"Secret Storm" memories.

[Paul Raven]

Jed Allan as Paul Britton with Jada.That role would have to set some kind of record as there were 6 Pauls in 6 years.And they were all soap 'names'. In addition to Allan,there was Linden Chiles,Ed Kemmer,Ryan MacDonald,Nic Coster and Conard Fowkes. Why couldn't they hold onto the actors and why the constant recasts?

[DRW50]

July 1970 TV by Day

[Paul Raven]

Marjorie never returned? Was Grace mentioned again?

[Brent]

Secret Storm audio is great listening! Many thanks!

Joan Crawford (who like many stars of her era was a frequent network radio gueststar--"Lux Presents Hollywood" etc.) does fine here. Her vocal performance is on par with network radio. Listen to all her characteristic inflections--all the honeyed venom, "I don't care if you go to Outer Mongolia!". These declamations are very much in the vein of her then current feature, "Berserk" which you should see for comparison.

She is certainly not drunk--no way, though she may have, (like Joan Bennett on DS--see Roger Davis' story of her flask) may have taken a few swigs to steady her nerves. Wish we had the video though--if only for the clothes.

Ken Roberts announcement as I recall but it was audio only--he did not appear on camera.

Incidentally, I never meant Grace Tyrell was a shrinking violet. She couldn't have been to checkmate Pauline--but every inch a lady in the old grand dame way--completely vanished by the way in 2011.

Love this very much,

Best,

Brent C.

[DRW50]

I'd been hoping you would get to hear this, Brent. As always I really appreciate your insights and memories.

Grace was recast in the show's last few years.

[DRW50]

Another treat from the invaluable saynotoursoap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIFmn2blnps&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkccNbpMfg8&feature=autoplay&list=ULSIFmn2blnps&lf=mfu_in_order&playnext=1

[DRW50]

September 1968 TV Picture Life

[DRW50]

show. She was involved with Paul, then bore an illegitimate child, then married Kip Rysdale (played by Ed Griffith), then divorced him and married Paul (played by Jed Allen). Jada left the series, took a vacation, then went on As the World Turns for eight months as Susan Stewart, dropping out only to return to Secret Storm.

Away from the show, Nicolas and Jada are different people. Nicolas is extremely articulate, outgoing, friendly, even-tempered. Jada is more emotional, impulsive, moody. Both endured personal problems during their early runs on Secret Storm. Jada got a Mexican divorce in July of 1966 from Nicholas Hyams, an actor turned producer and writer. As for Nicolas, his little daughter Candace Nicole, now almost five, was ill for a couple of years. The child had suffered infections about once a month and had been hospitalized for all kinds of tests. Finally the trouble was pinpointed and an operation made her well again.

And today, both Nicola' and Jada's personal lives seem to be in good shape.

Nicolas was born in London on Dec. 3, 1934, to a New Zealander father, Ian Coster, and an American mother, Martha. His father was a film critic and columnist, and his mother had worked as a newspaper reporter in New York. But Nicolas didn't follow his parents into the newspaper field. He wanted to go on to the stage. His high school principal scolded him once for being mischievous: "You'll never become an actor because you don't have the vocal equipment.!"

"Actually," recalls Nicolas, "I had the equipment - a six-not range. But it lacked tone and resonance. I licked that problem with the help of speech specialists and singing teachers. It cost $10,000, and worth it!"

His mother brought him, his brother Ian Jr., and sister Georgina to California in 1940, to get away from the German blitz on England. They grew up in Hollywood, where his mother worked as a screenwriter. At 16, Nicolas returned to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, then acted on British TV, and, two years later, returned to Hollywood to appear in many movies. He joined the U.S. Army 3d Infantry, and was stationed for two years in Washington, D.C. And then in 1958 he became an American citizen.

It was while attending a Lee Strasberg acting class in 1960 that he met a fellow student, Candace Hilligoss. Within three weeks they were engaged, and, after three months spent touring in summer stock together, they married.

Of course, like all young actors and actresses, they didn't have much money. "But we did manage to have a beautiful wedding," says Nicolas. We had a bottle of champagne given to us by Elizabeth Wilson, who loaned us her apartment in New York. What a honeymoon! We had $37 and the use of an apartment for two weeks! I remember how, after the wedding, we went over to the 86th St. Automat and had Salisbury Steak (a fancy name for hamburger) and cream spinach. And then we went back to our apartment to sip our champagne!"

Nicolas was 26 then, and his friends were surprised when he married. "They thought of me as a perennial bachelor."

But he knew The Right Girl when he saw her. He rhapsodizes: "Candace is from Huron, D.C. She is very pretty, but not a conventional type of beauty. She's the Jeanne Moreau type. I think she has more talent than I do, and if she gets the right role she'll be a bigger star than I'll ever be!

"She's so feminine! I feel strongly about feminine women. They can be actresses, artists, etc. and still be feminine. So many women think you must be either a drudge or a career woman. They equate women with drudgery.

"My wife is wonderful. There are certain times when an artist needs solicitousness. It's all right, except when both man and wife want it at the same time. Then there's trouble. The saving grace is a sense of humor."

Candace has turned down a lot of roles because she doesn't want to go out of town. As the mother of two small girls, she believes she ought to stay close to home.

They had a rough time at the beginning. Nicolas worked 12 hours a day six days a week to make $125 a week, and Candace taught dancing to children. "It was the low point of our lives. And then I got my first Broadway play, as stand-in for Laurence Olivier in "Becket."

From then on, he managed. He did other plays, played summer stock, returned to Broadway as standby for John Mills in "Ross." He doubled in the daytime by appearing as Dr. Steele on Young Dr. Malone for a year.

But more important than his career was his marriage. "Getting married," he says now, "gave me a sort of personal discipline, by affecting my work for the better. I stopped chasing girls. When you're single, you spend a life just hunting girls. It's great when an actor has a wife who helps domestically and artistically. For me, Candace is great. When I com e home and ask, 'What do you think?', she tells me what's wrong. It's a professional question and a professional answer. She has flawless taste. Criticizing my work does not cause disagreement in our house."

Nicolas feels he's been "inching my way up and becoming a better actor." He feels he's "never had a big break," and adds, "I've been looking back and evaluating my work - and I think I'm getting there."

He remembers how his high school principal downgraded his voice quality and points out that in 1957, playing at the Barter Theatre in Abington, Va., Coster is a first-rate male lead. His voice inflection is superb and he commands a vast range of acting talents."

He is sure of himself now, and he recalls how when he was 16 he was asked why he thought he could become an actor. He replied, "Because I've got patience."

His parents divorced when he was a boy, and he recalls returning to London at 16, eager to see his father, who had remarried. "My father talked only about what he knew well: he wrote more than he spoke. In London, I went to his club to see him. He looked at me and said, 'After 10 years, blood ties don't mean a hell of a lot. It's just a matter of whether you like a person or not. And I think I will like you!"

He has fond memories of his mother, too. "Mother was a great conversationalist. She demanded that, if you talk, you have something original to say. But we were never repressed. A lot of people who are shy were repressed by their parents. Mother would say to us, 'Keep talking, but clarify.' She sacrificed so much to raise us three kids."

He and his brother, now a veterinarian in California, often ran away from home. "We'd hike into the hills for a few days, and mother would take it very emotionally. She was trying to be both mother and father, and it just can't be done."

Nicolas is an enthusiastic talker, and Candace kids him because he has an opinion on practically everything. "I enjoy talking," he says. "And, once in a while, I pause to examine the words."

But he's not just an indoor talker; he's also quite an athlete. He's a lean five-foot-eleven and 170 pounds (with dark brown hair and green eyes), and for years owned a motorcycle. "Motorcycling is absolutely therapeutic! The element of danger is as exciting as is the mastery of such a powerful machine." But now that he has two young daughters, he has gotten rid of the motorcycle and switched to boating. That's more of a family sport.

He boasts that he has three beautiful, blue-eyed blondes at home: Candace and the two little girls. He has been raising the girls on Dr. Spock. "I'm really hung up on Dr. Spock!"

He and Candace have a lot of show business friends, including the Sam Grooms. When he and Sam played the brothers John and Tom Eldredge on Our Private World, they used to play tennis a lot and ride their motorcycles together, and they've stayed friends.

Although Nicolas married at 26, he thinks "a man should be at least 30 and the girl 25 before marrying, although it's a highly individual thing and some mature faster than others."

Some day, when he's rich and famous, he hopes to own a town house in New York and a beach house in Malibu, and to travel a lot.

Jada Rowland, like Nicolas, loves to travel. She's been to Paris four times, and likes to go to Hollywood. At the moment, she lives in a midtown New York apartment, and she is often visited by her kid sister, Gigi, and her brothers, Jeff and Gregor. They're all in acting, and right now they're busy with commercials. Their mother, who was widowed in December of 1966, still lives in the family home in Staten Island, right in the New York harbor.

Jada is feeling fine after being ill with mononucleosis last year, and she is still decorating her penthouse apartment. She moved into it in February of 1966, after having separated from her husband, and she's done a lot of redecorating. The bathroom had been navy blue and the living room pink: she painted them white. And she got rid of a lot of curtains and shades that had been cutting out the light. She can go out onto the terrace and gaze at the midtown rooftops and the skyscrapers nearby.

She says she doesn't have any new romance in her life; she's been cautious in her love life since the divorce. But there is something new in her life. It started with a dream. "I dreamed about a lovely dog, and then I dreamed about him again. So I went over to the library, studied books about dogs, and recognized the dog in my dreams as a Pomeranian. So I went out and bought one. It's my first dog, and I love him!"

Well, her dog will have to do until a pretty, sensitive Jada again finds a man to love.

Meanwhile, her Secret Storm love life is flourishing, now that she and Nicolas have brought Amy and Paul back to the screen!

BY HELEN MARTIN

[DRW50]

December 1962 TV Radio Mirror

[DRW50]

Why does a man marry a woman much younger than himself? The healthy reasons are based on love. Neurotic reasons make love less important than the satisfaction of one's needs...an attempt to recapture his youth, a need to assert his masculinity and build up his ego...In the case of a second marriage, a man might choose a girl because she reminds him of his first bride - or because the loss of his wife suddenly makes him feel very old and only a lively young female can make him feel different.

A wide difference in ages doesn't necessarily mean the marriage is doomed to fail. If love exists, if the older partner has the physical stamina to keep up with the younger - if the relationship satisfies mutual needs - the couple can certainly make it work. However, when one or both have children by a previous marriage, complications may occur.

To understand Peter and Myra, we must first know how they came to find one another. Peter had lost his first wife - whom he loved deeply - through a tragic accident. He was left with three children: Amy, a teenager; Jerry, a bachelor in his mid-twenties; and Susan, nearing thirty and not too happily married...Myra, on the other hand, had never been wed and was well on her way to spinsterhood. A highly sensitive schoolteacher, she met Peter after having been of great help to his daughter Amy.

The path to matrimony wasn't easy for Peter and Myra. There were continual delays and difficulties, most important of which was Myra's reluctance to finalize her marriage to Peter because she still felt a strong attraction to another man. When the latter tried to seduce her, she finally turned from him completely - but she required psychoanalytic treatment to help her do so.

Peter offered her security. He was an established businessman - who could have married his late wife's older sister. In choosing Myra, he turned his back on a woman who had found favor with his children, and took as a wife a woman who was comparatively a stranger to them.

When a man remarries, he evaluated his second wife sexually, socially and domestically - and if his earlier marriage was successful, he'll undoubtedly seek someone who reminds him of the loved one he lost. Perhaps Peter knew his sister-in-law too well...which is why he spurned her for Myra, who challenged his masculinity.

But Myra appears to be a terribly disturbed young woman who hasn't yet resolved her social and sexual problems. Perhaps this is why she found Peter attractive. He is older, stronger, and offers her a ready-made family - meaning, to her, that he will make fewer demands of her sexually. His children, however, may be embarrassed by Peter's marriage because, in their young minds, they may consider their father's behavior foolish and "over-sexed"!

Peter's marriage to Myra created problems in the family from the start. Amy is fond of Myra. Older brother Jerry can take her or leave her, but would rather leave her. Big sister Susan - almost as old as her new mother - cannot accept her at all. And Myra, so untrue of herself, is unable to demonstrate any real warmth to win Susan over.

Susan and Myra cannot get along because they are rivals. To Myra, who looks upon Peter as a "fatherly" person offering refuge and affection, Susan becomes an interloper. To Susan, who demands her dad's total attention, any consideration on his part toward his second wife becomes unbearable. Here we have, in essence, the reason why a man must consider the needs of his children when he remarries. He must, in fact, consider three needs: His own, his wife-to-be's and his children's. When he marries a younger woman, he must expect that a daughter almost the same age will vie with his new wife for his attention.

As troubles multiply, Peter is invariably thrust into the middle. Like many other men, he tries to act "neutral," refusing to take sides. But this very refusal seems to place him on the side of his children and against his wife. He's so understanding of his offspring, he leans over backward in order to "play fair" with them.

But is he being fair to his wife? And, in the long run, is he being fair to his children?

Peter is not being fair to anybody. And he is not offering emotional support of the proper sort to either side. By not taking a stand, he allows his children to take unfair advantage of Myra and helps to wreck his marriage. Although his first loyalty must be to his children, he must nevertheless play fair with his wife.

It seems likely that Peter experienced his "great love" with his first wife, and thus may expect more of Myra as a companion and housekeeper than as a sweetheart. But Myra has not had her "great love." She not only demands the security offered by a man of means but also craves the romance a love wold give. Her attitude may be unreal - but her needs are very real to her.

Once again, Myra has been forced to seek professional help. Earlier, her minister had sent her to a psychoanalyst. Now it's her family doctor who does so. And, this time, she consults a female analyst.

But, in spite of treatment, her relationship with Peter continues to deteriorate. She becomes interested in another man, lets herself become involved in an affair with him. Psychiatric treatment doesn't deter her, Peter becomes ineffectual in winning her back, the marriage seems doomed.

Is "single blessedness" better?

Myra's need for psychoanalytic treatment makes sense. The only thing that doesn't is her need to seek a referral from her family doctor, inasmuch as she had undergone such treatment previously. One gets the impression that Myra is really trying to avoid getting help, seeking an extra-marital affair to avoid coming to grips with the problems and - unconsciously, perhaps - trying to break up her marriage in order to return to her previous state of single blessedness. Marriage may have demanded more of Myra than she could handle!

If Myra doesn't truly want such help, her previous analytic treatment could not have been successful and the later one would be doomed to failure, too. Such treatment must be responded to on an emotional (not an intellectual) level, if it is to be helpful. It makes little difference whether the analyst be male or female. The important thing is whether the patient really wants help.

Myra may be the sort of person who just "goes through the motions," not really wanting to change at all. She may be unhappy, but her personality structure may make it possible for her to live with herself. She may always suffer - but she may suffer less as a single person than as a wife....Peter, however, might be able to help both himself and his family by seeking psychiatric treatment. He would find out what he truly desires, both for himself and for his children, and thus be able to choose more wisely if he decides to leave Myra and find a new wife.

The story of Peter Ames is, unfortunately, the story of many men in real life who suddenly lose their wives and then marry women years younger than themselves. "The Secret Storm" is refreshing, in that it acknowledges the weaknesses in human beings. So sit back, enjoy the story and try to learn something from it. But remember that Peter and Myra are only make believe, after all.

Next month, we'll take a look at another favorite TV drama and try to make it meaningful in your own life.

[dc11786]

The Coster / Rowland article is nice. I think this was really the show's last big push to revive the Ames clan. I think Peter's death was meant to open up Valerie's story potential and bringing Amy and Paul back into the story was smart since they were such a dynamic couple. If the show had continued, I wonder if Paul would have reentered the story and fought Kevin Kincaid for Amy's affection.

Myra's story is fascinating, but I wish they were more specific in their details. I think the analysis of the storyline is rather intriguing and I wonder how much of this was actual subtext. The idea Susan hated Myra because she thought of her replacing her not only as Peter's wife, but because Myra viewed Peter as a father figure is intriguing. I really wish more of this serial was available, but I am grateful for has made its way online.

Thanks again, Carl.

[Paul Raven]

Margaret Hamilton,best remembered from The Wizard of Oz,recounts that her role on Storm was one of her favorites

I did a whole stack of Studio One live dramas and I did all the series of the time like Phil Silvers. My best TV time was on "The Secret Storm," the afternoon CBS soaper for four years (1953-57) as the maid. My employer was Marjorie Gateson, that great old timer from my Hollywood era. We’d acted together in "Stablemates" (1938) and here we were on live afternoon TV!

Full interview here

http://thecolumnists...n/bawden64.html

Edited October 25, 2011 by Paul Raven

[DRW50]

I wish we could see some of that. I know she was on ATWT too.

[Paul Raven]

Variety reports that in Sept 71 Bethel Leslie and Jerry Day leave as headwriters to write film scripts.

[DRW50]

November 1973 Daytime TV.