Golden Windows

[DRW50]

I have a few interviews from this somewhere, so I'm posting this now before I find them.

Paraphrasing Chris Schemering and Soap Opera Encyclopedia:

A Young and Rubicam show, this NBC show was based on Juliet Goodwin, a 22 year old singer who moved to New York from Maine to find fame and fortune. Her parents and her fiance, John Brandon, objected. She soon found herself torn between John and Tom Anderson, a man with a troubled past. Eventually she met an old foreign man backstage who introduced himself as Fritz Lang. Was he her biological father?

July 5, 1954 - April 8, 1955

Juliet Goodwin - Lelia Martin

Charles Goodwin - Eric Dressler

Tom Anderson - Herbert Patterson

John Brandon - Grant Sullivan

Hazel - Barbara Cook

Edited July 2, 2011 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

October 1954 TV Radio Mirror

Edited July 3, 2011 by CarlD2

[Paul Raven]

Other cast members included

 

Mrs Ruth Brandon - Harriet McGibbon

Joseph Kindler - Frank Hammerton

Miss Bigelow - Ethel Remey

Lt Thomas - Ralph Camargo

Larry - Dean Harens

Ellen - Monica Lovett

Margo - Naomi Ryerton

Anne Summers - Sonny Adams

Carl Brown - Walter Kinsella

Ed Clifton - John Dutra

Paul Anderson- Philip Pine

Ellen Stockwell - Millicent Brewer

Fred Stanton - Jamie Smith

Anne d'Autremont - Jane Talbert

Tilman - Mike Tolan

Jane - Vicki Cummings

Carl Grant - Joe DeSantis

Otto - Martin Kosleck

 

 

It was a P&G show and Thomas Riley was producer.

 

Juliet was a native of Capstan Island,Maine ,who left for NYC to become a singer. Foster father Charles and boyfriend John wanted her to return home but she found love with Tom in NY. Tom was charged for a crime and Juliet and her father faced charges as accomplices. John romanced and married Anne and his mother Ruth threw them a wedding bash at her house Grey Gables.

In 55,Tom had been sentenced and Juliet vowed to clear his name with the help of Carl. They found the real criminal,Fred. Tom when released behaved badly towards poor Juliet,accepting a job that took him away, Charles became ill and Juliet had to care for him in NY. Then Carl and Otto kidnapped Juliet. Her new beau Paul saved her in the nick of time.

 

Golden Windows was one of 3 NBC soaps to debut on the same day in the hopes of establishing an afternoon soap block.,the others being First Love and Concerning Miss Marlowe.

 

From Wikipedia

The program told the story of Juliet Goodwin (played by Leila Martin), a 22-year-old girl who spent an isolated childhood in an island retreat off the coast of Maine with her foster father, Charles Goodwin (played by Eric Dressler), and her attempt to find happiness with Tom Anderson (played by Herb Patterson), the bitter young cynic with whom she was in love, although she is was engaged to another. Julie, a girl endowed with a lovely body and a glorious voice, found that her curiosity about life and people had made her vaguely discontented with life on the idyllic island Capstan.

 

As the story opened, Julie discussed plans for her forthcoming marriage to her fiancé, John Brandon (played by Grant Sullivan), when a bad storm blew up and he returned to the hotel he and his mother ran on the mainland.

 

The following sequence of events took place in the program’s opening week:

 

Tuesday, July 6: Tom Anderson, battered by the New England storm and fleeing the police on what may be a murder charge, found his way to the Goodwin house.

 

Wednesday, July 7: Julie convinced her father that Tom was ill and needed their help so they put him up in the guest room for the night after he had collapsed from fatigue.

 

Thursday, July 8: On the mainland, John told his mother (played by Harriet MacGibbon) that he promised to get Julie an audition with a famous musician who was staying at their resort hotel. Meanwhile, Tom regained consciousness.

 

Friday, July 9: There was an awareness about Tom and Julie of the growing bond between them and she promised to hide him from the police until he was stronger and could go to them with the story of his how partner was shot, and convince them he was not guilty.

 

The program was produced by Mary Harris, and directed by Dan Levin. The story was by John M. Young and Corlis Wilber.

 

 

Edited March 1, 2016 by Paul Raven

[DRW50]

Edited July 3, 2011 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

Thanks for finding all that, Paul Raven! Where did you get all that? I didn't even think to check Wikipedia. How fantastic that there's a synopsis of the first week of episodes. I'm sorry that all my wall of text about the actress might obscure your info that actually pertains to the show.

I wonder whatever happened to Martin. Her only other IMDB credit is Valiant Lady.

From what you've read about the show, what do you think of it? The description reminds me of when that Mary Hartman Mary Noble book talked about Follow Your Heart and how the soaps that started out with something of a crime element didn't really work with viewers (not until EON, anyway).

[soapfan770]

Thanks both Carl and Paul on this one. Golden Windows, what a strange name for a soap. Here's what Matt P. Smith had to say about:

[DRW50]

I guess Golden Windows is supposed to mean some time of day, or is a metaphor for NYC, but it sounds like a sexual fetish.

Thanks for reading the article. It gets a little odd (the woman weeping when her husband orders her to cut her hair - I felt a little sorry for her) and the ending is horribly hackneyed, but I do like knowing more about these actors we'll never see.

I have one somewhere on the show's leading man.

I wonder if NBC should have had more faith in these shows or if there was no point.

[dc11786]

I thought Golden Windows referred to the opportunity; when you close a door, a window opens.

Paul Raven's summary comes from Memorable TV's soap section. They've copied various entries from Wesley Hyatt's "Encyclopedia of Daytime Television" word for word. This entry can be found in Hyatt's book.

John Young's work on "The Right to Happiness" was strong blending legal matters into the domestic drama. This might have been a case of too much with the story in Maine, the theatre scene, and the criminal matters all fighting for story time in a fifteen-minute soap. Young's scripts are stored at Cornell and I believe most of 'Golden Windows' can be found there.

Both of Juliet's city beaus have the last name Anderson. I wonder if this is a misprint or if the two were related.

[DRW50]

Thanks for fleshing this out for us. I hope someday the scripts might become more available.

BTW I do plan to type up a few more Right to Happiness synopses. Sorry I got off track.

[slick jones]

Golden Windows Storyline

[Paul Raven]

Barbara Cook, who played Hazel and went on to become a cabaret singer has died aged 89.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/theater/barbara-cook-dead.html

[danfling]

I felt that the late Barbara Cook would have been the perfect performer to play Natalie's grandmother on One Life to Live and that the show should have hired Ms. Cook to join its cast as the grandmother.

[Paul Raven]

Apparently the shows title came from an 19 th Century fable about a little boy who saw a house with golden windows from a mountainside only to find it was his own house reflected in the sunset.

The allegory was we see things based on our perspective (from where & when we are standing), and we may envy others for things we have, but can't see for ourselves until someone shows us. 

I wonder if, at some point, that story was told on air for viewers to make the connection?

[Paul Raven]

Some more episode summaries that might provide a clearer idea of the show

 

John Brandon fears that a singing career may be more attractive to his fiance than marriage.

Tom is injured and Julie begins to worry about the people who have sheltered Tom from the police, when an argument is overheard by a town gossip.

Fred considers changing his story that Tom shot him deliberately.

Tom Anderson hears his trial date has been moved up.

Tom is taken to Jail.

Tom Anderson is convicted of first degree assault and is sentenced to prison.

Julie Goodwin begins a search for her real father.

Carl Grant holds the Goodwins virtual prisoners.

Carl Grant persuades Charles Goodwin to keep his identity a secret from Julie.

Carl and Otto's visit erupts into violence.

Julie Goodwin is arrested for the shooting of Carl Grant.

[danfling]

I did not realize this until tonight, but Lelia Martin appeared in a television production of Philemon.   I was in college in 1975 when this aired.  The great Norman Lloyd directed the show.   It was a musical written by the same team who had written the tremendously successful The Fantastics.  The play had an off-Broadway run, and this was a television version of that play.

Ms. Martin is also credited with a weeklong role on The Doctors.