Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Lisa was gone, yes. I think someone said Wendy just vanished, and it was left open whether she'd been killed or not. There was a serial killer on the show at the time - he killed Stephanie. He killed women based on their being named Henderson Women of the Year, or something.

[MissLlanviewPA]

Yikes--and I thought being Llanview Woman of the Year brought bad luck!

[FrenchFan]

John Loprieno played Danny Walton from May 1985 to April 1986. It was mentioned he moved back to his family.

He began in mid-May as Cord on OLTL, exactly 4 weeks later.

[juniorz1]

You're right about both, especially Sunny! She was my favorite character on SFT and one of my all-time faves in fact. Marcia McCabe is love.

She and David Forsyth's Hogan were paired at one time and it was quite popular, until a new regime took over and felt that Hogan should start up a hot affair with Liza Sentell (Sherry Mathis). Now I liked Liza too (when Sherry played her) but she had no chemistry whatsoever with Hogan and was well-liked with Travis.

But the real travesty was that Hogan ended up with Patty, who was a young child in 1951, and brought back in her early 20s in 1986. I believe most viewers hoped that Hogan/Sunny would start up again when the Liza thing was thankfully killed, but no such luck.

And Sunny's love interest, Bella I believe was his name, was like watching her prance around town with her gay best friend, not her hot foreign lover. It was silly and insulting.

[MissLlanviewPA]

One thing I've always liked about the final credits of SFT (and the final episode itself--that final scene is fantastic), is when they show Marcia McCabe holding a little sun in her hands (for Sunny, of course) with the word "GOODBYE" on it. So cute! I would TOTALLY use a screenshot of that as my avatar .

Edited March 5, 2012 by MissLlanviewPA

[Paul Raven]

It says something about the show that apart from Mary and Larry,Marcia was the longest serving cast member.

[Paul Raven]

[KateW]

30 years ago (March 26, 1982) was the final CBS broadcast of Search for Tomorrow. The following Monday (March 29), Search for Tomorrow premiered on NBC at 12:30 pm ET, where it remained until the final episode on December 26, 1986.

[DRW50]

June 1969 Afternoon TV

[Paul Raven]

[DRW50]

Who were the two on each side of Brown and Cheatham?

[Paul Raven]

Elizabet Swackhamer as Suzi (Stephanie's step daughter) and Peter Haskell as Lloyd Kendall (Steve's father)

[Khan]

Judge me if you must, but I'd sure love me some Philip Brown.

[DRW50]

May 1968 TV Radio Talk

[DRW50]

We kept our horses on our property there. Father had a beautiful team of grays called Rock and Rye. We used to ride them by sleigh in the winter.

"In winter our activities centered around the snow. In summer - that was my favorite time - I would go to the ranch and watch the hired hands harvesting the wheat. In the early morning I'd ride my horse for hours over the range and would spend my afternoons in the kitchen helping the women prepare meals for the dozens of men."

But the tomboy farm girl grew up. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University. It was shortly after graduation that her acting dream suddenly began to take form. The Elgin National Watch Company was searching the country for the most beautiful Phi Beta Kappa. Melba was chosen. She won the contest and toured the U.S. When she arrived in New York, Broadway immediately offered her a part in the show, Janie. From there it was like a revolving door. One Broadway show right after another.

When Search for Tomorrow was being put together, the producer-director called Melba in for a leading part. "I didn't get it, and so I decided that since I had time on my hands, I would take a vacation in Europe. When I returned, they called me, asking if I would do a 'one-shot.' I did the scene and the writer saw it. He decided he wanted this character to become an integral part of the show, so my 'one-shot' developed into a seventeen-year part."

For the past twelve of those years, Melba has also been Mrs. Gilbert Shawn and mother of a delightful young man, Eric, who is all of ten years old. He has been in business for himself since he was six. He is more than precocious - he's a genius. His business is called Artios - by Eric and Company. He tells his parents his process is patented - a secret. He does his own advertising and has a print shop there in his workshop-bedroom. He takes reproductions of famous paintings and laminates them on wood, but how he does it, you see, is kept top secret.

One of Eric's ads read something like this: "Artios are homemade pieces of wood with famous pictures on them. They have designs on them put into the wood. They are not sticky! At least one will look very good in your home. They are better than you think. The reason is Eric and Company is the King of Fun! Remember, you always $AVE at Eric and Company."

Eric's artistic inclinations are inherited from his father. Gil is the creative director for Warsaw Studios in New York, and aside from his work, he is quite a painter and has had many successful showings.

Melba's voice has a lyrical quality that is evident in all singing voices, so I asked if she had ever sung professionally. This triggered a broad smile and she laughed, "I never thought of myself as a singer, but some years back the director for The Celeste Holmes Show called and asked me that very question. I said I could not sing, but he said, 'You can!' He wanted me to come over to CBS - there were a few people he wanted me to meet, and in the meantime I was to quickly develop a Spanish accent.

"I went to CBS at the appointed time. I was anything but prepared, and I stared at the director, frozen, you know, and said, 'I can't sing.' He grit his teeth, 'You sing.' What to do? The pianist looked at me and asked for my music. I said I didn't have any music, that I didn't even know a song. Anything would do, the people watching me offered kindly. Well, the only number that came to my mind was the old Embraceable You. I somehow got through it," her laughter rose now to a high C. "Do you know I got the part? I did the same number, but I had to do it in Spanish. That was the beginning and the end of my career as a singer."

But it wasn't the end of her television appearances. She had leads in various shows and many film assignments narrating short subjects and dubbing foreign productions, all the while doing her daily dozens on Search for Tomorrow.

How does she feel about being on the show year after year? "Doing a long-running Broadway play can get weary, but you must realize that on a soap it's quite different. You have a new script every day. It's repetitive, but by the very nature of the medium, it has to be. The audience may miss a day here or there, and if the storyline runs too swiftly, you lose your audience. As Marge Bergman, my situation changes somewhat with time, but the attitude of that character must never change. I would lose her credulity, her reality, and begin playing outside that character. This very much helps to keep you fresh and up, so to speak, every day.

"The one thing I don't like is having to get up so early. There are many affairs GIl and I have to turn down because you just can't stay out late and be in shape for an 8:00 a.m. rehearsal the next morning. But I love doing the show and am very content to go on doing it for a long time.

In the twelve wonderful years she has been married to the distinguished-looking Gilbert Shawn, Melba's career has never caused a moment's problem between them. Gil, an artist himself, understands the creative urge and has never once interfered with anything Melba has wanted to do. "But, I assure you, I would never give up a good marriage for a career, should it ever come to that."

How did these two perfectly-matched people meet? Well, for Gil it wasn't easy. Melba explained, "I met him through a friend of mine who lives in California who knew a friend of his who lives in California - they decided Gil should meet me. As it turned out, we were neighbors having apartments just a few doors away from each other. I wasn't the least interested in a blind date. Gil just kept calling all the time and finally I asked him over for a drink, but I made certain I had plans for the evening." She giggled. "I didn't want to get stuck, you know. He came over and we had that drink. I thought he was very nice. Well, that was it. We had a fast romance. I saw him the following night and almost every evening after. By the end of the month, he proposed. I accepted, but I didn't want to rush into it, so we waited for two years. And I've never once regretted marrying him."

When asked what her boy-wonder son thinks of his actress mother, Melba beamed. "He loves my acting. He's terribly impressed. When he was very young, he wasn't allowed to watch my show. I made certain he didn't. He wouldn't have been able to understand. Now he watches during holidays and vacations, and he's a very good critic. Too good," she laughed. "He will make such acute comments that I don't want to be aware of them. He'll say, 'I thought the show was terrible today.' Then he'll give me a minute-by-minute critique on just why he thought so. His reasons are so valid! Sometimes when we're having dinner out, he'll suddenly say in a very loud voice, 'Oh, Mommy, there are fans of yours - see? They keep staring and watching you!' It can be embarrassing, but it pleases me that he's so aware.

"Speaking of embarrassing moments, we've certainly had our share on the show. I remember one scene I once did with Larry Haines. He plays my husband. I called him 'sweetie,' and he apparently had been thinking to use it on me, so then he mentally switched to 'honey' but it came out, 'Sonny, would you get me my pajamas?' Amusing moments like that have a way of keeping more spark to your acting, I think."

When asked about time our for relaxing and hobbies, Melba frowned. "Would you please tell me just what is a hobby? I think it is supposed to be something you do when you have a lot of spare time. I have very little of that. Antique-hunting is something I love. Going up and down Third Avenue in Manhattan, snooping in all the antique shops, is like eating peanuts - more, more, more," she laughed. "But I go at everything I love with a great deal of seriousness, so then it ceases to be just a 'pleasurable pastime.' I adore fine arts. I spend hours, when I can, in galleries, but reading I guess is my real love. I could lock myself in a room for two weeks with a suitcase full of books and just read. Anything that has to do wit philosophy and theology interests me deeply. You see, I do things because I want to do them very badly, because they're important to me - I guess I"m not one who can really relax." She paused, and those mystical blue eyes scanned the length of her living room. "I suspected I'm not a person who has any hobbies."

Be that as it ma, Melba Rae is a person deeply interested in her world. That high-voltage tension she displays turns every project into a serious-minded, close-to-the-heart venture - and that is the very reason she has been so successful in harmonizing her work and her private life.

- by Brett Bolton