Jackie Babbin interview 1982

[Paul Raven]

From the November 23rd issue of Soap Opera Digest.

Babbin died in 2001.She went on to exec produce Loving.In 1970 she was producer of the short lived soap The Best of Everything.She also authored a couple of murder mystery novels.

Hope you enjoy the inter view.

While the rest of soapdom was toying with sci-fi and movie ripoffs,one soap- Agnes Nixon's baby,All My Children,was consistently bringing its audience believable characters,good writing and stories everyone could relate to. The payoff came when AMC became the #1rated soap earlier this year.(At this writing AMC and GH are tied for the #1 spot)

AMC is one of the few soaps that still has some of the original writers-who know the story and the characters inside out. And then there is its new executive producer Jacqueline Babbin,60,a working producer since 1954.After making the highly acclaimed telefilm' Sybil' starring Sally Field,she moved to LA to became an ABC VP of novels and limited series. Babbin was bored and hated California. When Jackie Smith called and asked her if she was interested in taking over AMC,Babbin said yes

Today,she affectionately calls herself 'The mayor of Pine Valley'.When I first met her,she emerged from her light filled office in beige pants and a checkered shirt-gardeners clothes. She is a very tall woman,who is also very warm and witty-not characteristics one associates with an Executive Producer. For ten minutes she talks unabashedly about Bonkers her cat,who,through sheer nepotism,won a role on AMC as the foxy feline Palmer gifted Daisy with. Her wall space is almost completely covered with cat posters,pictures and assorted paraphernalia. Later,she would show me a folder devoted exclusively to Bonker's fan mail. We settled in at her round table to discuss how AMC became the #1 soap.

SOD Why did you take this show?

JB There were two things I really wanted to do,one was to produce,the other was to come back to New York. I really don't know which was more important. I think producing was. I think that if you're doing what you really want to do,you can be happy almost anywhere except LA(chuckles).In daytime the producer has a very big say in story. You work with the writers and you also have a big say in casting. I have my finger in every aspect of this show.

SOD What did you think of AMC before you took over?

JB I thought all the men were wimps. I thought the dialogue was from the 18^th century. I though the attitudes were very middle aged,and also,the show was incredibly slow. It bored me.

SOD Then why did it always maintain a high place in the ratings?

JB Because the characters were very interesting. They have their feet grounded in total reality,with psychological truths. I think the idea of AMC,with people from all facets of life,in a little fictional town,is very appealing. Everything inherent in the show is still there,I just sped it up.

SOD What else did you do?

JB I brought in a few new men,and guarded them very carefully so their characters will be less woman dominated. Steve Jacobi is very much a maverick. Palmer is his boss,but he will stand up to him because he is entitled to his point of view. Also the way we have been dressing Dack(who plays Steve)is less Brooks Brothers and more Ralph Lauren. When we first hired Dack,I told him I loved the way he looked and if he ever combed his hair,I'd kill him(laughs)Also the character of Greg. We have him standing up to his mother. He's still a very well-mannered boy,but he is somebody who has likes of his own,and is not about to be sat on by the women about him. Women are are a large part of our audience;they like strong female characters,but they have to be able to respect the men too.

SOD How did you feel when you learned the show had become #1?

JB Excited. It's always a nice feeling because I think the potential has always been within the show,it just needed a slight boost.I don't think soaps need as much recap as they offer. The audience is pretty hip,they're mote intelligent than they're given credit for. If you're going to recap,do it dramatically.

SOD How so?

JB Make every scene have a reason to stand on it's own. For example,we recently had one where there was tremendous fight between Myra and Daisy. The point was to recap that daisy was having an affair with Palmer. But the scene was a very good one because it also showed the mother/daughter relationship-this was a fight that two characters could honestly have.

SOD What storylines were happening when the show went to #1?

JB I think two things pushed us there,one was Jenny and Jesse running away to New York,and the various speculations about what was going to happen to them; the other was the re-introduction of the Ray Gardner character,who is marvellously larger than life. Also the Opal/Langley,Erica/Silver and Nina/Steve/Daisy/Palmer stories. We had about five or six really strong stories going. We don't rely on just one,or one character to carry us forward.

SOD If the assumption can be made that everyone wants their show to be the best,why do think some shows are so boring?

JB Well,maybe some people aren't very good. I don't know what restrictions are placed on various shows. To me,the ABC owned shows have a lot of sparkle the others don't have. Friends have told me that the story conferences at P&G shows amount to 15-20 people getting together...you can't have astory conference with that many people!Decisions made that way get you the lowest common denominator of creativity. I think ours is superior. I've seen other shows where I can't tell one blonde apart from the rest. All the actors are very pretty but can't act. I think a lot of the soaps,particularly the LA shows,just cast plastic dolls.

SOD Is there a certain pressure placed on you to make sure you stay #1?

JB No. I don't have the vaguest idea how to stay there,except to just keep getting better. I still think a lot of the dialogue needs to be revved up and made more interesting. We are getting new actors,new sets-the hottest New York club ever seen on television,and a new apartment for Ellen in new York..The acting is getting better,the directing,we still need better music...

SOD Do you work closely with Jackie Smith?

JB I work with her,but more with Josie Emmerich. We meet every Thursday and very often Wisner Washam(head writer),Agnes Nixon and some of the story editors are there. We discuss the five outlines I get each week. They tell me what they haven't liked production wise,and I tell them the problems we are having. For instance,I've learned Stephen Parr(Rick Kincaid)plays a mean guitar,so I've asked that that be incorporated into the scripts. We also discuss six month projections every three months,then three months later,review what we've done.

SOD Final question-what is your favorite part of your job?

JB (laugh) Being able to get my cat on the show!

[Chris B]

Interesting. I can't believe how frank she was about the problems with the show. Would they say that now? I recall when McTavish was fired Frons came up with some silly excuse about her needing a break. Now it seems the writers let the interviewers highlight the problems and they just giggle and nod their heads. She let it all hang out. I kinda like that because you can look at what specifically she's changing and look for that. Not generalized "I want to respect the history" "More romance."

AMC fans: Would you say she was good/successful? Clearly the show went to #1. How long did she stick around?

[Steve]

I believe she stuck around until 1986.

Yes, her tenure was mostly successful. In particular, the Greg/Jenny, Angie/Jesse and Cliff/Nina stories from that era stand out in my mind.

[EricMontreal22]

Aww the days when SOD had actually interesting interviews.

Thanks so much for posting this! A few random thoughts...

It's kinda funny she mentions how masculine, etc, Dack Rambo as Steve Jacobi is--he certainly was handsome but ina sadly ironic footnote of course he left his role on AW in the early 90swhen he was sick of AIDS, which came about from hisbisexuality (not getting too into stereotypes, I just find it kinda amusing this guy she cast to bring more masculinity to the show and power was probably unbeknownst to most, havign gay relationships). Steve Jacobi only lasted a year but I guess his exit was more story dictated than a sign that the character was a failure (I could be corrected here).

It's interesting what she says about the show--Schemering and others have said that in the 70s,before it went to an hour the show suffered from weak male characters (and cheap sets) as well but by the late 70s this had changed. Incidentally AMC already hadhit the number one position a few times in the late 70s immediately before GH took over--this article implies it was a first. To me even more interesting is Agnes Nixon claims that from the start on all her shows she set out to have more complex and involved male characters than soaps usually had but I guess many thougth AMC still suffered from this some in the 70s anyway.

Certainly Jackie is right--when the show hit number one it *was* very good, from all I've seen and read and the stories she mentions. She says they're gonna have the hottest New York tyle club set ever--was this the kinda in hindsight hysterical Erica's Disco? LOL All the ideas she has to produce the show are ones that make sense to me (although some of what she sayskinda contradicts things--like she says the show suffered from 18th Century attitudes then she admits how complex and interesting the characters before she came in still were). I like what she says about west coast soaps suffering particularly from casting blonde barbies though this kinda trend (for the men and the women)has only gotten worse since then--on both coasts (though I stil lfind West Coast soaps worse--I hope AMC doesn't suffer too much). YEah we want hot people on the soaps but sometimes when the town looks liek it's filled with cookie cutter fashion models it becomes hard to care...

She lasted till 1986--does anyone know why she left? I know that it was around 86-88 that AMC was seen to suffer a slight drop in quality and ratings (and then Behr was hired to do an overhaul in 89). So it sounds like for the most part she did do good for the show. Her brief time at Loving (justover a year over 90-91) on the other hand really didn't seem to do much for that show's fortunes creatively or ratings wise from what I can tell--the revamp and refocus of the show back to the campus happened one or two years after she left (funny she mentions talking with Josie Emmerich who was an EP at Loving when Agnes Nixon returned around 94--when I thought it was really good).

Certainly hiring the woman who produced such prestige tv movies as Sybil would seem quite a coup.

*edit* Dack left AMC I guess cuz he was offered the role in the primetime soap Paper Dolls, which didn't run long but did lead to his role on Dallas the following year, so I guess we can say that her casting of him was a success.

[Sylph]

[Jonathan]

I felt like I was reading an interview from 2010. Some of what she said applies to the show today. What she said about P&G could apply to what ABC is now.

[R Sinclair]

Only because it's true.

[Sylph]

Of course!

[EricMontreal22]

Interesting when she left, Jorn Winther returned for a few months--maybe as a favour? I wonder why he left in '82 anyway--was he fired? he immediately went on to Produce the (flop) nightime syndicated daily soap Rituals.

[Khan]

Ironically, since moving to NYC, Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren have become my two favorite places to shop/visit, lol.

[LoyaltoAMC]

My 2 cents on Babbin: I remember reading that article when it first came out. I liked the antiquated dialogue and the long "boring" scenes before Babbin showed up. I remember one of the mags summing up AMC pre-Babbin as "a great show...that moves at a snail's pace." There was such a sense of class and even majesty about the show under Jorn Winther's first go-around that I think was lost a bit when they modernized the dialogue and sped stories along. It seemed smart and literate under Winther. Before Babbin, there also seemed to be an emphasis of character over plot, which seemed to totally reverse itself with Babbin. I rewatched some of the early Babbin shows from 83. They were really good, so much better than the crap we have today...but you could tell that it was becoming more about plot and using characters solely as plot devices. Of course Babbin came to AMC just around time Agnes began concentrating on creating Loving and gave more power to Wisner Washam. My guess is that if Agnes had been more involved during the Babbin era, she would've had the power to push for more character-driven stuff. Wisner was a good writer, but maybe he didn't have the power at ABC to go over Babbin's head about the types of stories he wanted to tell. Besides being more and more plot-driven, the there didn't seem to be any long-term planning. Wisner is quoted in Jean Rouverel's(sp?) book on soap writing from around this era as saying that the show doesn't project storylines beyond six weeks. The ratings and quality really began to suffer in 1985 after the Zack Grayson murder mystery ended. SOD called AMC the most disappointing show of 1985 with silly, inane stories that went nowhere. Of course it didn't help things that AMC lost a many of its popular leading ladies in quick succession from 83-85 (Dorothy Lyman, Kim Delaney, Marcy Walker, Taylor Miller, Gillian Spencer). And many of the vets that were left were pushed to the backburner for the teens during this time. All in all, I think Babbin may have gone overboard and fixed too much that wasn't broken in her attempt to modernize the show.

[quartermainefan]

Having watched in that period, she was very successful. I had no idea who she was, but that period of AMC is classic. I like this quote from her:

All those stories were first rate. They also encompassed different ages, and covered drama and comedy. Just going by her description of what worked we see teens on the run, stuffy Langley cheating on Phoebe with crass Opal, OTT villainy with Ray, and a combination of romance and scheming to stop romance with Palmer, Nina and Steve (who was brought in by Palmer to keep Nina away from Cliff as I recall). I forget what Daisy's angle was at this juncture, whether Palmer was actually married to Donna at the time, but they offered something for everyone. And Erica and Silver wasn't even about romance, but a straight up revenge story (that I recall turned into murder).

Soaps forgot all this and instead put all their eggs in one dull basket.

[quartermainefan]

Dack Rambo was a manly man, and his sexuality didn't change that. Cliff was positively effete in comparison to Steve.

[DRW50]

This is interesting, because when I watch the AMC of those years, although I think the show is great, I do see how much is down to those fascinating female characters. I can imagine that so many of them leaving and having somewhat bland replacements (wasn't 1985-1986 the era of the Jenny doppleganger, and Hunter Tylo's character, and so on) might have caused a lull.

I was surprised at how willing she was to call out the P&G shows.

[Sylph]

Not only P&G! She basically slaps Agnes Nixon for writing a drearily paced 18th century show!