August 1969 TV Radio Mirror.

on radio in the long-run Counterspy, and doing freelance photography for national magazines. Helen Wagner, who seems very much like her character of Nancy Hughes, came into show business via music recitals in her native Lubbock, Texas.

Barbara Berjer, World's Claire Cassen, holds a master's degree in drama. Roy Shuman - Dr. Michael Shea, the villain on the show - is quite a jokester on the set. Playing Claire's daughter Ellen Stewart is Patricia Bruder, who was a member of radio's Juvenile Jury as a child.

The warmest heart in the World family belongs to Santos Ortega, its Grandpa Hughes. He recalled for us a fascinating career of singing in vaudeville, starring as Ellery Queen on radio and playing top parts in such as Charlie Chan, Perry Mason and The Shadow. He is quite fluent at faking a Spanish accent, as might be expected from his name.

Over at Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, the show's villainess, Jean Garrison, is actually a most charming actress named Jane Manning: "I get here each day and wonder what horrible, wicked things Jean is up to. She really should be locked away in a penitentiary.!"

Miss Manning worked out an analysis of the role so she can play it up to perfection. "Jean never had anything an d came up from the dumps to struggle for all she could get," she said, summing up the career of a woman who has had an affair with a professional "protege" and was blackmailed for it by her ex-husband.

One of Miss Manning's most embarrassing moments came in a recent episode when she entered the set on camera and fell - because the rug had not been taped to the concrete surface. "I thought of several different things on the way down, but had to figure out a way to change the scene to make the fall fit in," she chuckled.

The show, you see, is broadcast live.

Playing Jean's stepson Spence is Ed Power, who talks rather academically, as befits a former professor of philosophy and English literature at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Charles Hartshorne, now professor of philosophy at the University of Texas (our alma mater), remembers Power as a colleague at Emory, "a studious, dedicated scholar."

Power told me more things about U.T. than I knew after studying there. "It is known in my circles for excellent teaching," he said, "causing me to wince rather guiltily. He admitted turning to television (first as emcee of a kiddie show, later as a sportscaster) for the money (higher than his teaching salary), but still regrets that he has never returned to school to earn his nearly completed doctorate degree. (Perhaps he will "work it in," someday.)

A screaming maniac on Splendored is Spence's ex-wife Nancy! But Susan Browning, who plays her, is a quiet and refined actress who sincerely wanted to know why I was such a fan of the show. "In my fan mail," she told me, "so many viewers cannot articulate what they like about the role I play. I am dying to know how they feel, so I can improve the character accordingly!"

During the rehearsals I saw, the two pretty "sisters" of Splendored were intently studying their roles for overall conception, as well as the daily lines. Leslie Charleson (who plays Iris Donnelly) was an award-winning dramatist at Bennett College. Donna Mills (Laura Elliott) was trained as a dancer and has even staged a ballet on the show as a "dream" dance sequence. Both are obviously serious about the theatre.

We asked produced Mary Harris if Rosemary Prinz would return to World in the role of Penny Hughes. Miss Harris said Rosemary had simply let her contract run out in May, 1968, and did not renegotiate with the preceding producer. The youthful "veteran of twelve years with the series had not feuded with management but simply wanted to get into musical comedy work for a while.

We contacted Rosemary when she was appearing in The Apple Tree in our hometown, and she told us then that she did not know, one way or the other, if and when she would return to World. Miss Harris verified this, noting that both parties (she has never met Rosemary) would have to negotiate Penny's return. "One consideration would be if there was a place in the story for Penny, which there is not at present," she added.

Like viewers themselves, the stars are keenly interested in the characters they play, but are only posted on the plot a week ahead of time, when they get their scripts. An actress on Splendored asked for an advance text in view of a long vacation before her next call. "All the information you get out of me, that is where I draw the line," joked producer Weiss, who is even keeping his own mother in the dark on future episodes!

Edited August 17, 201114 yr by CarlD2

We were sitting in the World control room, screening some of the show's many rerun sequences from earlier years which are used as flashbacks. John Colenback, who plays young Dr. Dan Stewart, turned to Cort Stern, director, in confusion. "Did Ellen know at that point in the story that David knew Dan was her son?" he asked - prompting Steen to stop the proceedings and engage the other six crew members in a discussion on just what was happening on that old show. Steen had directed it six years previously. (Henderson, who plays papa David Stewart, settled the question with an emphatic "Yes.")

Over at Splendored, we noticed the technical crew in the control room getting absorbed in the emotion of each scene, while the director's cues and instructions became more frenetic and crisper, as the action heated up.

Storylines for all daytime serials are mapped out by writer and producer a year or more in advance (two or three years, on some of the older shows). A month ahead of broadcast, they are finalized as to what actions occur on what days. Actual script writing is only two weeks ahead of broadcast date.

Incidentally, base pay for actors is $165 a day, though most get more than that and are on contracts guaranteeing three days' pay a week, whether or not they are in the story.

Viewer mail is definitely considered in "reinforcing or disproving what we are writing," noted Bob Driscoll, producer of Search. It can cause small characters to become more prominent in the story (like Barnabas in Dark Shadows), but a majority of writers cannot change the storyline completely. "I find that viewers in their fan letters are generally pretty shrewd in guessing about what will happen tomorrow," Miss Harris added.

Each show takes a full day's work, as witness the World Turns schedule: 1:30 - show on the air live; 2:30-5:30 - read lines and block out scenes for next day's show; 7:30-9:30 the next morning - rehearse; 9:30-10:30 - costumes, makeup and hairdressing; 10-30:11 - show first goes before the cameras; noon-dress rehearsal with commercials and music; 1:30 - show again on the air live, ending one day's ritual and beginning the perennial next.

Most actors prefer to do the shows live to get the best performance. Weiss feels they build up the quality to a climax when on the air and that actors would tend to falter more if the show were being taped in expectation of redoing scenes.

Production studios for the soaps are rather small (averaging about 100 x 200 feet) for quick and easy movement. Sets are arranged in each corner, and the three cameras and two microphone booms must be shuttled about the room. In World's rectangular studio (100 x 350 feet), two men are required to literally run with the monstrous camera for transferring scenes.

Daytime serials are "grown up" today, as increasing numbers of viewers have noticed. In addition to housewives, their regular audiences (some 200 million a day for all shows) include students, businessmen, career women and professors. They are successful because they touch human emotion in a much broader-based audience than the old-fashioned stereotype of "soap opera" fans.

"We now gear toward the intelligent, and approach our stories like a nighttime show," observed Conboy of Splendored. He feels the soaps can no longer afford to deceive viewers with outmoded or downright improbable views on life.

"Viewers can find the frankest material seen during the day," added Weiss. "It is truer to what people go through, and the public is already asking for more."

The various producers' opinions as to whether viewers select special favorites - or simply leave the TV set on all day - are about equally divided. All agree that there is a decided asset in today's writing - far superior to most radio serials, which were often mass-produced by a single team. Each is now independently done by such skilled craftsmen as James Lipton (Splendored), who is author of the current bestseller An Exaltation Of Larks, and Henry Slesar (The Edge of Night), whose short stories regularly appear in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

Families like the Hugheses (World), the Bauers (The Guiding Light) and the Ameses (Secret Storm) have become AMerican institutions, embracing all that is virtuous and quite a bit of human frailty, too.

The viewer who asks about soap operas' future will find it rosy. Ratings show that every serial on every network outrates any other type of show at competing times. (Most of the top shows are telecast over CBS, but such dramas as NBC's Another World have vast audiences, too.)

Full-hour serials are already being contemplated, as are longer acts between commercials (average now, about 4 or 5 minutes). The future may also see specially orchestrated musical scores replacing the organ or "canned" music so long associated with this type of show.

All producers we interviewed dream of nighttime soap operas, all viewing with regret the sad fate of the spin-off series launched by World in "prime time" a few seasons ago. They still hope - and find encouragement in those television markets which delay broadcasting their shows until late afternoon spots or even late at night (as will soon be tried with ABC's popular Dark Shadows).

As for the advance storylines:

Present stories on World in the coming year (as of this writing) will be extended to include further closeness between Ellen Stewart and her illegitimate son Dan, reunited last March. Dr. Michael Shea, the series' villain, will be shown to have had a very sad background, and viewers will begin to understand his defense of people who treat him poorly. Shea will take on more warmth and become a hero!

An interesting romantic triangle will explode between brothers Paul and Dan Stewart over romantic interest in Elizabeth Talbot, whose sad background is keeping her from going home to England. Dan's wife will be the pivotal figure.

Search for Tomorrow will open up a sticky triangle in the troubled affair between Joanne Tate and Sam Reynolds - thanks to Sam's wife, who will not let him go so he can marry Joanne.

Love Is a Many Splendored Thing will have repercussions of the Steve Hurley murder, with the wrong man "framed." Storylines will explore Iris Donnelly's definite blindness and a new relationship for her and fiance Spence Garrison, whose wedding she first broke off last January.

Jean Garrison will have a new affair. And former lover Mark Elliott will unbelievably have a new relationship with estranged wife Laura. Explicit enough!

Although the producers were most gracious in divulging their storylines to me, I will not reveal the endings - most of them surprises a la Hitchcock. One trick to remember in second-guessing soap operas is: "Nobody will ever be completely happy. Otherwise, there will be no story," as Weiss pointed out.

I was one of the rare people getting more than hints from the producers, but the main inspiration I brought home was the way daytime dramas are so thoughtfully put together by dedicated professionals who take their work seriously. The soaps are now better artistically because they are created by people with pride and huge talents.

I saw the sets, read the scripts, and met - not the characters - but topnotch actors who are, without exception, even warmer off screen than on...especially the villains! In fact, all who make these serials are young, creative, and the nicest people one would ever want in a circle of friends.

Edited August 17, 201114 yr by CarlD2

Fantastic article Carl. Those predictions-orchestral music,1 hour shows,nightime soaps etc came to pass.

So sad we are now down to 4 shows.Somewhere along the way,things went awry.

It's too bad none of the daytime shows ever made it to primetime, as the producers hoped for.

It's sad reading this but hopefully PP may start something new in the genre.

I loved the ATWT tidbits but most of all I was interested in the LIAMST stuff. That show seemed to fall out of favor so quickly ... if you read material from around 1969 or 1970 you'd think it would be around forever.

Was LIAMST caught in the ratings crossfire when CBS lost dominance and the mighty ATWT was finally ousted from #1? It did have problems- losing a lot of its lead in numbers and the recasts of key roles.

P&G demanded their shows be in a block and LIAMST was dropped.Perhaps they would have been better to try and retool the show.Then again CBS had a lot of soaps and did have Y&R waiting in the wings.

It seems to me they should have just rebooted the show - although who am I to say. For instance, Leslie Charleson returned to daytime only a few years later, so they might have gotten her back. Even if they hadn't, if they'd just found the right players and kept them, who knows what might have happened.

God, I love this. I loved LIAMST. Of all the short-lived serials throughout the years, the loss of this one hit me the hardest. It was a wonderful soap, and I would dearly love to get my hands on more episodes. Jean was a wonderful villainess. I get such a kick from looking at the photos and remembering the clothes and hairstyles (women looked so beautiful in that era -maybe I would have stayed straight if fashion had not changed ). Also, looking at sets I had not thought of in ages is fun. Mark and Laura's kitchen, and the scenes with Spence are set in his office -attention to detail: note the California state flag in one corner. Spence was a state senator. Great find, Carl, thank you for sharing this with us!

I'm glad you enjoyed it. When I saw the article I thought you might like it. It's nice to see more details on LIAMST, and some great photos I hadn't seen before; the one with Donna Mills and the organ guy, and the photo with Leslie and Donna.

I'd seen the photo of Jean before but I get a kick out of that hair and that wild dress. I just wish we could see it in color. It's like a kaleidoscope.

My first real encounter with the cancellation of one of 'my' soaps came in March 1973 when LIAMST was cancelled (Where the Heart Is was also cancelled the same day - March 23, 1973). Of course, nothing could compare with the devastation when my beloved Edge ended (thankfully, I was invited to its last day of taping), I do recall doing a photo montage poster from magazine clippings of the LIAMST cast in tribute.

Several years later, when LIAMST's patriarch, Dr. Will Donnelly, actor Judson Laire was playing a judge on EON, he was kind enough to send me a letter and autographed photo. I always thought of him as the grandfather I never had. Ironically, he died on my maternal grandfather's birthday in 1979 (July 5).

Similarly, I felt the same way toward Andrea Marcovicci (Dr. Betsy Chernak) as the sister I never had. Last year, I had tickets to see her perform in one of her musical concerts when she wa in NYC, but I had to cancel my reservation when my wife had emergency gall bladder surgery.

I once met actor Stephen Joyce (Dr. Sanford Hiller-LIAMST) in the Times Square section of NYC. David Birney and I, as it turns out, share the same birthday - April 23. I've always enjoyed seeing Vincent Baggetta(Dr. Peter Chernak) in his various gust spots on episodic prime time series over the years.

I have very fond memories of the show...nearly 40 years since its cancellation.

Was LIAMST caught in the ratings crossfire when CBS lost dominance and the mighty ATWT was finally ousted from #1? It did have problems- losing a lot of its lead in numbers and the recasts of key roles.

P&G demanded their shows be in a block and LIAMST was dropped. Perhaps they would have been better to try and retool the show.Then again CBS had a lot of soaps and did have Y&R waiting in the wings.

LIAMST had fine ratings on its own, but it was unsuccessful from CBS' point of view because its ratings dropped off significantly from its lead-in. At the height of its popularity LIAMST averaged a 9.5 rating while World Turns preceding it averaged 13.6. That is an enormous difference. This was the reason P&G wanted its programs in a block. The idea was that if GL and Edge followed World Turns, they would hold more of the audience than the house-produced soaps. Unfortunately, the network was wrong. The move caused Edge's already shaky numbers to fall permanently, and even GL had lower ratings the first two years after the time change.

Actually, LIAMST was not replaced by The Young and the Restless. Y&R replaced Where the Heart Is. LIAMST was, in effect, replaced by the shortlived game show Hollywood's Talking, which lasted three months and was itself replaced by Match Game. Of course, Match Game became THE sensation for a while with ratings that sent it to the very top of the daytime charts, frequently beating World Turns for the #1 position. In that sense, perhaps CBS did the right thing, but the loss of LIAMST was a particularly bitter one as it probably had more potential to succeed with less effort than any of CBS' other house soaps.