Radio Soap Opera Discussion

[Bill Bauer]

Thanks so much for that! That's all kinds of awesome! In regards to the the Norma Greenman story on The Guiding Light, I love how, basically, her jealousy gets operated on.I love the 40s! 

[jam6242]

I was wondering what sort of operation she had.  I was thinking lobotomy at first, lol.

[Paul Raven]

Thanks for those. Finally, a radio role for Ruth Warrick. I keep reading that she was on radio but never any specifics.

[Paul Raven]

More on TGL from around that time with a couple of new characters and plots mentioned

 

THE LIVES of half -a -dozen people color the pattern that is the Guiding Light, now in its fourth year as an NBC network serial.

 

Dr. John Ruthledge, kindly minister of the mythical melting pot community of Five Points, is the central character actor, made his debut and his gentle, understanding influence, the various personalities and plots revolve. Dr. Ruthledge is portrayed by Arthur Peterson, who has filled the role since the show was first inaugurated. Peterson, a talented character actor, made his debut reciting "pieces" in Sunday school. Oddly enough, when he matriculated at the University of Minnesota, that school's vocational guidance department recommended that he study for the ministry.  Although Peterson once served as junior superintendent of a Sunday School, the grease paint tradition is strong in his family - both grandparents on both sides, his parents, uncles, aunts and his wife were all connected with the theater. Some of them still are. So it was more than natural that Arthur follow their lead. Born in Mandan, North Dakota, Peterson was graduated from the University of Minnesota. He had the theater as his goal from kindergarten days onward, and, by the time he received his sheepskin, he already had 900 performances to his credit. He went directly into stock and repertory theaters and from there to Chicago and radio.

 

Currently, in the serial, the plot most intimately touching Dr. Ruthledge's life is centered around his secretary-church organist, Laura, added to the parsonage after the marriage of Mary, the doctor s daughter. T h e discovery that Laura is a kleptomaniac has driven away Ellen, the housekeeper for many, many years. The Doctor's daughter is now the wife of Ned Holden, a young man reared in the parsonage. The marriage has been brought about recently, after many trials for the young people Once, just before their wedding, Ned discovered that his father was a thief and a blackmailer; that his mother, Fredericka Lang, had shot her husband rather than let him influence her son's life.

The discovery drove Ned to repudiate Fredericka and flee to the West Coast, where he married Torchy Reynolds, young waterfront girl. They were eventually divorced, so that Ned and Mary could marry. Ned is now reconciled with his mother.

 

Another thread in the story concerns the lives of the Kransky family. Rose, the daughter, once loved Charles Cunningham, wealthy publisher. She became the mother of his child and figured sensationally in a trial when Cunningham's wife divorced him, naming Rose as co- respondent. Now Charles wants to marry Rose but she is engaged to her present employer, Jack Felzer, prominent young attorney.

 

Ellis Smith, an artist who calls himself "Mr. Nobody from Nowhere," is another important part of the story pattern. Ellis, blinded when he rescued Fredericka from a tenement fire, has recently regained his sight. Torchy, now a famous night club and radio singer, loves him; so does Iris Marsh, a young woman who has left her husband and little son to build up a new life of her own. Ellis isn't sure of his own heart and is currently planning to leave Five Points and start life over again. Although he has long been a verbal antagonist of Dr. Ruthledge, the artist has his own cynical way of spreading kindness through the little community.

 

Mary Ruthledge Holden is played by Sarajane Wells; Ned Holden, by Ed Prentiss; Mrs. Kransky is Mignon Schreiber; Rose Kransky, Ruth Bailey; Jacob Kransky, Seymour Young; Torchy Reynolds, Gladys Heen; Fredericka Lang, Muriel Bremner; Irish Marsh, Betty Arnold; Ellis Smith, Phil Dakin; Charles Cunningham, Bill Bouchey; Jack Felzer, Paul Barnes; Laura Martin, Gail Renshaw: T h e serial written by Ima Phillips, "Radio's No. 1 Author, was inaugurated January 25, 1937. It is broadcast Mondays through Fridays at 9:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. CST over the NBC-Red network. The show is produced by Howard Keegan, for the agency, and announced by Fort Pearson.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Paul Raven

[Bill Bauer]

Thanks, Paul! I have an episode with Dr. Ruthledge's secretary in it but this is the first time I've ever seen her mentioned in print. She's not in any of the history books for some reason. 

[Paul Raven]

A list of the network sponsored soaps and headwriters on air as of Feb 1946.

Interesting to see some names that continued to be associated with soaps into the TV years.

 

A Womans Life - Kathleen Norris

Aunt Jenny - various

Bachelors Children - Bess Flynn

Backstage Wife - Elizabeth Todd

Big Sister - Julian Funt

Barry Cameron - Peggy Blake

Stella Dallas - Helen Walpole

Front Page Farrell - various

Guiding Light - Irna Phillips

David Harum – Mary W Reeves

Lorenzo Jones – Theodore and Mathilde Ferro

Joyce Jordan - H Selinger

Just Plain Bill – Evelyn Hart

Life Can Be Beautiful – Don Becker Carl Bixby

Light of the World - Adele Seymour

Lora Lawton - Jean Carroll

Perry Mason - Eric Gardner

Ma Perkins – L Huntley N Johnson

Masquerade - Irna Philips and A Glad

My True Story - Margaret Sangster

Our Gal Sunday - Jean Carroll

Portia Faces Life - Mona Kent

Real Stories from Real Life - various

Right To Happiness - John Young

Road of Life -Howard Teichman

Romance of Helen Trent - Martha Alexander

Strange Romance of Evelyn Winters - HL Algyer

Rosemary - Elaine Carrington

Tena and Tim - Peggy Beckmark

Today's Children - Irna Phillips

When a Girl Marries - Elaine Carrington

Woman in White - H Futran

Valiant Lady – a Richton L Stone

Woman of America - Della Decker

Young Widder Brown - Elizabeth Todd

Young Dr Malone - David Driscoll

Pepper Young's Family - Elaine Carrington

[Paul Raven]

 Right to  Happiness summary 1941. The Kranskys had vanished by this  point.

 

ALMOST everybody wants happiness; almost nobody knows quite what happiness really is. And the struggle to achieve this elusive state of bliss often has the strange effect of creating a great deal ·of unhappiness. For instance, in Ima Phillips; serial show "Right to Happiness" (heard Monday through Friday over CBS) . Here the struggle results in a muddle of love triangles which. would confound the wisest adviser to the lovelorn.

 

First, Bill Walker (Reese Taylor), an advertising executive, falls for widow Doris Cameron (Connie Crowder), a woman's magazine editor until he meets her daughter, Carolyn (Eloise Kummer), whom he marries while Doris is away on business. Carolyn is ignorant of her mother's love for Bill, later finds life with him-he is twenty years older than she-- quite incompatible.

Her real heart interest is Bill's young business associate, Dwight Kramer (Frank Behrens) . She threatens divorce, but Bill refuses to leave her.

Another triangle develops as Louise Sims (Sarajane Wells), comes to live with Doris, meets Lyle Anders (Karl Weber), a young writer, to whom she becomes engaged out of pity on learning that he has only six months to live. But his recovery places her on a .spot, for she really is in love with a young lawyer named Dick Gordon (Monty Mohn).

 

A third trend is introduced when Fred Minturn (Art Kohl), who loves Doris, is spurned because she still carries the torch for Bill Walker. All of these men and women search for one possession- happiness .

[Bill Bauer]

 

I'm very curious as to what Rose Kransky's storylines were over on The Right to Happiness. I don't think there are any surviving episodes with her in it from that show and I can't find any written synopsis of her time there. 

[Paul Raven]

This was the early cast of RTH. Seems the Burke family were prominent and the Cunninghams were brought over from TGL as well as the Kranskys.

Doris,Carolyn and Bill were there also to get that story off the ground.

"Right to Happiness," the serial which stemmed from Irna Phillips' "Guiding Light," exercised its privilege to change networks and is now heard on CBS.

The cast remains the same as follows:

Mrs. Kransky- Mignon Schreiber.

Rose Kransky -Ruth Bailey.

Jacob Kransky- Seymour Young.

Emily Burke -Bernardine Flynn.

Tom Burke -Carl Kroenke.

Donald Burke -Pat Murphy.

Mildred Burke -Nancy Hurdle.

Terry Burke -Carlton KaDell.

Kathy Burke -Lucy Gilman.

Dr. Ruthledge- Arthur Peterson.

Helene Cunningham -Lesley Woods.

Charles Cunningham -Bill Bouchey.

Bill Walker -Reese Taylor.

Doris Cameron -Constance Crowder.

Caroline- Laurette Fillbrandt.

Grace Mead -Jane Green.

[Paul Raven]

So Rose returned to TGL and played out the Greenman story?

The timeline of TGL and RTH is confusing at this time.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Paul Raven

[Bill Bauer]

 

Yes, it is confusing. It's also strange that the Cunninghams, Rev. Ruthledge and all the Kranskys would be in the cast of the new show. That means either The Right to Happiness was set in Five Points (which I don't think it was) or the new town was close to Five Points and Rose went back and forth. That's the most likely scenario. There's no way all of those people would follow Rose to a new town. I do believe the Greenman story started up when Rose went back to TGL. I don't think Rose or any of those TGL people were on RTH for very long. 

[Paul Raven]

Upon further investigation it seems that TGL was dropped in 1939 and last broadcast 0ct 13 1939.

Not sure why it was axed, perhaps something to do with sponsors.Will try and find out.

Anyway RTH debuted the following Monday so it seems that Rose and the Kransky's presence along with others from TGL was to keep those characters alive until TGL returned, which it did a few months later in Jan 1940.

I guess at that time Rose returned to TGL, which explains why she didn't have much to do on RTH.

 

It seems that the Kranskys moved into a new neighborhood 'out of the slums' at the beginning of RTH and the Burkes were their neighbors.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Paul Raven

[Bill Bauer]

 

Do you know if Right to Happiness was set in Five Points? 

[Paul Raven]

I don't have a definitive answer but it seems the Kranskys moved up the social ladder so maybe this area was near Five Points but had a different name?

Obviously if they returned to TGL so must have been close enough to interact with the Five Points characters.

I  wonder what happened that allowed them to buy a better house?

 

My other TGL questions concerns the storyline in the mid 40's. It seems the late 30's /early 40's characters were pretty much gone and there was a new minister. What were the stories around 44-46?

Thanks to Bill Bauer from a few pages back.

Greg, Claire, Tim, Jonathan, Nina Angie and Peter ! 

A whole bunch of new characters that I've never read about.

I wonder how they transitioned to these new people.

The new minister - Gaylord - had a wife and two children Peggy and Dick - but they are not mentioned here.

[Bill Bauer]

The mid-40s was a weird time for the show. Even though the setting was still Five Points, the focus went off the Ruthledges and Kranskys and seemed to focus solely on the story of Tim, Claire and baby Ricky. Ricky was Claire's adopted son who turned out to be the biological son of Tim (the man she was romantically involved with). Tim didn't know he had a son because his ex-wife Nina had kept it secret that she was pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption while Tim was overseas fighting in WW2. It was by chance that Tim met Claire after he got back from the war. I don't know how they figured out that Ricky was Tim's biological son. I guess Nina told them. Greg was just a guy that was vying with Tim for the affections of Claire. I think Nina was trying to get back with Tim. I don't remember. Anyway, everything focused around Tim and Claire. Tim and Claire got married and Tim died in a plane crash and then Claire wound up marrying Jonathan. Claire and Jonathan were the only characters to make the jump to Selby Flats. Peter was one of the few characters still left from the first years of the show. His name was Peter Manno. I don't know anything about his storyline in the first couple of years on the show. I think he was just a member of one of the poor immigrant families in Five Points that Rev. Ruthledge helped out. He left the show after a couple of years but he came back on the show later as a lawyer. Angie was his wife, I believe.  Reverend Gaylord took over for Reverend Ruthledge at his church when Reverend Ruthledge went overseas to serve as chaplain during the war. I'd be curious to hear how the transition worked as well. All of a sudden, there just seemed to be new characters and all the old characters were gone. The next transition seems like an easier jump to make. The show left the air for almost a year and, I believe, when it returned production was in Los Angeles and the setting of the story changed from Five Points to Selby Flats, California with a whole new cast of characters for that location. That makes a lot more sense. I don't really understand what was going on around 1943/44. It just seems like from 1942-1947 The Guiding Light was in a very long transition period. 

 

And I don't know what would allow the Kranskys to move up the social ladder either. 

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Bill Bauer