The Road Of Life

[slick jones]

@DRW50  Thanks for letting me know--- looking forward to watching these!

[EricMontreal22]

Fascinating that Charles Gussman (who?) would get both a title card credit and an announcer credit.  Did anyone else in that era, aside from Phillips, get one?

[Paul Raven]

NY Times Oct 28 2000

Charles Gussman, 87, Dies; Spinner of Soap Opera Webs

Charles J. Gussman, who brought delightfully tangled plots, addictively picturesque characters and heaping doses of steamy romance to soap operas he wrote for radio and television, died on Oct. 18. He was 87 and lived on a farm in Holland, Pa.

Mr. Gussman was a master of a genre that once claimed 20 million radio listeners a day, from Cole Porter to housewives to construction workers on lunchtime breaks. He strove to bring wit and cleverness to what often seemed a melodramatic formula of failed love, insidious illness and, always, the ever-dangling hope that all questions might be answered in the next episode, said Anthony Heilbut, who is researching soap operas as part of a book he is writing.

With relish, ''he turned the already baroque story lines rococo,'' Mr. Heilbut said.

Among the radio serials for which Mr. Gussman wrote were ''The Road of Life,'' ''The Right to Happiness'' and ''Young Doctor Malone.'' All three were among the top-rated programs of the early 1950's, when daytime soap operas, usually 15 minutes long and named for the soap companies that sponsored them, attracted far more listeners than nighttime dramas.

A typical story line for the Malone program might go: Jerry Malone, a principled and idealistic physician in the little town of Three Oaks, goes to New York on a business trip; there he falls into the clutches of the treacherous Lucia Standish. Meanwhile, his wife, Ann, is fooling around with Sam Williams, an aggressive Three Oaks businessman.

Though these shows were far from serious drama, Arthur Miller and other serious young playwrights were more than willing to write such episodes. A basic requirement for success, Mr. Heilbut argued, was not to be condescending. Of Mr. Gussman, he said: ''He wasn't really winking, but was trying to do the best he could with this idiom. He went for broke.''

Mr. Gussman was born in Kansas City, Mo., in 1913, his daughter, C. Brooke Gruenberg, said. His father was a railroad worker who became a lawyer by attending night school. The boy was picked up by police at the age of 4 for ''promiscuous throwing of cardboard,'' but became an Eagle Scout. He attended the University of Missouri for two years before dropping out during the Depression because of lack of money.

He wandered from radio station to radio station working as an announcer. At 19, he managed a radio station in Iowa, his daughter said.

One of his earliest writing jobs was a serialized radio version of ''Lil' Abner,'' a brazen combination of soap opera and down-home humor, Mr. Heilbut said. Mr. Gussman conferred regularly with Al Capp, the comic strip's creator, but had license to develop his own plots.

As television became the dominant medium, Mr. Gussman turned to it enthusiastically. But he hedged his bets. For the last radio episode of ''The Road of Life'' in 1959, he left at least three cliffhangers hanging, including a man on the verge of realizing that the man he had just shot was his father.

 

Mr. Gussman's work for television included writing for some of its first soaps, including ''Search for Tomorrow'' and the television version of ''Young Doctor Malone.'' He wrote the pilot script of ''Days of Our Lives'' and gave the series its name. He once said of the title, ''The big guys loved it because it didn't mean a thing.'' He also wrote some episodes of ''Gilligan's Island,'' among other shows.

Ms. Gruenberg said that her father tried to fight blacklisting during the McCarthy era by requesting actors whom he knew were controversial because of allegations of Communist connections. When some of them began to be accepted, he knew the situation was easing.

He also faced another challenge in bringing the amount of sex to soap operas he sensed viewers desired. Network policies required all actors to have at least one foot on the floor at all times. ''His basic solution was 

contortionists,'' Ms. Gruenberg said.

She described his creative process as simultaneously reading a magazine and playing solitaire in the living room, then retreating to an officer to bang out a complete and almost always perfect script in less than three hours.

''My mother would say: 'Be quiet, Brooke. Daddy's working,' '' she said. ''I had the strangest idea what work was.''

In addition to Ms. Gruenberg, also of Holland, Mr. Gussman is survived by a son, Christopher of Kansas City, and a stepdaughter, Zoe Hollenbeck Barr of Santa Rosa, Calif. He and his first wife, the former Mary Alice Young, the mother of his children, were divorced in 1969. His second wife, the former Angelique Dean Hollenbeck, died in 1985.

For years, Mr. Gussman had said he wanted his last words to be memorable. As his death approached, his daughter reminded him of his wish. He slowly removed the oxygen mask, she said, and whispered in the 

faintest voice:

''And now for a final word from our sponsor. . . .''

 

[EricMontreal22]

Ha did you see my post (page two) with the 1950s Heart of Juliet Jones soap pilot?  I didn't make the connection (it's been a long day) but it was written by Gussman and I posted that exact same obituary there

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[Paul Raven]

Yes I went back and realized I had read that....old age catching up with me...BTW Heart of JJ was posted a while back in the old Proposed Soaps thread which was archived and I have reposted(planning to put everything back in when I'm so inclined).

So Mr Gussman had the clout to get that credit.

 

I know Irving Vendig had a created by tag at the end of Edge of Night each ep until he left in the early 60's.

 

Did find the opening amusing when the actors had to pose in those picture frames.

[EricMontreal22]

Ha yes!  Living pictures--I suppose though it may have been the first opening with cast "photos".

Thanks for bumping the Proposed soaps thread--I had forgotten about it.  And I do remember Vendig getting that credit--

[slick jones]

The TV version was probably too sophisticated for daytime audiences then. Charles Gussman was the writer and he had a penchant for erudite, often humorous scripts. Basically Jocelyn McLeod was an adopted ward of Malcolm Overton who couldn't stand his wily brother, Conrad. Sybil and Hugh were the children of Conrad and his wife Ada, who Malcolm and Sybil kept uninformed of their machinations. Sybil wanted to snag Jocelyn away from Jim Brent and was jubilant when Jocelyn faced immigration problems due to contracting a fever in a foreign country. Jim's adopted son John (Butch) was married to feisty Francie. Reggie Ellis was Jim's interfering aunt.

 

Loved the friendship between Jim and newspaper man Frank Dana. Chuck Webster was great in the role, but wouldn't you love to see John Larkin in earlier episodes? Two future male soap stars together! The director was the masterful Walter Gorman, and Charles Paul was the music director. Charlie leaned heavily on those low piano octaves with this show.

 

 

Quotes from a well-informed soap historian.

 

[slick jones]

@DRW50 @EricMontreal22 @Paul Raven  these articles were copied by @jam6242 for us.

 

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[DRW50]

Thank you @slick jones and thank you to @jam6242for providing them. I really should listen to this more - what is available, anyway.

[dc11786]

The storyline prior to the television show's premier sounds wickedly good, but the synopsis above covers the plotline when the show was both on TV and radio. It doesn't seem as strong or as interconnected as the other plotline. 

 

Prior to this, there was a rather long story involving Sybil getting pregnant by her late husband and deciding that a child would be a burden so she pawned off the kid on her maid Pearl. Pearl had a husband who was in the Navy, but returned and blackmailed Sybil about the baby. Eventually, Pearl offered the child up to Malcolm Overton and his new wife, Augusta. Augusta and Malcolm had been in love many years before, but had been split up by Malcolm's brother Conrad. Now, Augusta and Malcolm were reunited and raising Conrad's grandchild. A custody battle would later ensue. 

 

With that said, I like the subsequent story involved Aunt Reggie who ended up losing her money and I think dying in a nursing home because of neglect. That I believe was only on the radio version. It's a shame more of Charles Gusman's run isn't available. Gusman was well liked by TPTB. I believe they signed him to something like a nine year contract to write "The Road of Life." Had the television version been successful, I imagine he would have worked many years on TV soaps. 

 

I wonder how a television audience felt about a couple who were being kept apart if they weren't already a little bit invested in the couple. 

 

I've also read that the show's time slot was pretty awful. 

[DRW50]

This episode has been around for eons (I posted it before on the first page) but this upload seems to be in better quality.

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[Paul Raven]

Who played Dr Jim Brent on radio once Don MacLaughlin took on the Chris Hughes role on As The World Turns?

[wonderwoman1951]

well…

the original title for atwt was ‘as the earth turns,’ which irna phillips preferred, but was the title of a 1933 novel  (having read the novel, irna clearly took some inspiration from the story), so the title need to be changed. among the several dozen suggestions in a document from the ivory snow group dated not too long before atwt premiered (don’t time to find the document now), was ‘days of our lives.’ 

so… 

fwtw: i always thought ‘as the world turns sounded better than ‘as the earth turns,. 

‘road to life’ ended on 30 december 1955 — four months before atwt debuted. 

[dc11786]

Paul McGrath was the final Dr. Jim Brent. I think Patricia Wheel returned as Jocelyn in 1957/1958 after being the originator of the role in 1950/1951.

[wonderwoman1951]

apologies — forgot that the show continued on radio after it was cancelled on television.

four of irna’s shows moved to television while continuing on radio: guiding light, of course; the brighter day, which ran on radio 1948-1956, television 1954-62; young do. malone, radio 1948-1956, television 1958-1963.  

interesting that the road of life lasted less then a year on television, but rather than being cancelled entirely, continued on radio until 1959.