Proposed Soaps Over The Years

[DRW50]

Thanks. Melissa Sue Anderson playing blind again. I guess this was Grant's biggest role outside of soaps.

[Paul Raven]

Actress Margaret'Maggie'Hayes was approached by CBS for the lead in the proposed Mildred Pierce back in 57/58.She was a movie and TV vet of that era who later did Flame in The Wind soap on ABC in the mid 60's.

[Paul Raven]

Jorn Winther was set as exec producer on NBC's proposed Always Is Not Forever. It was based on the Helen Van Slyke novel.

[Paul Raven]

Variety reported in 1983 that NBC had made a 13 week commitment to Flamingo Road with a 3pm timeslot.

[Paul Raven]

1964 - Bright Horizon.Frank Price exec producer.He was also involved in NBC's nightime western The Virginian and the idea was to do a period western for daytime.It was to be 'an outdoor period piece'.One of the leads would be a 'young doctor character'.i guess this was for NBC.

[Paul Raven]

In 1964,Univeral TV announced plans to enter the lucrative daytime TV market with a proposed 8-10 soaps.Bertram Berman,head of their daytime division,revealed 3 of them

A New Land,centering on the population explosion in Southern California,Bright Horizon based in part on The Virginian feature film and Magnificent Obsession,based on the movie.Universal contract players would be used in these projects.

Sounds like it was a syndication plan.Seems ambitious and never took off.

[DRW50]

This is fascinating stuff. I'd never heard of any of this.

A New Land sounds like it would have been a great idea.

[Paul Raven]

In 1960,ABC proposed Hope Springs

Title refers to a town in the west during the 1860' s. ABC calls it a"new daytime serial story of the.frontier west from the viewpoint of the thewomen who helped to build it." It has a sheriff, one Gar Ferguson, "the quiet, efficient sheriff of Hope Springs whose past is a subject of conjecture." It also has a newspaper editor, his crippled wife,a doctor,a neurotic boy and a lovesick girl,all natural elements of the 20th century soaper Show was created and will be supervised by Frank & Doris Hursley, writers of Search For Tomorrow.

[Paul Raven]

In 1960,CBS also had two soaps in development. Mrs January was written by Jan Winters and Eve Etiriger and The Precious Hour was from Frank and Doris Hursley. Variety reported they were being held until timeslots opened up for them.

[DRW50]

I wish some of these had been made. I wonder what Mrs. January was about.

[Gray Bunny]

I wonder how well a new soap opera would've done had NBC gone through with their intended plans of replacing Santa Barbara with another soap, whether it be "Coming of Age" or "Manhattan Lives". A January 1993 debut would've meant a whole year-and-1/2 before the O.J. Simpson saga began, plus soaps were still doing very well at the time (Y&R would hit 9's a couple times in 1994!). The new NBC soap might've fared much better than their 1997 debut of Sunset Beach.

[Khan]

A housewife who becomes a magazine centerfold?

[Khan]

It might've. OTOH, because I think soaps take a long time to build an audience, and because it still would have been in a fragile state creative- and ratings-wise, the new NBC soap might've been the first post-O.J. casualty.

[Paul Raven]

Zoe Tate mentioned NBC Undercurrents a few pages back.Lucy Johnson,later at CBS ,was at NBC in 1982 and described it as a contemporary horror suspense melodrama in the Dark Shadows vein.

Also at that time NBC had Fame & Fortune in development-about the lives and loves of people working on a glossy magazine,and Bell.Book and Candle ,a romantic comedy from the play and movie of the 50's.

[Paul Raven]

1963 CBS had City Clinic in the works as all the networks developed medical soaps following the success of Ben Casey and Dr Kildare.