, writing a musical and producing.

"All my challenges in writing are ahead -- and those things take a long time. I feel like I've just started."

End of article.

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