One Life to Live Tribute Thread

[j swift]

In a world filled with misinformation, I am grateful for reliable historians like the two of you - thanks!

[Vee]

What Wikipedia claims (and what wouldn't surprise me is true) is that Frons himself and Frank Valentini ghostwrote a week or two of material between Malone and Higley. I do remember claims at the time that Dena and Frank had rewritten portions of the Santi story climax on the fly - Cristian had returned from the dead brainwashed by Tico to kill Governor Brooks (who Kevin was running as Lieutenant Governor with) on Election Night, and so on. I think all that Manchurian Candidate stuff was Malone, but some of the latter half (and the subsequent stupid reveal-upon-reveal that Cristian was an 'imposter', only to turn out not to be an imposter, and Cris shooting Tico instead I think and his mysterious death in the hospital) was Higley.

There is a precedent for this - JFP, who was the apple of Angela Shapiro's eye, went without a HW for most of 1999 before being forced to hire future bestie Megan McTavish.

And here's the Storm of Change promo I still remember (and was so excited for):

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Malone and Griffith had apparently been ghostwriting on the show in January and possibly parts of December '02. It showed - the scripts and acting (specifically, Roger Howarth, who'd been phoning it in for years but brought it big time in scenes in which Todd learned Mitch had raped Viki) leveled up tremendously. Frankly a lot of that ghost month was better than what came later.

And meanwhile, Howarth has later revealed he took the nearest exit right around this time when learning about a future story - the tale of this from that podcast we've recently brought up is, I think, muddled by the show's soap-unfamiliar host and confused with rumors from the '90s about Todd and Marty. But the rumor at the time, in '03-'04, was that Howarth left over the "Rashomon"-style 'was it rape?' story planned for Todd and Blair, the story that played out at the end of 2003 instead with Trevor St. John. And based on Howarth's recent comments about a friend passing him the number of the EP at ATWT when he was stressed about continuing at OLTL, I believe it.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Vee

[robbwolff]

Storm of the Century aired in February 1999. If I remember correctly, as a promotional tool, ABC incorporated the storm into all four of its soaps while the mini-series aired.

[Khan]

Ah, I got my storms mixed up!  Thanks, @robbwolff!

[All My Shadows]

Was it really, though? Asking as a serious question. In honor of Ellen Holly's passing, I went back and watched those 1975/1977 episodes on YT, and they left the same impression on me as they had when I first watched, that the show was truly a big ensemble through the 70s, with the Woleks and Craigs more at the center of everything. Maybe it just happens to be that those particular episodes show that.

[janea4old]

No. Viki was one aspect but not the center.
My time watching was 1969-1975. 
1976-1982 was sporadic, I didn't have a TV, I lived in a college town, sometimes went to the campus and watched the soaps in a dormitory common room.

The Lords and the Woleks were the contrast of rich and working class.  I saw it as an even balance. With the Rileys and the Craigs as other families to round it out.  They were all home to me.  And Carla Gray was part of all that.
And when I was watching, they featured both sisters equally - Viki and Meredith.   Meredith was dating Larry Wolek.  Vince Wolek was Joe Riley's best friend.  I adored Wanda

And I remember Anna Wolek Craig, her face and voice and demeanor was so vivid from my childhood. And decades later the actress looked and sounded the same.  I about fell over when I saw her in the movie Tootsie. And the same as a judge on Law and Order. It was uncanny.

Wanda dated Vince Wolek, but meanwhile Viki became Niki Smith and also dated Vince.  As a child with no internet, this wasn't something I knew about, but my older sister and I conversed and came to understand that multiple personalities is a diagnosis (nowadays called DID but not back then).

I was team Wanda.  I related more to the working class characters.

Edited December 17, 2023 by janea4old

[Contessa Donatella]

I hope this is not duplicating. I was just able to get my copy of Ellen Holly's book out of storage yesterday, so started poking around & I went looking around for something Holly said close to the time of cancellation. Original web address doesn't exist but I found it reclaimed & reposted in a broadway location. Here is that article. 

Actress Ellen Holly Speaks Out Against 'One Life to Live'

As viewers and television historians prepare to say good-bye to the landmark daytime soap opera One Life to Live on January 13, Ellen Holly, one of the show's original cast members, hopes to expose what she believes were duplicitous behind-the-scenes happenings of the iconic daytime drama and the show's true place in television history. Holly's new website, www.blackstarimploding.com, makes explosive allegations about the show that was hailed by television critics as the first daytime soap to cast a black actress (herself) as a central character. Behind the scenes, Holly alleges, the treatment she and some of her fellow black cast mates received from producers and from the show's creator, Agnes Nixon, was much more sinister and worthy of the outrageous story lines that color the daytime television landscape today.

Holly, a former theater and television actress, was cast in the trailblazing role of Carla Benari Gray (later Carla Gray Hall Scott) on One Life to Live, playing the character from the show's beginning in 1968 until what she claims was her unceremonious dismissal in 1985. Her saga began after she penned a letter to the editor of the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times on the plight of the light-skinned black actor in America. Agnes Nixon (then developing a new soap opera for the ABC network that would become One Life to Live) saw the piece and cast the actress as the character of Carla. The role of Carla, a black actress struggling for work and fighting against discrimination, would mark a major shift for soap operas. Against the backdrop of the turbulent and racially divisive 1960s, a story line focused on a black character not only reflected a changing American reality but was also a first for daytime TV. The media attention was immediate, and Holly and the show quickly garnered coverage in mainstream publications such as Newsweek, TV Guide and the New York Times.

The actress asserts that the tale of Carla, her attempt to come to terms with her racial identity and her love triangle with two doctors-one white, the other black-enthralled viewers and helped make the fledgling soap a ratings gold mine. With a cast that featured other black actors in prominent roles, including LillIan Hayman in the role of Carla's mother, One Life to Live quickly developed a large black fan base (one that would come to comprise one quarter of the soap opera's total viewership). Hoping to echo the success of One Life to Live, ABC developed another program with Nixon, All My Children, which also featured a black story line, as did the ABC soap opera General Hospital. The black audience that was so loyal to the "Carla" story line on One Life to Live quickly expanded to the other soaps and helped make ABC the dominant player in daytime drama for the next two decades.

By the fifteenth anniversary of One Life to Live, Holly and Hayman were the only stars from the original cast. Holly alleges that, even as she and LillIan Hayman were honored as such at the gala celebration for the occasion, corporate decisions were being made to terminate them so that whites could be repositioned to become the show's veteran stars. As detailed in her autobiography, ONE LIFE: The Autobiography of an African American Actress, though aware of her decreased role on the show, and of being consistently denied a salary commensurate with her white peers, Holly had expected to be as welcome on the show throughout its lifetime as were the original stars on All My Children and General Hospital. However, this was not to be. After suffering months of what she perceived as overt hostility from a producer, on the eve of her contract renewal, Holly alleges she was informed that she "was not worth keeping" and would no longer be on the show. Likewise, Holly alleges that her coworker Hayman was soon told, in the studio's parking lot, by a messenger for the show's management team, that she had just completed her last day of work for the show.

"While I realize that nothing can be done now to rectify the treatment we received, as the show comes to an end I want to thank longtime fans of the show for caring about the characters Lillian and I played and to let them know we did not desert them by choice," said Holly.

Though she remains grateful for the sincere support she received from the cast and crew after she was terminated, Holly is now on a mission to make it known how she believes the production team, management and series creator really treated the black talent that helped make the show a trailblazing hit and iconic part of American television history. On her website, Holly says that although Agnes Nixon continued to claim the creation of Carla Gray as one of the crowning moments of her career and singled Holly and Susan Lucci out as her most treasured stars, Holly and the character of Carla Gray were quickly relegated to the back pages of television's history books. Carla Gray became a buried footnote in the canon of One Life to Live, and Holly spent the remainder of her working life as a library clerk following her dismissal at the age of fifty-four from her role as Carla.

On her website Holly also decries what she alleges was the "dirtying up" of her character by the show once she left: "Nixon herself no longer describes Carla to the press as a black actress struggling against discrimination but 'a light-skinned black woman who masqueraded as a white woman to win acceptance from the citizens of Llanview.'" She is disappointed that the sullied version has already made its way into the history books. Holly hopes that soap opera historians will research the true history of the Carla character, as the other is one she would never have agreed to play.

Holly is hopeful that as viewers and critics mark the close of the show's legendary run, they will also take time to acknowledge some of the darker aspects of the show's history, and to appreciate the early African-American talents who were crucial players in the show's development. Additionally, the thespian hopes to spur dialogue about the devastating obstacles fair-skinned black actors face in being cast by Hollywood.

[danfling]

I fully agree that the African-American soap opera viewers flocked to watch One Life to Live and that they helped the show against its competition.    The Edge of Night, its CBS competition, was #2 in the ratings at one time after the premiere of One Life to Live.   After that show was moved, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing was cancelled after it was being broadcast opposite One Life to Live.  There were several more shows which may have aired in that time slot following the cancellation of Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (Iu have forgotten all of them, but The Vin Scully Show and maybe The Secret Storm come to mind), but One Life to Live remained a ratings success.

I also think that the African-American audience remained loyal to the Gray family and to One Life to Live.

I did not learn of Ms. Holly's statements about her strange telephone calls and her below-average salary until after the cancellation of the show (although I had read her auto-biography, I do not remember these accusations).   I have ever since learning of these two things wanted to ask other minority performers who appeared on One Life to Live if these things happened to them: David iPendleton, Lawrence Fishburn, Al Freeman Jr., Herb Davis, etc.

I would also love to ask some of the minority performers who appeared on All My Children the same thing:  John Danielle, Avis McArther, Lisa Wilkinson, Charles Brown, Patricia Dixon, Roscoe Orman, etc.

 

 

 

 

[j swift]

ITA  Viki was also sidelined during the height of the Buchanan years in the early 1980s.  Yes, she was Clint's wife and that was the introduction of the clan.  But, once Bo and Asa arrived, Viki was a supporting character for years.

Edited December 19, 2023 by j swift

[Paul Raven]

Ellen Holly has justified grievances against ABC but from reading her book it seemed that everything that happened was filtered through that lens.

And a lot of her statements are incorrect eg AMC having a black storyline when in fact there were no black characters on AMC for the first couple of years. Just little things but if you didn't know any better, you would take it as gospel.

And writing  letters to execs pointing out their faults and failures doesn't seem to be the best course of action.

[titan1978]

From everything I have seen, Viki had her place and was important, but not the central figure she becomes during the Rauch years and beyond. In the late 70’s, early 80’s, characters like Karen and Jenny seemed more vitally important based on the material they burned through. Dorian also had more going on.

The show’s dramatic refocus with Tina discovering Victor was her father and what it did to Viki was the start of her dominating the show in a way she had not before.

[danfling]

Paul, although there were no African-American storylines on All My Children for the first years, there was initially an African-American character.   

I had initially seen the character of Lois Sloane listed as one of the original characters on All My Children, and she was played by Hilda Haynes.    I could find nothing about the character.   I only surmised that Lois was the first character to leave the show.   

I have since been told that Lois was a nurse who worked alongside Ruth Brent at the Pine Valley Hospital.

(Interestly, the nurse Ramona was the first character on Ryan's Hope to leave the show.)

Maybe Ms. Holly was referring to Hilda Haynes as Lois when she mentioned the African-American characters who appeared in the early episodes of All My Children.

[Vee]

I don't think that's quite accurate. Yes, part of the shift in focus had to do with Joe Stuart's fascination with Pat Ashley/Jacquie Courtney. But we've been over this topic before in here and Viki still had a lot of story - the Ted Clayton stuff, etc. I do think she took second position to Pat at times (and Erika has coolly commented on it on occasion in veiled ways while remaining kind about JC - 'once Joe Stuart was gone I knew I had job security'), but I don't think we'd ever have classed her as a supporting character.

[j swift]

I was referencing the story during Asa's wedding to Samantha and Bo's subsequent romance with Delilah.  Vicky was always present, but she wasn't the leading lady as much as she was when we re-visit Nicky/Vicky or go off to Eterna.

Furthermore, I would argue that even during the hey day of Tina and Cord, Vicky takes a supporting role in that she didn't drive the plot as much as react to Tina's shenanigans.  She was on-screen often, and most of the story was related to her and her family.  Yet, I place her in a supporting category because those plots were not told from her perspective.

Edited December 20, 2023 by j swift

[DRW50]

There's a snippet of a scene with Tim and Jenny in this at about 32 minutes.

THE EDGE of NIGHT ABC 90 MIN SPECIAL December 1, 1975 - YouTube