Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[danfling]

I do not remember this character (Kat).    Since the auditions were in August, and the show left the air on the last day of December, was Kat ever introduced on screen?

[robbwolff]

Yes. Mary Jo Keenan played Kat.

[victoria foxton]

Here's an episode featuring Kat. Kat was set to marry Malcolm Mcleary. Who was really the long dead Matt Mcleary. Kat ends up with Quinn. Kat's introduced in November. Very late into the show's run.

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Edited May 13, 2022 by victoria foxton

[DemetriKane]

I just watched my first episode of this show today! Don’t know too much about it, but Quinn and Sunny(I think) caught my attention. I may dig into the history and give it a chance.

[Spoon]

Love the first one, she also looked and seemed more Irish than the others.  She's gorgeous and reminds me of AW's Julie Osburn (Kathleen) who I crushed on as a kid and was devastated when she was written off.

Did not care for the other two AT ALL.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Spoon

[danfling]

Was actress Dody Goodman ever on Search for Tomorrow - or was One Life to Live the only soap opera on which she appeared (excluding the primetime Hollywood serial Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman)?

If she did appear on Search for Tomorrow, what was the name of her character?

[Paul Raven]

Dody was on SFT as Althea Franklin around 1968.not sure for how long. Althea had something to do with Stu and Marge.

She was also on Texas as Mavis Cobb.

Danfling, check for any performers you are interested in on the Soap Hoppers thread. Hundreds of names listed there and roles that are often not listed elsewhere.

[Paul Raven]

Cast and storyline May 1959. The Hursleys were headwriters. 2000th episode aired Fri May 8th 1959.

 The trials and tribulations of Joanne Tate, a comely former widow, now remarried, played by Mary Stuart; her husband, Arthur Tate, played by Terry O'Sullivan; and their friends, Stu and Marge Bergman, played by Larry Haines and Melba Rae.

Currently the plot revolves around the trial of Joanne's sister, Eunice Webster, and Rex Twining, for the murder of Joanne's rich aunt, Cornelia Simmons. Eunice is played by Marion Brash, Twining by Lawrence Hugo. Other principals in the cast are Anne Pearson as Allison Simmons, daughter of the dead woman and heir apparent to her fortune; Sandy Robinson as Janet Bergman; Tony Ray as Bud Gardner, her husband; and Lynn Loring as Patti, Joanne's daughter by a former marriage.

[danfling]

Does anyone know anything about actor Tony Ray, who is listed above as Bud Gardner on Search for Tomorrow?    Is this actor/producer Tony Ray who was married to Gloria Grahame and son of writer/director Nicholas Ray?

[Paul Raven]

Dec 79 Schreveport Journal

Former Shreveporter Moves From Academe to the Soaps By DAVID CONNELLY 

When John William Corrington and his wife Joyce began their careers in academe they never thought they would end up as writers for a daytime drama. Now they dream up the daily trials and tribulations of the characters in “Search for Tomorrow” which airs every weekday at 11:30 am on KSLA Channel 12 (CBS).

Mr Corrington, a 1951 graduate of Byrd High School and a 1956 graduate of Centenary College taught English on the college level for many years and became chairman of the English Department at Loyola University in New Orleans. He later became an attorney and practiced law in the Crescent City. Mrs Corrington, his wife of 20 years, worked as a chemical engineer for many years and also served as a professor of chemistry at Xavier University in New Orleans. She later collaborated with her husband on their many screenplays in addition to now co-writing the scripts of “Search for Tomorrow” .

The Corringtons who now live In New Orleans have included characters from that city and Shreveport in the drama and report that they have have met with much success “The producers of the show were very receptive to these characters because they had never had anything like them” Mr Corrington said “It adds another unique dimension to our drama” Though the network daytime dramas are taped In New York City Mrs Corrington noted that many of the writers live In other parts of the country. “They like to keep the shows reflective of middle America and most daytime dramas are set in smaller cities often in the Midwest” she said. Writing for a daytime drama is lucrative but it’s also extremely demanding “It consumes your life” Mrs Corrington said, “If you weren’t married to the person you’re writing with you’d never see your husband”. “It’s like working for a newspaper”, Mr Corrington added. “You have a new deadline every day and you have to come up with another script. You rarely get a day off”.

There are three levels to writing for a daytime drama according to Mrs Corrington.

First they have to decide on a long-term plot — what’s  going to happen In the next two or three months.

Then they have to develop the synopsis for a week and further break that down into separate acts.

Finally there’s the actual writing of dialogue. For the most part Mrs Corrington handles the long-term projections and her husband writes the dialogue though they work together on all aspects of the drama. “We have discussed many scripts over dinner" Mrs Corrington said.

The actual time involved in writing an individual script varies “If you have a script you’re really excited about it comes fast” Mr Corrington said. “Sometimes you really have to struggle with it. Usually it takes about 6-10 hours to write one half-hour show and that doesn’t include conferences and planning" The husband-and-wife team regularly talks with the producers and directors o( the show on the phone.

As writers the Corringtons appreciate the emphasis on the script in soap operas. “Daytime drama is literate” Mrs Corrington said “Because you can’t go out and do all the visuals you have to rely on words". While working on feature films the Corringtons found that the movie industry put a low premium on words. “In Hollywood a writer has little impact" Mrs Corrington said. "The director is the motivating force -  You give him a script which he uses as a blueprint and often you recognize only a small part of your work in the final product”. Writing for daytime has a different kind of frustration ‘The greatest frustration is that it’s so ephemeral there are no repeats”, she added. “You can see movies over and over again and good novels hang around for a long time I’d like to produce something that hangs around for a while”.

Any daytime drama has to attract a female audience, but Mrs Corrington is quick to point out that “Search for Tomorrow” has a male following too. “According to the Nielsen ratings men make up about 20 percent of our audience. “The main consideration is that we always try to involve women in the stories”, she added. “We don’t have many male-male conflicts independent of women”. Much criticism has been levied against daytime dramas for their treatment of women and for what some see as their negative effect on the female viewer. Soap operas according to some critics encourage women to ignore their own problems while fantasizing about the more exciting lives of the female characters on the screen. Caught up in their daytime fantasies they don’t take active steps to change their lives.

The Corringtons reject this view “If you're sitting in front of a TV set you’re watching dreams being created. Psychologists say we can’t live without dreams”, Mrs Corrington said. “You get to know your soap opera friends better than most of your real friends” she added. "When was the last time you stood by listening to a couple argue or when was the last time you shared an extremely personal problem with a friend? I think we’re a little remote in our daily lives”.

In the future Mr Corrington who has written novels, poems and short stories would like to devote more time to essays. “There’s a point when I think I’ll want to leave these more concrete investigations and concentrate on pure theory” he said. But Mrs Corrington quickly added that they haven’t tired of their work on “Search for Tomorrow ” “We’ve been doing it now for over a year and it’s still a kick”.

[Mona Kane Croft]

 I loved the Corringtons' work on SFT, as I felt they breathed new life into the old show.  Unfortunately, later writers were not able to continue the style the Corringtons had created, and SFT quickly regressed when they left to create Texas.  I wish the Corringtons had been able to create and write Texas without all the network and sponsor interference they encountered.  I'm confident it would have been a compelling show.  Unfortunately it's been said, Texas was the first soap opera created by committee.  And the results seem to substantiate that.  

[Max]

Unlike the finales for AW, GL, and ATWT--all of which had serious flaws--I consider SFT's finale to be the gold standard. (Full disclosure, I've never watched the final episodes of RH and Texas, both of which were also heavily praised.) It nicely wrapped up the storylines of the current characters and, even more importantly, had such a touching final scene with Jo and Stu.

That said, I wouldn't say that SFT's final episode was perfect. I could have done without the scene in which, after some villain (whose name I don't recall) was arrested, that character had the following line of dialogue (before drinking a glass of wine): "To the McClearys...They won, in the end." Honestly, that line was a needless reminder of how much the McClearly brothers (who granted, at least were portrayed by talented actors) were shoved down viewers' throats during SFT's final years. But a bigger reason why SFT's finale wasn't perfect was that it would have been nice to have had returns of many classic characters from the past.

In SFT's defense, perfection wasn't realistically possible: not much time passed between the cancellation announcement and the finale, the show was only 30 minutes in length, and the then-current characters did need to have their stories wrapped up. But in a perfect world, if you didn't have some of the constraints that SFT's writers and producers had (say, for instance, had SFT had the luxury of an hour-long final episode), how might you have improved upon the finale? I'm curious to read people's responses to this question.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Max

[Paul Raven]

In terms of a finale, it would have been nice to have some returning characters.

Janet Bergman Walton (I'm sure Millie Taggart would have agreed) along with Gary Walton (hopefully Rick Lohman) and Danny Walton. Tom Bergman should also appear -not sure who would be best to play him as there were a few recasts.

Ted and Laine Adamson.

Jo's old friend Dr Bob Rogers.

I mentioned in another post an idea to have Lynn Loring appear in a scene as Patti.

It would have been jarring as Patti had been de-aged, but it was the final ep so WTH!

I imagined a scene where Hogan and Patti (Jacquie Shultz) have a happy final scene and then Jo tells Stu how happy she is for her daughter. A flashback to 1950's scenes of Jo and Patti and then Lynn Loring appears to embrace Mary Stuart.

Mary sings a song as current cast members say their goodbyes.

[Contessa Donatella]

Just a little tidbit, practically a non sequiter, but Sunny is played by Marcia McCabe who went on to play a hit woman on AW whose name was Bunny Eberhardt. I always got a giggle out of her playing two such interesting names & that they rhymed.

[antmunoz]

Candace Woolard, according to IMDb, has one credit. Period. 
 

Kathryn Weisle has over 30 guest-starting roles on prime-time, including some daytime stints I don’t recall (OLTL, Loving). 
 

Mary Jo Keenan, however, landed the sitcom NURSES after SFT. She was good, not great, and married VERY well afterwards, to ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT creator Mitchell Hurwitz. 
 

I liked her as Kat and feel that, if SFT had continued, she might’ve been in triangles with Quinn and Wendy (because Lisa Peluso did return to NY daytime after trying Hollywood) or Quinn and Cagney (who had no chemistry with Joanna Going’s Evie). 
 

Ideally, though, the younger cast would’ve been best served by bringing in Chris and Tracey Whiting, and returning Danny and TR, even if recast.