Follow Your Heart

[DRW50]

I was going to summarize a many page description which the Mary Noble to Mary Hartman book (I know that was an updated version of a book from a few years earlier, I just prefer that title) had for this show, but first, here's the Soap Opera Encyclopedia description.

[DRW50]

So, anyway, to summarize the story mentioned in the book...

Julie Fielding is 19 and lives with her mother and her younger sister, Jocelyn, in Worthington House in Ardmore, on the Main Line. They're old money. Their father lives nearby in a hotel and he and their mother have been separated for years. He is not from money and runs his own one-man scientific research laboratory.

When the show stars, Julie is engaged to rich and well bred Harry Phillips, a neighbor. They are about to have their engagement party. Mother and sister are happy but Julie isn't sure she's making the right decision, as she is only fond of Harry and would rather find love with a stranger.

Julie asks her father, who isn't invited to the engagement party, how to know when you're in love. He says "your heart tells you, just follow your heart."

Julie and Harry argue because she wants to run off to an island and he wants to stay where they are. Julie is less sure than ever about marriage. Then her sister Jocelyn tells her about the gorgeous piano tuner. They meet. He's not actually a piano tuner. His name is Peter Davis and he was there to meet her father for a job interview. He got the wrong address. Julie is fascinated by him and asks if she can drive him to the appointment but he says no, he's independent.

Peter tells her to forget about him, as she's engaged. Julie says, "I remember...I heard a young man play a song of his own...I'll never forget it."

She says he let her see inside his heart. He says he's too poor to be able to afford a heart.

After Peter leaves, the real piano tuner shows up and knows Peter. He tells her Peter has no family but is brilliant and talented. Julie calls her father to tell him why Peter is late and to give him a chance.

That night Harry gives Julie the ring but she isn't able to concentrate on him. She knows Harry loves her and hopes she can love him. She even takes his mother's pearls. But then she runs into Peter working at her father's lab. She asks to drive Peter to his place, but when she asks him to go out to dinner, he says no, what's the point.

Peter has rented a room in the home of the widow and daughter of his old chemistry teacher, Professor Mackenzie. Mackenzie's daughter, Georgie, is an attractive bacterilogist employed at the town waterworks. They become friends. Georgie envies the wealthier Julie. Georgie begins to fall in love with an oblivious Peter, who calls her "Redhead". He tells her about how sad he is for Julie and wishes she had a friend.

Julie tells her father that love has changed her and she'll do anything, if Peter held up a hoop she'd jump through it. She'd scrub floors. Anything. Her father is happy for her. She tells her sister she's breaking the engagement. Then she talks to her mother but doesn't mention Peter. Her mother says love doesn't matter, marrying someone of your own kind matters. Her mother warns Harry and Harry tries to get Julie to go along like nothing has changed.

Julie's father continues to encourage her, and he and the mother argue, as she points out that they shared a passion, and look where it had gotten them.

Julie tries to win Peter but he tells her until her engagement is broken he will not get involved with her.

Meanwhile, a gangster, Nicky Destini, shows up looking for Peter. Viewers learn through Julie's father that Peter had been fired from his last job for a "good and just cause." Julie lies to the gangster that she doesn't know where Peter is and then warns him. Peter tells her to forget she ever met him. She refuses to listen.

Nicky finds Peter, and reveals that he knows Julie's father's lab, the Fielding lab, has been given a government contract, and he will give Peter 50K if Peter passes the information on to him. Peter refuses, but says he will give Nicky the name of another chemist. Nicky doesn't really buy it.

Julie's father Sam, after Peter confides in him about loving Julie but feeling unworthy of her, tells Peter to tell Julie everything and let her make her own mind up. Peter goes to see Julie and waits with her sister until she comes back. Julie arrives with Harry and Harry warns that Julie is his fiance. Julie says she isn't, and that she is breaking away not just from Harry, but from high society life. Peter is thrilled and when he and Julie are alone, they have their first kiss.

Peter still isn't sure about Julie. Meanwhile, after Julie repeatedly talks to Harry, he begins to understand, and is proud of her. He even tries to encourage her mother to support Julie's plans. Now they are friends. She isn't so lucky with Peter, as he still has big doubts. When she tells him that she is going to get a job by volunteering at the country club library, he thinks it's ridiculous and sees it as her continuing to be in some rich girl's idea of real life. He laughs at her. She slaps him. They break up.

Nicky the gangster returns to tell Peter that the boss won't take no for an answer and Peter must be a spy. Peter then reveals that he is worried the FBI will discover he was fired from his old job on suspicion of stealing narcotics. Nicky tells him not to worry.

Georgie meanwhile is thrilled about Peter and Julie breaking up and even gets Julie a job as a clerk at the waterworks. Georgie's mother and Georgie's young admirer, Bob Randall, are worried. Peter still doesn't want to be around Nicky and decides he is going to just quietly leave town. Georgie assumes he has gotten a job elsewhere and tells Julie. Julie rushes to the lab and Peter admits he's in danger. She tells Peter she loves him. She says she isn't afraid of any danger. They embrace.

They plan to get married and move West. Peter is so happy he asks Georgie to go out for a friendly dinner, which she mistakes for more. But eventually she realizes and she asks Peter to be honest with her. Peter is surprised that she has no idea. He says he only wants to be friends, but not to be too upset. "No sad songs. The best of friends must part."

Peter and Julie are waiting to hear from the FBI, as they think the best time to leave would be when his record causes him to lose his job at the lab. But they learn he's been cleared. Peter is asked to meet Sid Hemicker, an old friend who admits he got Peter cleared. Sid asks Peter to help break up "one of the dirtiest rackets that ever operated in this country." Peter says he wants to leave town to be with Julie. Sid says it won't be that simple, and that the mafia boss wants to sell government secrets to a foreign country. He takes Peter to find out more information about these secrets. They are germ warfare, a germ bomb that would kill millions. Peter tells Julie about what he must do.

Viewers meet Nicky's boss, Alfred Lampier. "A young, suave, handsome fellow with a look of evil in his eyes." He talks about the pleasure of pain. He returns with Nicky to Ardmore and tries to find out what's going on. He immediately wins Julie's trust, as he says he owns beautiful properties out West for a honeymoon or a place to hide. He asks if she knows anyone. After some more questions she confesses about Peter and their plans to leave because of his wicked boss. Lampier finds her very attractive.

Peter goes to see Dr. Jacob Grauman to learn about the germ bomb. After Sid the fed says he wants Peter to give him all the information he can get on Nicky's gang, and the boss, Peter agrees to stay in town and not go West. Lampier is confused when Julie tells him this decision, but decides that Peter just wants to stay so he can afford to take care of Julie. Lampier befriends Julie's mother and she sees him as Julie's ideal partner. He convinces her to try to force Julie and Peter to break up. Her mother's behavior causes Julie to move in with Mrs. Mackenzie, which makes her daughter Georgie jealous. Mrs. Fielding tries to get her estranged husband, Julie's father, to help get Julie back home. He feels sorry for his wife but admires Julie's independence.

Peter and Julie's father continue to work on the secret project. Sid still can't find out who Nicky's boss is. Peter gives Nicky phonied up papers which he tries to make Nicky believe contain real evidence of the project. Nicky begins to distrust Peter.

That was apparently the end of the show.

The book speculates that the show made a mistake in moving away from romantic drama and that if the show had stayed on that path it might have had the success of Love of Life and Search for Tomorrow.

If anyone wants to read any of the dialogue or any of the narration from the announcer, let me know and I'll type that up.

[Paul Raven]

Thanks for that detailed synopsis. it's interesting to read this stuff and see that it could pretty much play today.Those kind of mob/spy stories were happening in the 50's, despite the prevailing thought that GH introduced them in the 90's.

I would love to read anything more you have.

[DRW50]

Thanks for showing interest. I was hoping someone would. You are such a soap expert I thought you might have already known all this I will type up some of the dialogue and announcer remarks soon.

It's too bad Elaine Carrington never got to do any other TV soaps. Even if she had been interested (I'm not sure if she was), she died in 1958. Apparently Elaine got her start in soaps are writing for women's magazine fiction. One day to get out of the rain she went in a nearby radio station. She decided to sell some short stories she had with her. The radio people were impressed and asked her to think of an idea for a daytime soap. Her first radio soap was a half hour 1932 drama called Red Adams, about a typical, happy-go-lucky, middle-class teenager who lived in Oak Park with his mother, father, and younger sister. When Beech-Nut Gum became a sponsor they had to change his name to Red Davis, because Adams was a big gum at the time. A few years later, P&G bought the show and the title was changed to Forever Young, and he was renamed Pepper Young. This later became Pepper Young's Family. This, Rosemary, and When a Girl Marries were her big shows.

The writeup on Rosemary is fascinating. I might type some of it up at some point.

Carrington didn't listen to a playback of her dictation, or to most of her shows, and claimed she didn't listen to any other soaps either. She did go to rehearsals quite often and would argue against any attempts to change her dialogue. One of her favorite lines was "I'd like to give you the whole world as a bauble to swing at your wrist." They also said she was very glamorous and yet could go to a party wearing a lace dress and Oxford shoes. She loved to write for young people and made up her own slang for them.

Apparently she only had one radio flop, Marriage for Two.

[Bright Eyes]

Carl, all this is simply fascinating. I could read it for hours. Information of the radio soaps is even less compared to the soaps of the 50's/60's/70's, so yes, whenever you get the time, please do type up whatever you got.

[DRW50]

Here's some of the dialogue. Harry to Julie when she wants to run away to an island:

"We belong here, Julie. We belong here where we've grown up and where we have our roots deep in this soil." Julie implores, "Oh, Harry, make me very, very sure."

After she meets Peter.

After Julie drives Peter home and asks him out to dinner and he says "What's the use?":

Announcer: When you suddenly meet a stranger, and your heart tells you he's the one man you've been waiting for all your life - what do you do if you're already engaged to someone else?

Mrs. Fielding tries to get her daughter to stay with Harry:

"Maybe you don't love him wildly, passionately, but that kind of love doesn't last - it's friendship that lasts - it's marrying somebody of your own kind who speaks your own language that lasts. In six months what you call love, this so-called enduring passion, is gone - burned out - and then where is a marriage?"

Later she tries to get her estranged husband to help her.

"You and I, Sam, lost our heads for a wild passion - and where did it get us? Fighting like cat and dog - I wanted to protect Julie from that."

Georgie tells Peter that she would kill anyone else who called her Redhead.

Peter tries to get Julie to stop wanting him when she's still engaged.

When Julie tells Peter about Nicky the gangster wanting to see him,

Nicks tells Peter, after Peter is surprised to see Nicky as he thought Nicky had been killed in a raid: "It was curtains for Big Mike...and for Spiders and for Brown - the yaps. They should have known better than to try to shoot it out with the feds."

Peter tells Julie's father Sam: "It's the most natural thing in the world for a guy to want to raise a family. That's what we're here for. You can be the biggest so-called success in the world - engineer, scientist, I don't care what. But if you haven't got a family - the basic thing that everybody wants - you're a bust."

After Julie breaks her engagement to Harry: "All right, Peter did have something to do with it. But not in the way you think...Somehow, meeting him made me realize I couldn't go on for the rest of my life in an eternal atmosphere of cocktail parties. There had to be something different, or life just wans't worth living."

When Peter takes Julie in his arms:

When Julie slaps Peter and they break up after he mocks her for her job at the country club library:

Announcer: The rocket explodes in the sky. Sparks fly...which must fall to earth somewhere...The last time these two met here, it ended in an embrace. But not tonight. The gulf is too wide...and neither would dream of moving a step nearer to the edge...Is it all over, then, in this tempestuous love affair that hardly got started? Or is Julie the type of girl who never gives up...once her goal is set?

When Julie tells Peter the danger of the mob doesn't matter to her:

When Georgie realizes Peter's feelings for Julie:

After Sid contacts Peter and tells him to see "with your own eyes what the scum of the earth is up to," and that after that he can leave when he wants...

Announcer: "Peter has known the crack government agent Sid Hemicker for a long time, and he's never known him to be emotional or excited...Yet, in the casual words Sid has just spoken, Peter has caught an undertone of unspeakable horror which makes him uneasy...Perhaps, by narrowing down his horizon to just himself and Julie, Peter has withdrawn too far from life. For surely a horror which threatens a hundred and fifty million people must threaten both of them as well..."

Peter tells Julie - "I'm in a spot, Julie. The same kind of spot that a lot of guys were in during the war...You're doing important work and you're not allowed to talk about it. My commanding officer is trying to sign me up for another hitch."

Alfred Lampier tells Nicky, "You don't understand the pleasure of pain, Nicky. Carl inflicts such exquisite pain." He says he's going to Ardmore to, "see what brains can do to make Peter Davis change his mind."

When Lampier begins to fall for Julie, he says, "A very beautiful girl. It's stirred up something in me. Too bad Davis is in the picture. But he's expendable. She'll make a beautiful widow. Or it might even happen before that."

Sid and Peter talk about the phony documents.

When Lampier plots to split Julie and her mother apart, the announcer says:

Lampier, an emperor of evil, has laid the basis for a split between mother and daughter. He has no clear view of what the end will be, but he hopes by this mischief to drive them apart - to break up the only unity that has begun to exist between them. Perhaps Julie, isolated, hostile, and bitter toward her mother, will fall an easier victim to him someday...

Sam and Peter at the lab, measuring and testing day in and day out.

Peter: Do you think there's a chance it could break the flask?

Sam: I doubt it. That's special glass, reinforced to steel temper...But there's a chance of anything. All right, Pete...to your station.

Peter (uneasily): Let me take the observations.

Sam: Certainly not.

Peter: If there are burns...I've got a better chance of recovery, Mr. Fielding.

Sam: Pete, you'll do exactly what you're told...Now get to your station.

Nicky is uneasy about Peter. "I'm watchin' you. There's somepin wrong about your attitude. You give in too easy. You wasn't goin' to work with us one day, and the next you was all ready to tak orders...What I'm askin' myself is - why?"

The announcer, in his last narration, says:

"Time is what Peter is playing for...And time is running out...Nicky has time - all the time in the world...But for the FBI, desperately trying to unmask his boss - and for Peter himself - only days, perhaps hours, remain...For if Nicky once more is able to shake off surveillance - if he is able to reach his boss undetected - Peter will be revealed as a double agent, working for the government while he pretends to cooperate with the spy ring. The papers Nicky carries can easily prove to be his death warrant...You won't want to miss the exciting developments next week in the thrilling love story by Elaine Carrington - Follow Your Heart."

[Bright Eyes]

Reading all those script excerpts, it's like I was reading two completely different shows. First it was about a romantic plight and then all of a sudden comes talk about labs and antidote's? LoL

[DRW50]

Yeah it seems like the shift started as Nicky came to see Peter as Julie declared her move towards a new life and broke away from her fiance. It does seem to shift even more severely after that. I wonder if Carrington had any plans for the characters after the resolution which should have aired (the kidnapping, rescue, then marriage).

So do you want to just put up a section for radio soaps and we could discuss each one in there? The book has a lot of stuff on Rosemary, but also on a few other soaps.

[soapfan770]

Geez, I thought I was the only one to know about that book. I remember for whatever reason my high school library had a copy of it that I checked out multiple times even if it was twenty-something years old

Anyways, here's what Matt P. Smith had to say about Follow Your Heart:

[DRW50]

I had heard of the book but hadn't seen a copy until recently. Actually reading it wasn't what I expected -- I thought it was going to be one of those pseudo-intellectual books on soaps which seemed to crop up around this time. Once I got past the "cute" patter between the authors, there was a boatload of information on some soaps I knew little about. I haven't looked around to see what's out there about radio soaps but there was so much about Follow Your Heart I knew nothing about, and the book did at least give a detailed plot synopsis. The show sounds more interesting than I'd expected. What sounds most interesting is the bit about the estranged parents -- you didn't see that on soaps often back then.

I wonder why NBC bungled their soap lineup so badly. Why did they do that to Hawkins Falls?

[Bright Eyes]

Didn't they have a Daytime Head who aggressively hated soap operas?

[soapfan770]

Probably, actually Smith in his writings of NBC's multiple 1950s soaps attempts blasts the network every chance he gets. In his description for There Are My Children:

On First Love:

Although NBC had a few minor/moderate successes (Hawkins Falls, From These Roots, Young Doctor Malone) it wasn't until the mid-60s NBC found something that worked and even then that didn't always work out.

[DRW50]

I wonder if they'd been more patient some of those shows would have lasted. NBC seems to have mishandled soaps for years.

[Paul Raven]

Wasn't it Sylvester 'Pat' Weaver who created the Today show and the less successful 'Home'(mid morning magazine show) that disliked soaps and didn't support them?

Carl,please continue sharing as it allows us all to enjoy and have access to stuff.

I am going to have to get more organised and put up more stuff that I have.