The soap opera writers' discussion

[Khan]

I really lay the blame for Long's failure at OLTL on JFP, who (IMO) was never enthused about collaborating with her.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I agree. She was replaced by Phelps after six months so Phelps could install one of her favorite writers, Megan McTavish.

[dc11786]

Has anyone else read this article about Irna Phillips?

 

She mentions Anthony Heilbut's article on radio soap operas, "Brave Tomorrows for Bachelor's Children," which is also a fascinating read. Heilbut is interesting in that he really analyzes the work, and lives, of the writers. Even if his analysis is sometimes more conjecture than pure fact, it's interesting to reading Lynn Liccardo's piece calling out Heilbut for his selective use of material.

 

Liccardo's passion for Phillips is clear, and I think she really points a more sympathetic light onto the tragic life of Irna Phillips. I believe Liccardo also wrote several other blog entries about her love for "As the World Turns."

 

[danfling]

How many wedded couples consisting of a performer and a writer can you name?

[Paul Raven]

Pam Long/Jay Hammer

Keith Charles/Nancy Ford

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2018 by Paul Raven

[j swift]

Wisner Washam/Judith Barcroft

[robbwolff]

Wasn’t it revealed that Long and Hammer were never married? I swear I read that at some point.

[Pine Charles]

 

That was the real Silver (not the imposter who framed Erica for murder a few years before).

To answer your question - Natalie killed Silver. 

Natalie had recently been raped by Ross Chandler and was being gaslighted by Silver (making her believe there was a male prowler whom would rape her again). 

Natalie proceeded to stuff Silver’s body inside Timmy’s (her son’s) toy chest.

I believe Palmer later helped her dump the body in a pond on his property (which Dixie saw while taking a swim; she kept her eyes open “for snakes”).

And, yes - I’m fairly certain Broderick was the writer.

Edited September 1, 2018 by Pine Charles

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

Thanks. I remember the episode where Dixie was swimming and found the body. The show was very good and must-see during that time.

[Pine Charles]

I posted this in the AMC Tribute Thread, but I think it belongs here especially.

I’ve never felt Dick Cavett was a good interviewer, but this is still interesting and a treat - Agnes Nixon discussing her writing technique, etc.

This appears to be from 1978 (btw, Cavett would make a cameo on AMC shortly after this).....

 

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[danfling]

There are several more performer/writer combinations.   I can think of at least five.

[danfling]

In the Dick Cavett clip above, Jack Wood is mentioned. I don't know much about him. Does anyone the can share information post about him?

[EricMontreal22]

Nixon's memoir is a mess of course (and for good reason--writing it--largely by dictation--post stroke, passing away before a final draft, etc) but has some great anecdotes.  I believe she mentions Wood and might even go as far as calling him an associate headwriter with a little anecdote.  It's around the section where she mentions how she met Broderick (although timeline wise that musta been ten or so years later) when Broderick was a university faculty member and had heard a male student bragging about being a writer on AMC (apparently he did a test script that was turned down) so Broderick wrote in that she wanted to try.  I'll have to check on what she says abotu Wood but she clearly thought of him at some point as one of the top writers/collaborators.

Pine Charles thanks for that clip again--I hadn't seen it since it was first posted and deleted--it's pretty great.

[EricMontreal22]

I think Canedella is the definition of mediocre.  I've recently befriended a woman who was a sort of "pitch hitter" writer on soaps in the early 70s--she has copies and sent me several of her scripts which have notes from the individual headwriters, etc (apparently back then, when writing staffs were so small, HWs would call people like her when they needed a script or re-write fast and their team was too busy).  She worked with Candella on AW and Somerset and Nixon on AMC and OLTL.  Not to anyone's surprise but the quality of the work and the detail of the notes by the two HWs is so vastly different, it's shocking.  I know one soap writer called working with Nixon and Marland on Loving Hell because Nixon would write SOOO many notes for revision in the margins of his scripts.  That would be frustrating to work with, but it also shows how much she cared about the quality, and maintaining a voice and tone, she felt towards her shows.

This brings up DePriest who, with her work at The Doctors (which at the least is more exciting than Canedella's) led me to a question.  Most of her soap stints have been brief.  Was that by design?  At one point she seemed to be a go-to woman to come in when a soap was floundering and shake things up as an interim writer and then leave--specifically at AMC when it was slinking in the ratings just as FMB came in as EP around 1989 and she came in briefly (though of course it was Nixon herself who replaced her) and then she seemed to (less successfully) move on to do the same job at the very troubled OLTL.  I will say I loved her work at Sunset Beach, the only time I can say that about the show--it was fun, soap parody (unlike the awful, insulting and just plain dull soap parody of Passions).  And certainly her own Where the Heart Is is the one "lost" soap I'd most like to see (well along with Lovers and Friends) although she was quickly replaced there I believe and people liked it best when it was Labine/Avila's first writing stint.

Edited September 22, 2018 by EricMontreal22

[EricMontreal22]

This is the problem about talking about a headwriter.  I know this is an old post but endulge me...

Many of the stories you mention were not penned by Nixon.  She WAS involved to varying degrees during all of the stories you talk about, but how involved is open to consideration (and from a technical viewpoint many of them were during eras when other writers--Washam, Broderick and McTavish) had the official HW credit. 

I have no idea what you mean about the Alec McIntyre being killed by Will story is lol but if you mean the Who Killed Will story (which I believe was before Alec was even introduced) it seems that was spearheaded, and the first major story by McTavish.  As  kid I found it riveting but probably would less so (McTavish repeated many of the plot points in her last stint when she had the Michael Cambias murder mystery).  In Agnes Nixon's memoirs (which are unfortunately so unclear about dates and facts--like she talks about co-HW One Life to Live with the "great" Gordon Russell, and I agree he was great, but doesn't give what years, she sometimes calls various AMC writers she mentions co-HWs, she never really mentions when she wasn't HW of that show except to mention how Pratt was so terrible, though she doesn't name him, and that he pushed her out of the writing room during that time, etc, etc). 

 

The Michael Cambias/Kevin Sheffield storyline was instigated by the underrated Hal Corley who worked and ran it past Lorraine Broderick (who was official HW at the time) and Agnes Nixon did offer input.  I know this from an interview I did with Corley and I have no reason to not take him at his word. 

There are other examples I can mention in your examples (like I think Taylor was probably created, as much as we wanna vilify her, by Megan McTavish--credit due).   And of course as mentioned many of things we credit to Agnes were Wisner Washam, although I disagree with Khan--I think the Cortlands were all Agnes.  She mentions basing Palmer in many ways on her father, etc.  Plus she does have a penchant for the Gothic (she repeated much of it with the Natalie in the Well/Wildwind/Wife in the Attic story arc during her second last stint as official HW).  When she wrote Loving in late 93-94 she did the very Gothic Dante with his "pet" Curtis in a cage story as well as the Gilber/Jeremy double.  I know several here have dissed Agnes Nixon's Gothic storylines but I find them kinda endearing in their craziness, even if I admit they're not fully successful.  Nixon was a fan of Dark Shadows afterall (hence her hiring their writers for OLTL) and loved the Gothic qualities of Victorian authors including the serials of DIckens and Collins.

In fact she strikes me as truly the most Dickens (or more so Wilkie Collins) influenced headwriter.  Her mix of tones often struck established soap viewers as odd when AMC started--even Schemering mentions this in his Soap Encyclopedia, but it echoes Dickens entirely.  The sense of a community.  The unabashed dependence on tropes that many mock like coincidence, characters leaving and coming back as quite different (new career, etc), near-caricatured rich as well as lower class characters with the non-caricatures "identify" characters tending to be squarely middle class.  Somewhat bland but endearing young lover heroes and heroines.  Amnesia.  The use of psychological AND physical doubling.  The use of HUMOUR--including villains who could be broadly humorous one moment and then genuinely scary the next.  A huge reliance on revelations of a characters past.  And, of course, the use of controversial and genuinely groundbreaking social relevancy and discussion in her storylines.  I've written a lot in grad school about the Dickens and later "sensation fiction" serials of the Victorian era and the similarities to soaps, but especially Nixon's soaps is striking.  One big complaint of critics at the time (aside from the familiar to soap fan complaint about how people were being mindlessly hooked on serials, were confusing fiction with reality, were wasting time obsessing and worrying about fictional characters, etc) was that a Dickens serial from installment to installment would move from satire, to touching sentimentality, to outright Gothic horror, etc.  Guess what?  Many 1970s critics of Agnes Nixon, and particularly of AMC (which is far more traditional in setup than her work on OLTL) was that the tone would vacillate sharply from scene to scene.  And I love that. 

 

It's a cliche used to make soap opera writing sound "important" when soap fans mention their ancestry in Dickens' serials, but with Agnes Nixon it's true and this is where she is different from Irna, or Bill Bell, or more literary later writers like Lemay (I think Michael Malone, who shockingly has not been mentioned here, also has that Dickens influence and is very similar to Nixon albeit FAR more literary). 

In her We Love Soaps interview, Claire is asked about the Eli storyline and she claims it must have been before or after her time and to have ZERO knowledge of it, for what it's worth.