Roy Winser

[aMLCproduction]

We often talk about all the soap greats but this man. He created LOL and SFT. I just wanted to know why we never include this man in a geatest of suck and such on any list or no one talks about his skills in the soap world.

Carl care to help?

[Paul Raven]

Roy Winsor has been unjustly neglected when discussing the giants of the soap world.

His obit from LA Times

Roy Winsor, who wrote mystery novels, radio shows and created the daytime television series "Search for Tomorrow," has died at age 75.

Winsor, who also wrote, directed and/or produced other soap operas, died Sunday of undisclosed causes at his Pelham Manor home in suburban New York City.

A native of Chicago, Winsor returned to his hometown after graduation from Harvard. There, he wrote and directed such television and radio programs as "Sky King," "Ma Perkins," "True Confessions," "Vic and Sade" and "Saturday Square."

He moved to New York where he created "Search for Tomorrow" and helped produce other early television shows, including "I Love Lucy," "My Little Margie," and "My Hero."

He set up his own company in 1955 and produced "Love of Life" and "The Secret Storm."

Winsor also wrote mysteries, including "The Corpse That Walked," which won the 1974 Edgar (Allan Poe) Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best paperback mystery of the year.

[aMLCproduction]

Thank u Pauk Never knew he wrote mustery or worked on Ma perkins and I love Lucy. I wonder why he was never approcd for EON??

I was just curiosu as to why we never talk a bout him here. SFT and LOL and TSS I consider to be soap greats. Its always about Irna, Bell, and nixon

[All My Shadows]

He also created "Another Life."

How long did he actually write and produce for the shows he created? I think what separates him from Irna, Agnes, and Bill is the fact that they wrote for their shows for a long, long time. I always associate writers other than Winsor with his shows.

[aMLCproduction]

Yes AMS he sure did and I forgot that. Im not too sure how long he stayed Invovled in his shows. Good quetion. I also How Irna and Roy felt about each other

[Cheap21]

Who?

[Susan Hunter]

My opinion is that he isn't discussed because he was never elevated to 'legend' status, by whomever decides these things. But also because, while he was a good writer, I don't think his writing was transformative or stood out in the way that Irna's ATWT, Bell's Days, or Nixon's AW just knocked everyone's socks off.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Wow, I didn't even know he actually wrote for SFT (I thought he came up with the general concept and Agnes Nixon did all of the actual writing in the beginning, or am I completely confusing two separate shows?). I certainly had no idea he was an award-winning mystery novelist. Did early SFT or LOL have any suspense stories?

I tended to think Windsor didn't get as much credit because he wasn't a writer per se (would the Cordays be as talked about today if their names weren't still in credits to this day) but also because I've always associated his writing with very simplistic, good vs. evil approach to characters and storytelling. I did know about Another Life and that played into that assumption, but also that whole "Vanesssa Dale and her struggle for human dignity" style seems like the most melodramatic, stereotypical soap writing. Even Irna Phillips, who gets lots of flak for emphasizing her saints and sinners, eventually created characters like Kim and Susan and wrote some grown-up stories for them with a sense of moral ambiguity that had to be quite shocking at the time. Did LOL or SFT ever really do that in his lifetime?

[DRW50]

I think LOL had some moral ambiguity, in Meg, who was never completely wicked (which is one of the reasons why viewers loved her). The Secret Storm was a very morally ambiguous show, with highly flawed characters in the lead roles.

Winsor stayed with SS the longest, I think - up to the late 60s.

If he's not a legend it's probably because he wasn't the originator, like Irna, and he wasn't around in daytime for the more modern era, like Agnes or Bill.

[DeliaIrisFan]

I always forget about Secret Storm. I known so little about it, compared to other canceled shows.

I've only seen one or two '50s/'60s scenes of Meg. She always seemed one-note, but I could be wrong. Well, I Monday-morning-quarterbacked about Windsor vs. Phillips's saints and sinners, but I can't speak from first-hand experience.

However, I don't know if his lack of recognition is because he wasn't around in the modern era, exactly - with network interference, he might have been the writer to be least tainted - so much as that his shows didn't make it. Which raises another question: Why did Irna and her protegees (Nixon, Bell) create shows that lasted into the 21st century, but not Windsor?

I would say Irna's "formula" of two core families left more leeway for turnover and rejuvenation...fans of Frannie Hughes or Tad Martin or even - as much as it pains me to say - Michelle Bauer were watching characters connected to their forebears. But it seems like the Windsor shows had less room for cultivating legacy characters. LOL seemed to come the closest to making a successful transition in the '70s by building up Meg's adult children as the next generation, mixing it up with the previous generation. Ironically, Labine and Mayer left to create their own show at the height of that era that, structurally at least, owed something of a debt to Phillips (Ryan's Hope), and then I think a character named Bambi who had no ties to anyone took center stage on LOL and that was that...

[DRW50]

Most of Winsor's shows being sold to CBS probably hurt, because P&G seemed to have a very solid team in place up to some point in the 70s or 80s. The only P&G show he had was Search, which he left very quickly.

Until CBS got involved, Secret Storm was a very popular and important show. Unfortunately the show is mostly gone.