Share your thoughts on this short-lived but fascinating soap opera. And thanks to saynotoursoap, you can enjoy a promo for the show as well as the finale - probably my favorite soap finale.

From the January 1971 TV Picture Life.

ning parts in The Edge of Night, Search for Tomorrow, The Doctors, The Guiding Light. A woman with exceptional energy, she's studying for a Masters degree in Special Education at Yeshiva University.

Kathleen McGuire was Kate Austin on Flame in the Wind in 1965, and 10 years before that she starred in the series, Way of the World, which was her debut in daytime drama. Between her appearances on serials, she's played in the movies (Flipper, Edge of the City) and many TV dramas and stage plays.

James Noble was on The Doctors in 1967, playing Dr. Bill Winters, and also had roles on The Brighter Day, As the World Turns, The Edge of Night, and Love is a Many Splendored Thing. He says he's especially glad to be on A World Apart because there are so many young people in the cast and so many "young problems" are dramatized in the story line. James is married to actress Carlyn Coates and has a daughter, Jessica, 7. He is very concerned about the world she is growing up in.

Anna Minot is another veteran of daytime serials. For three years, before joining A World Apart, she portrayed Martha Wilson on As the World Turns, and before that she played Terry de Marco on The Edge of Night. She's also been on The Brighter Day and on Love of Life.

Like so many other actresses, she's married to an actor she met while they were in the same show. For 17 years she has been married to handsome Joe Warren, and they have a son who's a student and folk singer. They live in Greenwich village.

Another veteran is Roy Shuman (Tom Walsh) who got his B.A. from the University of Washington in 1949 and spent three years with the Seattle Repertory Playhouse. He has toured with many players, played in the movie, The Goddess, and recently played Dr. Michael Shea on As the World Turns.

Handsome Robert Gentry (playing Dr. John Carr) had portrayed Dr. Ed Bauer on The Guiding Light until he quit to try Hollywood and Mart Hulswit replaced him. He's a young bachelor living in new York, and his role recently wound up on A World Apart.

Rosetta Le Noire (Matilda) got into show business when her uncle and godfather, the great dancer, Bill Robinson, put her in his show as a tap dancer. She's been on The Doctors, The Nurses, Search for Tomorrow and Love of Life during the past eight years. She lectures at Lincoln Center Film Department.

Erin Conner (Becky Sims) is daughter of Whitfield Conner, a veteran of many serials who is now married to Halia Stoddard (Pauline Rysdale on The Secret Storm). Erin says, "I never wanted to do anything but act ever since the day I saw my father in a movie riding a horse named King Cotton. I was then five years old."

Matthew Cowles (Chris Kahlman) is a native New Yorker who's been in several plays and movies. Last summer he cycled from New York to San Francisco.

John Devlin (Dr. Nathaniel Fuller) comes out of Cleveland, Ohio, and his first role in New York was in King Lear, at the American Shakespeare Festival. He played in Love is a Many Splendored Thing, and is doubling in the Broadway stage play, The Boys in the Band.

Stephen Elliott (Jack Condon) is a native New Yorker who graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse before going into acting. He has played a wide range of roles, and for relaxation he paints, sculpts, plays gold and tennis.

Larry Gates (Mark Davis) is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, has done a lot of Shakespearean roles at the American Theatre Festival at Stratford, Festival at Stratford, Connecticut and worked in many movies in Hollywood. He finds time to run a 70 acre farm in Connecticut, where he raises Christmas trees.

A bachelor who now lives in Greenwich village, Tom Ligon (T.D. Drinkard) is in the movie, Paint Your Wagon, and has played scores of stage and TV roles. He's a graduate of Yale, who went to New York some eight years ago to become an actor.

Redhaired Kathy Parker (Sarah Sims) is 16, a native New Yorker, and attends Professional Children's School. She does a lot of commercials, has played summer stock, and sometimes works in a mod clothes store called Emporium.

James Ray (Dr. David Scott) joined A World Apart and last year portrayed Bert Fletcher on The Guiding Light. Here's his thumb-nail biography, written by himself: "I have played on Broadway with Alec Guinness in the revival of Glass Menagerie, J.B., The Wall, Compulsions. Born in Oklahoma, reared in Texas. 6' 1 1/2''. Capricorn (born Jan. 1). Part Cherokee Indian, and related to Billy the Kid."

Sharon Storm (Louise Condon) graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on March 30 and on the very same day started working on A World Apart. She was born and raised in New Jersey, has a younger sister and an older brother who's now in Vietnam, and spends her spare time studying, sewing, dancing, reading, and writing poetry and short stories.

Susan Sullivan (Nancy Condon) earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts from Hofstra University, and has kept busy with TV and stage plays. She says she loves New York and roams the big city every chance she gets.

Susan Sarandon (Patrice Kahlman), the oldest of four brothers and four sisters, got into show business at the age of four. She studied drama at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and A World Apart marks her TV debut. She's married to handsome actor Chris Sarandon, does commercials, models and studies dancing. She plays the daughter in the movie, Joe.

Nicholas Surovy (Fred Turner) is the son of famous soprano, Rise Stevens, and personal manager, Walter Surovy. Show business turned him off when he was a kid, but after his first year at Northwestern University, he quit and went to New York to study acting. He has done an off-Broadway play, worked in Hollywood on TV and appeared in two movies, Imitation and For Pete's Sake. "A World Apart is the first serial I ever read for," he says. "And I'm enjoying it."

Nathaniel Young (Bill Sims) was born George Smith in Plainview, Texas, but he had to change his name because there already was another George Smith registered in the performers' union. "My great uncle was named Nathan Young," he explains, "so I became Nathaniel Young."

Darryl Wells (Tom William) came out of Pittsville, Maryland, and became an actor while still in high school. Then he went to New York to study acting, and subsequently got on the serial, The Nurses, in 1965, playing Michael Crane for six months. He played Burt Lord on As the World Turns in 1966, and was Willie Henderson (Barbara Perkins' boy friend) in the movie, Valley of the Dolls.

It's a big cast, but the story line uses the actors deftly, and A World Apart is really having an impact on TV viewers.

There is a recurring theme in much of the fan mail to the show: "You're really telling it like it is!" And Tom Donovon, producer and director, and Walter Gorman, director, enjoy reading the show's mail. They agree: "Yes, we are telling it like it is!"

BY HELEN MARTIN

Edited May 2, 201114 yr by CarlD2

Great thread Carl and I'm sure some interesting stuff will be posted.

Fun to see youthful Tom Ligon and Nick Surovy as they are so fixed in my mind as Lucas Prentiss and Mike Roy.

Other notable cast members were Matthew Cowles,Susan Sullivan,Robert Gentry.David Birney and Dorothy Lyman.(by the time I posted this,you had posted the rest of that great article,so some of those names were mentioned)

At some point,the Hollands took over as headwriters.Did the Phillips (mother and daughter) abandon the show?

Edited May 2, 201114 yr by Paul Raven

I guess the Phillips must have gone - I always wondered if Irna had any major role beyond supervising anyway.

Tom looks like a beach party extra. Nick has his mouth hanging open. I love it. It's nice to see Rosetta Lanoire (I have an article with her somewhere, from a year or two after this, when she played Peggy or Vera's mother on AW).

Do you know anything about Erin Conner?

So what was Bill Sims' story? Was this the first Vietnam story ever on daytime? I hadn't heard anything about it.

A shorter cast summary and a few different photos.

I wonder if Katherine Phillips is still alive, and why her and Irna left the show so soon. I think a couple articles I've seen on this suggest Irna happily helped her daughter out at ABC to stick it to CBS for their interference at ATWT and LIAMST. I recall one poster on the old WOST site talked about the three ABC soaps that debuted in 1970 and said they felt A World Apart was far superior in quality to AMC. Maybe A World Apart should have aired on CBS, but the concept reminds me of the long lost P&G soap From These Roots.

Katherine Phillips died last year. It would have been great if someone had interviewed her about her career and her legendary mother.After AWA she doesn't seem to have done any more soap writing. I read that Katherine Babecki,who is listed as an ATWT writer in the 60's, is in fact Katherine Phillips.

That's sad to hear. I wish We Love Soaps, which gets some great interviews, had had a chance to talk to her. I'm sure she had many stories to tell.

Edited May 16, 201114 yr by Paul Raven

At first you can't tell that's Elizabeth Lawrence, until you look at her profile.

Edited July 12, 201114 yr by Paul Raven

Not sure where you found this stuff but what a treat. I'm so fascinated by that story with Patrice and her anarchist boyfriend. Where did that go? Was he her baby's father?

It's so strange seeing Elizabeth Lawrence with that style and this character. Did she want to leave or did they fire her?

Not sure where you found this stuff but what a treat. I'm so fascinated by that story with Patrice and her anarchist boyfriend. Where did that go? Was he her baby's father?

It's so strange seeing Elizabeth Lawrence with that style and this character. Did she want to leave or did they fire her?

Pat's boyfriend Tony was involved with a radical group that was partly based on the real life terrorist faction The Weathermen. Tony was accused of plotting to blow up a government warehouse that was used to produce chemical warfare for Vietnam. He had been exposed to chemicals and was ill with mercury poisoning. Pat found out that she was pregnant with his child. It was rather amusing as this coincided with the change in writers from Phillips to the Hollands. The Hollands decided to increase ratings by acclerating the stories, which moved more leisurely with Phillips. After Pat realized she was pregnant, she went into labor about six weeks later! The child was named Jeremy. By this time, Tony had died, so Pat decided to give the baby up for adoption, just as she had been adopted. This was the storyline in the final episode: Jeremy's christening and Pat kneeling before God trying to make the right decision.

Thanks. Wow, six weeks? I often think this is the type of thing which is parodied but rarely actually happened in daytime, but this and the Kim Ryan's Hope mess tells me otherwise.

Did they mention any worry about whether the baby would have problems, due to Tony's exposure to chemicals?