Proposed Soaps Over The Years

[Paul Raven]

1975 CBS developing a black soap opera out of a sitcom pilot' Change at 125th Street.'

An African-American Harvard grad works at an otherwise all-white Wall Street brokerage while living with his mother, sister and uncle in Harlem.

[Paul Raven]

Carl,re the Y&R spinoff you mentioned a few pages back.In May 77,Variety reported that CBS had a Bill Bell show in development.Maybe they are one and the same.

[DRW50]

Thank you so much for finding all of this. The idea of a black soap on a major network, especially on conservative CBS, fascinates me.

I always assumed B&B or Rags or whatever was the Bell pilot but maybe it was the spinoff.

[Paul Raven]

In 1970 MGM TV was developing a daytime soap based on its 1953 movie The Bad and the Beautiful

[DRW50]

Alan Feinstein said in 1967 he made a pilot for a soap that would have been set on a ranch or was Western-themed.

[Paul Raven]

1973 MGM TV moves into daytime.Among the projects was a serial based on the classic flick Grand Hotel.

[Paul Raven]

1975 Freyda Rothstein is developing a daytime serial based on Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby for CBS.

A soap about a woman carrying the devil's spawn...no wonder that one never got off the ground.

[DRW50]

Didn't they make that into a TV movie with Donna Mills?

[DRW50]

From a 1/84 Digest.

Two Rauch-produced soaps for CBS Daytime and 20th-Century Fox. One called "Star Crossed", written by Fred Mustard Stewart, about the auto industry in Detroit. The other is the previously mentioned "The Billionaires," with Barbara Bauer, about the wealthiest family in America. The show had been renamed "The Barons." He was also working on a three-hour special written by Pat Falken Smith, called "Second Honeymoon."

More info on the ultimately failed pilot starring Jaime Lyn Bauer and John McCook - "Together Again." It was based on a book by Felix B. Cignel, about a very popular American singer and the woman he loves, who happens to be the daughter of a powerful Mexican magnate.

[CSF]

I suppose "Grosse Pointe" was the working title for "Star Crossed" as wasn't that also the same thing (auto industry setting, etc)?

[Paul Raven]

Rita Lakin,who had written The Doctors in the late 60's was reported as being signed to write the 'bible' for Young Loves of General Hospital.

[DRW50]

An August 1977 TV by Day mentions rumors that CBS was preparing a new show for fall, called Bitter Hill, and would be similar to Dark Shadows. These "sources" claimed that CBS had bought Dark Shadows and was keeping the show from being repeated, so as to not conflict with Bitter Hill. Jonathan Frid was likely to star.

[Paul Raven]

More from Variety

1964 Dick Clark Productions options 'From This Day Forward' scripted by Robert J Shaw.

Another of the Universal daytime dramas as mentioned on the previous page was 'The Bitter and The Sweet' from Stirling Silliphant.

[DRW50]

Wasn't some other soap also given that working title? Lovers and Friends maybe?

[Paul Raven]

I think L&F was titled Into This House. HTSAM was proposed as From This Moment.

1963 Bob Brandt Productions proposes' Time For Challenge',soaper that would utilise location footage on the same budget as all studio efforts.Brandt was a stockbroker turned producer who was married to Janet Leigh.