Excerpt from a 1980 article about soap stars

Ron Arrants (Travis Tourneur Santell on Search for Tomorrow) describes his character “as a romantic with dimensions, a combination of Rhett Butler, Howard Hughes and Citizen Kane the younger. He inherited an international business conglomerate, he is classical straight arrow. He flies his own jet and speaks several languages. On Lovers and Friends, I was just a millionaire. Now I’m a BILLIONAIRE.”

Arrants’ character fell in love with Liza when her husband died and the couple went through just about every conceivable tragedy until their TV marriage last December. “WE HAVE HAD 10 major obstacles to our relationship,” he has figured out. A major star of daytime, Arrants still rides the subway from his Brqpklyn Heights home to CBS in New York but it gets more difficult daily to study his lines during the 20-minute ride. Autograph seekers are the interruptions. A native Californian, he has transplanted comfortably for a good economic reason: “I work 305 days a year, and have for 10 years. Elven though there’s nothing here for actors except daytime and the stage, it’s good experience, and I’m grateful for the work. It’s a good life, and I feel a responsibility to stay in daytime, after barely getting by for so long. But I have the economic freedom to take the risk again if I ever want to.

“Actors who think of themselves as artists, who have an impulse to stretch and grow, find an excitement and challenge they can only experience in soaps. There is no beginning, middle or end in daytime. You never have that sense of completion you get in the theater. “TO THE EXTENT that an actor can feel secure, I am. I even get two paid vacation every year.That came as a big surprise,” he laughs

'BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS. Saturday. September 2, 1978

Search’ Loses Sensitive Actor by Jon Michael Reed

NEW YORK — First the bad news. "Search for Tomorrow” has lost one of its finest young actors. Michael Nouri, the dark, brooding man who has portrayed Steve Kaslo on the series for the past several years, decided a few months ago that he was ready to move onto other career goals in lieu of signing another contract with the show. The character of Steve had been in remission from a disease for over a year. Rather than replace Michael, who was enormously popular in the role, the writers and producers went out on a limb by having Steve’s condition worsen. For two months the ”Search" audience has watched as Steve deteriorated physically.

CRITICAL conditions on soap operas’ usually terminate in miracle cures. The writers and producers of “Search” were brave enough not to honey-up their story and allowed Steve's life to be cut short. Last week Steve Kaslo died. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that with Nouri's departure serialdom also lost one of its finest, most sensitive young actors. Audiences can be confident that Michael Nouri, who displayed his singing talents on the “Search. ' will soon pop up on theater screens or Broadway boards.

NOW THE good news. "Search” is intensifying Its efforts to do more location shootings. Last weekend Mary Stuart (Jo). Peter Ratray (Scott), George Shannon (Chance), Lewis Arlt (David) and Billie Lou .Watt (Ellie) were shipped off to Manakin. Va., outside Richmond, where they were involved in exterior shootings that involve an auto accident. Sorry, you’ll have to tune in next week to find out who’s involved terminally as a result of that. .The "Search" cameras also taped the exterior of a Manakin hotel, the Foxhead Inn, which will serve in the "Search” story as the facade to the fictional Hartford Inn.

Back to the bad news. "Search" is undergoing sweeping cast dismissals. Expect them soon. In their place two newcomers are adding spice to the longest-running TV' serial. Blonde Megan Bagot appears as Laine Adamson, manipulator Ted Adamson’s sexy daughter who will probably spark a flame for Scott Phillips. Christopher Goutman will be a regular as Marc D’Antonio, the volatile drama professor who may help shy Kylie bloom. Other additions are on the way, so stay tuned

Thanks @Paul Raven

I guess that wasn't what happened with Nick...and Scott wouldn't be around much longer.

THE WASHINGTON POST and TIMES HERALD Thurs Jan 30 1958

TERRY O'SULLIVAN returns today (12:30 p.m., CBS, WTOP-TV) as the hero of “Search for Tomorrow.” He will again play Arthur Tate, husband of Joanne (actress Mary Stuart). For the past two months, Tate has been written out of the script. Or to quote from a CBSTV press announcement: “In his last appearance, Tate has been sent by his wealthy aunt Cornelia Simmons (Doris Dalton)on a business mission to Puerto Rico. Whether Tate's return to stateside means a resumption of his marital relations with Joanne is a question in which many ‘Search for Tomorrow’ fans are extremely interested.” I should hope they are interested. O'Sullivan left the program two years ago and, in the interval, Joanne has played opposite an actor named Karl Weber. How will the soap opera solve this dilemma’? Will Joanne accept this stranger as her husband she develop schizophrenia over the change in her husband? Will O’Sullivan be accepted by soap opera audiences? Let's have one bar of organ music and “be sure to tune in” tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow for the answers.

Another Michael Nouri appearance on Musical Chairs.

Musical Chairs, Ep. 84 (~October 10, 1975)

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Another Michael Nouri appearance on Musical Chairs.

Musical Chairs, Ep. 84 (~October 10, 1975)

I loved that show, and how losing contestants were devoured by the wall. Sister Sledge were there quite often.

We Are Family

THE EA8T HAMPTON STAR, EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., JULY 8, 1976

When Peggy O'Shea took over last November as head writer on the soap opera "Search for Tomorrow," she found the leading man dying of mylocetic leukemia (on tv), and a barrage of audience mail threatening permanent desertion if he were allowed to succumb. With a skill worthy of the Mayo brothers, she effected a speedy and miraculous cure. He's been free to face other misadventures since. Miss O'Shea, who lives on Hand Lane with her actor husband, David Opatoshu, works long and hard to plot the course of lives on the long-running (25 years) show. "I used to work ten days a week," she said last week, "but I've cut back to seven since I've had a collaborator." He is James Lipton, who lives on Marine Boulevard. Two other writers work in New York under Miss O'Shea's direction. The plot, like others of its genre, leans heavily on human afflictions for material. Miss O'Shea, a veteran tv writer, says she is rated on the basis of "one, two or three teardrops." The series brings forth a considerable amount of mail, "some of it extremely literate." "Invariably," she added, "the letters start with the disclaimer, 'I don't usually watch soap operas, but when I was home [or in the hospital] sick I began watching "Search for Tomorrow" and now I'm hooked.. .One member of the cast, Michael Nouri, lives on Indian Wells Highway. Mary Stuart, who has played the leading female role of Joanne Vincent for the duration, does not live in Amagansett.

THE EAST HAMPTON STAB, EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 9, 1976

Last week's party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the daytime television soap opera "Search for Tomorrow" was attended by Amagansett residents Peggy O'Shea of Hand Lane, head writer on the show, and James Lipton of Marine Boulevard, her collaborator. Despite their relatively recent participation in the production—its leading lady, Mary Stuart, has been in the cast since the beginning—Miss O'Shea and Mr. Lipton have found a certain seniority in omnipotence. When Miss O'Shea took over writing the show almost a year ago, her first task was to see the leading man through a near-fatal bout of mylocetic leukemia. Now she and Mr. Lipton, who joined her later, have in their hands the fate of Joanne Barron Tate Vincente (the role played by Miss Stuart), who recently has had surgery to avert permanent paralysis. In mock menace, Miss O'Shea noted last week that only the writers know the outcome. "We are totally powerful," she said, giggling. "No one but us knows who's going to get what next.