Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[OzFrog]

I’ve been watching a lot of early 1980s Y&R recently, and it was the first time I had ever seen the character of Julia Newman, played of course by Meg Bennett. And I am absolutely enamoured by just how strong and independent she is (in fact she is fast becoming one of my all-time favourite characters).

 

My question is about how MB played Liza Walton back in the 1970s. Was she written as strong-willed as Julia Newman was? It’s a shame that there aren’t any ideas around of Meg Bennett playing Liza. 

[Chris 2]

Meg’s Liza was more the romantic heroine, so they wren’t pushing the strong-willed angle.

[antmunoz]

RIP Marcus Smythe (Dane)

(https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=marcus-smythe&pid=196700604&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=obitshareamp&utm_content=p196700604

[allmc2008]

What was the last good era for the show? I tried watching a few episodes from, I think, 1984. The dialogue was DREADFUL.

[victoria foxton]

Joyce & John William Corrington 1978-80 run. Is considered SFT last good era.  From what i've seen online. I like Gary Tomlin and Caroline Franz & Jeanne Glynn runs. Lots of potential which was squandered. By the high turnover rate in HW/ EP's. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by victoria foxton

[victoria foxton]

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March 4, 1981

[RavenWhitney]

The 1981 writer's strike happened in summer 81.  Bunim hired actor Don Chastain to write the show and she fired Upton after the strike ended. Chastain briefly held the head writer role and ruined things with some crappy boxing story. I think he was still appearing as Max.  Upton's real life son was named Garth. He died in 2004 of lung cancer at age 60. Gabrielle was still alive, having been born in 1922. Never found an obituary so she still may be alive!  Amazing that she wrote the show solo.  IMDB doesn't list that she was also head writer for Love of Life, an unwatchable period where she focused on a former prostitute.  But I really liked this episode. Classy, Directing, music, pacing was all so classic soap.  Dignified.  Sheri was sensational.  Rod never knew his lines. he was no Tony Geary!  You have to give P&G credit for giving Bunim an EP title when she was so young (she had been an associate producer). She must have been really talented and wowed the execs.  I loved most of her EP stint on ATWT too.  Sad when you think of the crap on tv today.

[NothinButAttitude]

That episode was a pure gem. SFT is one of the shows that I keep hoping more episodes will pop up. 

 

Wasn't Roger Lee really Sissy child with Travis' cousin though? 

 

Also, whatever happened with Garth/Kathy down the line? 

[Mona Kane Croft]

Did Kathy have any children?  And after Scott left town, was Kathy even related to anyone on the canvas?  It seemed strange to bring back Kathy as a contemporary of Liza, when Liza had been a child through most of the original Scott/Kathy romance --  wasn't she?.   Also, what year did Peter Simon and Courtney Sherman leave SFT?   

[Paul Raven]

Kathy had a son Doug by David Sutton. 

I don't believe Kathy ever had relatives on the show although I have seen Jamie Larson referred to as her sister in law.

Kathy was older than Liza when they were introduced - I think Liza was about 14/15 and Kathy early 20's?

Peter Simon left first in 77 and Peter Ratray took over as Scott before Scott and Kathy left town in 78.

[Mona Kane Croft]

I hated Peter Ratray as Scott.  But I thought Ratray was the Scott who briefly returned with Kathy when Nicolette Goulet took over the role.  I could be wrong.,  

 

[OzFrog]

 

This is an absolute goldmine. SOD recaps of SFT from 1975 up till the show finished. These should help you!

 

https://classicsodsft.tumblr.com/

[victoria foxton]

Thanks @OzFrog

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 I've been trying to find this with no luck.

[Paul Raven]

Just discovered that Search for Tomorrow was adapted for radio in Canada, using the TV scripts. Corinne Conley (Phyllis Anderson Curtis, Days) played Joanne. This article is from 1957.I'll try and find out when it began and ended.

 

 Esse Ljungh Offers Time-Honored Soap Operas By Jim Gonsalves

"I find that a lot of people deride sentiment because they are afraid of being branded as sentimental themselves. You may call it a sort of defence mechanism." Thus Esse Ljungh dismisses people who turn up their noses at that time-honored radio institution, the daytime serial Irreverently known as the soap opera. It's quite hard not to listen to Ljungh's defence of "soaps" because the Swedish-born CBC producer has ample proof that he knows what he's talking about. In his twenty years in the business he has stacked up an Imposing collection of drama awards, including many coveted Ohio State firsts. As long ago as 1942, two years after becoming a producer In the CBC's Prairie Region, he was honored for out-Ljungh standing work in the development of drama in Canada

 

In constant demand as a staff producer on CBC Radio, Toronto, Ljungh finds time to handle "Search for Tomorrow", a five-a-week adaptation on the CBC's Trans Canada net of a TV serial originally done in the U.S. "Most soap operas today are exceedingly well done," Ljungh maintains, "and when well done, they do represent a specific style in dramatic radio presentation. A soap opera poses the same problems and laxes a producer's ingenuity as much or more than any other form of dramatic presentation." "Admittedly it isn't great literature," he continues, "but it is a dramatized picture of life, the sort of life you'd see if you looked into your next door neighbour's living room window. It takes a great deal of skill on the part of writer, producer and actor to achieve that form of naturalism that isn't dependent on a series of understatements."

 

Who listens to "soap operas"? Ljungh points out that in this age of television the bulk of listeners to radio serials comes from the mature group of housewives who grew up with the "soap opera". "For this very reason," he says, "you'll find that the main characters in "Search for Tomorrow" aren't kids. They're mature adults with whom the audience can easily identify themselves. "This brings us to audience participation, not the sort of participation which gives rise to bagfulls of money and free washing machines, but that unique participation peculiar to the radio listener. The listener plays' as much as the actors. Her imagination gives form to the voices and translates sound into action."  Ljungh feels that in television the viewer has to be spoon-fed whereas the radio listener, over the past twenty years, has developed the sense of participation to such an extent that the radio serial, unhampered by the need to underscore the obvious, is able to move along at a much faster clip.

 

Ljungh adapts and rewrites the TV scripts of "Search for Tomorrow" himself. A television writer usually tries to get away with as little dialogue as possible, relying more on the picture to tell the story. It's the opposite in radio, but where lines have to be added, Ljungh is able to cut out much unnecessary action. He sometimes boils down two TV episodes to one on radio. The tightening up process which goes on in converting "Search" to radio pays off for the sponsor as well as the audience. The show moves so fast and Ljungh keeps his plot so tight that the listener literally can't afford to miss an episode without losing the thread of the story. While some critics claim to be able to get along well without "soap operas", most actors will readily sing a different tune.

 

So far, over 40 Canadian actors have been used on "Search for Tomorrow", many of them top rated triple-threat players (stage-TV-radio). The female lead on "Search" is played by Corinne Conley. a familiar personality on CBC-TV, whom director David Greene once described as "the most convincing actress I have ever known". The cast of top-notchers also included Paul Kligman, actor-writer Tommy Tweed, Doug "Hap" Masters, Iris Cooper, James Doohan, William Needles and veteran Frank Peddie. Ljungh insists that his actors approach their roles in "Search" with the same degree of intensity as they would for a "CBC Stage" production. "And it's hard work," he says. "We record the shows In advance. Every Thursday we start at nine in the morning and work through to five-thirty. That way we can do five shows. The artists' contract allows 75 minutes per show. They get an hour off for lunch and fifteen minute break between each episode." "Soap opera" critics often claim that if the serials went they could be replaced by more "worthwhile" programs. Ljungh shrugs this off easily. "The housewives don't want great literature while they're doing the ironing or vacuuming the rug. People still gossip. In the country they still listen in on the party lines." 

[DRW50]

Thanks, Paul. That is fascinating. I never knew that. Guess it didn't last long.

 

I think Courtney Simon is the mother in this ad.

 

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