COURIER-EXPRESS WEEK OF JUNE 28 to JULY 4 1981
Writer gives soaps more than suds By ROBERT FEDER
They are television's biggest moneymakers, accounting for more than half of the networks' total profits. They have spawned a new generation of prime-time fare, including the highest rated program on TV. And yet, after three decades, they remain synonymous with the worst on the tube. Soap operas. Mere mention of the phrase, derived from soap manufacturers' sponsorship of early radio serials, conjures up images of bored, frustrated housewives, living vicariously through a daily fix of lust and intrigue, interrupted periodically by pitches for Noor wax, tampons and dog food. But in the Philadelphia suburb of Rosemont, there's a housewife and mother of four who has spent her life elevating the soaps above that stereotype and forging new frontiers in TV drama
SHE IS AGNES NIXON, the creator and still the head writer of "All My Children," an hour-long daytime serial in its 11th year on ABC Regarded among soap opera devotees as the most innovative practitioner today, she also created "One Life to Live," "Search for Tomorrow" and "As the World Turns," and was head writer for "The Guiding Light" and 'Another World " Nixon. who began her career writing radio and TV dramas in 1944, three days alter her graduation from Northwestern University's School of Speech - refuses to take all the credit for the success of "All My Children." her most outstanding achievement "It's a many-splendored, many-sided thing that makes the show successful." she says "One certain thing is that we do not look down on soap operas. I think the people who want to take the money and run, or who feel it's degrading, are wrong It's some of the hardest work and some of the best work.
IN THE EARLY days of her soap-writing experience, Nixon recalls, "It bothered me to hear the term as a denigration for everything. Like 'This play was bad because it was a soap opera,' or 'This novel is pure soap.' But it no longer angers me. It's amusing. ''They (the critics) don't know what they're talking about. They don't know what soaps can be today. I don't mind the term 'soap,' but people still use it to mean the bottom of the barrel, cliche: ridden and without merit." Although it fulfills the network's mandate to entertain and titillate its audience, "All My Children' has more going for it than the rest. A seasoned ensemble cast, intelligent writing and a continuing interest in current social issues combine to make it something special. Indeed, it's that last element - tritely called "relevance" - that transforms this saga of love and power in the mythical Eastern town of Pine Valley into a mirror of the moral and physical ills that can beset any community, any family.
IN THE PAST YEAR, "All My Children'" has explored in depth such topics as wife abuse, teen-age marijuana use, alcoholism. black market adoption, middle-age marital stress, hearing loss, solar energy and a potentially blinding eye disease! They join an impressive list of complex issues that the show has tackled since it began as the story of a Viet: nam War peace activist who marries into a wealthy conservative family. The New York Times heralded its debut in 1970 as one of the first to combine "social activism" with traditional soap opera themes A few years later it again attracted attention when one of its leading characters underwent the first legal abortion portrayed on daytime television. But unlike other soaps, which pay lip service to such issues as an excuse to advance the plot, here they are examined in full detail after meticulous research. The producers frequently huddle with psychologists, social workers and a host of medical and legal experts to ensure the accuracy of their dramatizations.
IN THE CASE of the wife abuse study, for instance, viewers came to understand the problem thoroughly from every point of view - the severely troubled wife beater, the victim, the family, the doctor and the neighbors. By the time the story ran its course - the wife escaped to a women's shelter and eventually filed for divorce - the phenomenon had been explained in greater depth and with more sensitivity than any TV documentary or investigative news story could. And best of all, women who themselves may be abused wives learned that there's a way out, with the added assurance that they are not alone in their nightmares. Although Nixon pioneered the concept of injecting social issues into daytime dramas, getting over the networks' squeamishness and the sponsors' objections was no easy task.
"About 17 years ago, I wondered whether we deserved all this (criticism) and if, just to satisfy ourselves, there was some way we could do more than we were doing Here we had this mass audience that watched so faithfully in a way they did not watch nighttime television. And we had the time doing 260 originals a year to deal with social issues 'Around this time, a good friend of mine died of cancer, There was nothing in his case that could have been done, but I began researching the issue and realized there was a form of cancer that was 100 percent curable if caught in time - uterine cancer."
WORKING ON "The Guiding Light" at the time, Nixon approached CBS and discovered that network officials and sponsors were "terrified" of presenting a story line about cancer and pap smear tests. ''They told me, 'But we have a public service time.' Well, you know that means 8 o'clock Sunday morning and the ghetto of daytime scheduling. 'This is entertainment time," they said, 'not public service time.' "I felt we could do both. So I wrote a long-term projection of the story - which I would have done anyway and also had to write scenes out of context so they knew it would be treated with taste. At first they (CBS) told me, 'You may do it. but don't say cancer, don't say uterus and don't say hysterectomy ' I'm serious. They were afraid it would offend and people would be turned off. Fortunately, it did get on." By continuing to incorporate life-saving messages into her dramas, Nixon said she can reach people who might otherwise be unaware of their problems or of the availability of help. And she has thousands of grateful viewers' letters to prove it ''The ostriches among the viewers will turn off the American Cancer Society blurb or a documentary because it frightens them. But if Bert Baer or Ruth Marth have something and go to the doctor, they understand it It's like their sister or a dear friend "
HOW DOES SHE come up with 'new ideas? "I don't really say. 'My God. we've got to do something relevant ' It just sneaks up on me or people suggest it "For instance, the child: abuse story we did about five years ago stemmed from a conversation with our psychatrist consultant. She said to me some time ago, 'You know, you really should do child abuse." And I said, 'Oh God, Mary, I just can't deal with that. These people are animals." "Then, when I heard myself say that, I thought, hmmm, that's what all those people out there are saying, too. I started dojng the research and I found that 98 percent of child abusers were abused children themselves. I realized this was a vicious circle and there weren't enough jails to hold them. They didn't need punitive measures, they needed help."
A more obscure ailment - diabetic retinopathy - became "grist for the mill," Nixon recalled, when she was a patient at the Wilmer Eye Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She learned there that the potentially blinding disease that affects diabetics can be arrested in about 85 percent of the cases, if discovered soon enough. But fewer than half of its victims come for treatment in time. "'That fact sort of cooked in my brain for a while. 1 knew we wanted to bring in a newstory, so I thought, why not give Nina (a character on 'All My Children') diabetes and do a retinopathy story"
AGNES NIXON created "All My Children" in 1969, when she wrote what is known in the soap business as its "bible" - the cast of characters, the locale, story projections and about five scripts. Also included was a preamble explaining its title "The great and the least, the rich and the poor. the weak and the strong, in sickness and in health, in tragedy and in triumph, in joy and in sorrow. you are all my children " " 'My referred to the Deity - no matter who She is," Nixon laughed. "'The funny thing is when this was turned in to ABC, one of the executives there called me and said, 'What part of the Bible is that from?' He meant the Bible bible. So I said it was the Gospel According to Saint Agnes." Still produced in New York, the program premiered in January 1970 in a half-hour format. It expanded to 45 minutes and then to an hour in April 1977. Today it is television's second-highest-rated soap opera, behind only the super-popular "General Hospital." Its daily audience of 12 to 15 million viewers includes a large following among college students and young males. And Carol Burnett and Dick Cavett have made cameo appearances in trib ute to their favorite daytime show.
ALTHOUGH the original "All My Children" characters - and the many that followed on the show - sprang from Nixon's fertile imagination, she regards them not as fictional cardboard cutouts but as "living, breathing things that develop and change." Each has a threedimensional personality and distinct psychological makeup. Here is how she describes four main figures:
Erica Kane - ''She is a very, very tragic young woman who was deserted by her father at a very vulnerable age and therefore has a very low self-esteem. Despite the havoc she wreaks in the lives of others, she actually suffers more herself than any of her victims. I think the audience understands that."
Phoebe Tyler Wailingford -- ""She was 'to the manor born,' the spoiled darling who is used to having her own way. She doesn't understand how officious and overbearing she can be. She means well and does all the wrong things for the right reasons."
Palmer Cortlandt - ''For shorthand purposes, he 'is 'Citizen Kane,' a man who is very unable to give of himself. His great insecurity deep inside (makes him) afraid to take his chances in the open marketplace where emotions are concerned. He is able to function fabulously as a businessman, but has never matured emotionally."
Sybil Thorne - "She is one of the 'have-nots' of the world, spiritually and materially. Instead of saying 'I can be or do whatever I want,' her attitude is, 'The world has dumped on me. And I'm going to take it rather than earn it.'"
IF IT SEEMS that Nixon has created intensely real characters to play out her dramatic visions, that may be because many are based on members of her own family. The brooding, scheming Palmer Cortlandt was inspired by Nixon's father (''My parents separated when I was 3 months old. After he died, I learned that my "father had not matured emotionally and was a very jealous man. He suffered a great, great deal because of this."). The comforting, reliable Dr. Joseph Martin was inspired by her husband (''My husband is very strong. Joe came on as that, too."). And matriarch Kate Martin is a composite of her grandmother (also named Kate) and a 92-year-old friend from Towa ("She had that great blue steel up her spine and that bulwark that was always there"). After all these years, the television industry seems to have ''vindicated"' Agnes Nixon and her lifelong efforts to improve the quality of soap opera writing From the top-rated "Dallas" to the spinoffs and clones-'Knots-Landing," "'Flamingo Road" and "Dynasty" - prime-time programmers have rediscovered what has been her stock-in-trade all along.
WHAT DOES SHE make of the born-again popularity of the soaps? "I'm not envious of them, if that's what you think. But in a sense, I can say I told you so ''None of us can take credit for 'discovering' the form. The serial form is very popular and very old. Before television it was on radio. And before that there were Dickens' serials. 'Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.' It's always been that simple. "If you asked (Lorimar president and 'Dallas' producer) Lee Rich, I don't think he'd say he 'discovered' it. In fact, when I was doing 'Another World,' he was the head of television for Benton & Bowles (the agency that controlled advertising on the program). So he knew all about it back then. ''They hit on something in 'Dallas' with the J.R. character, and it's very well done, for what it is and what it purports to be. "I always knew someone would come along and do it (on nighttime TV) and that it would have to be done in that slick, faster-moving way. But I really prefer developing the characters and going into depth with them more than one can, I think, on a 'Dallas' or a 'Knots Landing.' I don't think there can be that much change in characters."
NEVERTHELESS, Nixon is about to take the prime time plunge herself for the first time - in the form of a six-hour ABC mini-series she created - ''The Manions of America" - that will air next season and could lead to a regular weekly drama. Nixon spent six years researching the stories her grandmother told her about the mid-1800s migration to this country of Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. "I found 1 really wanted to tell this story. !t was a labor of love for me." So soon,viewers who avoid daytime soaps like the plague will have the chance to discover the magic of this television pioneer. "I have to write about characters I believe in and things that I like and things that excite me. Then I cross my fingers and hope the people agree with me. 1 think I've always felt it's some thing to be proud of doing I've always considered it a challenge that the end product has always been good.
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Paul Raven ·
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