The soap opera writers' discussion

[Contessa Donatella]

Hyatt, W. (1997). The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television. Billboard Books.

Schemering, C. (1987). The Soap Opera Encyclopedia. Ballantine Books.

"Faraway Hill" was the first televised soap opera but it was one of only 3 on the DuMont network. That was 1946. "These Are My Children" was the first televised soap on a major network. That was NBC in 1949. And, according to both of these sources it ended on Feb. 25, 1949, making today its Endiversary. To all who celebrate I raise a glass! It's just a crying shame that "Television World" printed this in its review, "There is no place on television for this type of program, a blank screen is preferable." And, "Variety" stated "this type of hausfrau fodder will have extremely hard sledding on the medium ... Acting of any of the principals won't win any awards." It aired M-F 5-5:15 pm. It was out of Chicago & it is noted that it was the shortest-lived TV soap. 

Edited February 26, 2024 by Donna L. Bridges
typos are always with us

[danfling]

The man who was originally was announced to be the co-creator of Loving (with Agnes Nixon) has passed away.   I will post an obituary of Dan Wakefield later.

[VelekaCarruthers]

Great 1972 article from The New Yorker magazine on soap plots!  Wow.  Amazing details about some classic soap storylines.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1972/02/12/afternoon-television-unhappiness-enough-and-time

[Contessa Donatella]

 

Renata Adler is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for The New Yorker, and in 1968–69, she served as chief film critic for The New York Times. She is also a writer of fiction who uses the pen name Brett Daniels. She was born October 19, 1938 in Milan, Italy. Her family fled Nazi Germany and later moved to America. She grew up in CT.

 

CANARIES IN THE MINESHAFT: Essays on Politics and Media. by Renata Adler. St. Martin's Press. New York. © 2001. "Afternoon Television: Unhappiness Enough, and Time"

 

This is a book that is out of print but available. There is a kindle edition. However only one of the essays is about soaps, this one. They were not her regular beat. But, she loved them, as we do. Amazon kindle has several of her books that are collected nonfiction, which means they likely are also television criticism. They also have fiction by her. 

Edited March 23, 2024 by Contessa Donatella
Amazon info

[Paul Raven]

Chicago Tribune 17 May 2000.

Warren Swanson worked with Irna Phillips. I never knew he was gay. Looks like ha came out later in life. The claim in the article that he was involved  on 15 soaps I find a little suspect. Also a mention of Steve Babecki. Katherine Phillips wrote under that name so perhaps Steve was her husband?

Warren L. Swanson wore many hats–he was an attorney, a soap-opera writer and the co-author of well-known guides to Chicago. He dreamed up the idea of the first Easter Seal telethon and owned some prime real estate in the city.

“He was a Renaissance man,” said his son, Sheridan Christopher. “He tried everything and he had a knack for it.”

The 66-year-old South Loop resident who lived two doors away from Mayor Richard M. Daley died May 7 of a brain hemorrhage in Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago.

Mr. Swanson was born and lived most of his life in Chicago.

Mr. Swanson graduated from the University of Chicago and then Northwestern Law School. He at one time tutored former Gov. James Thompson through law school, his son said.

During the early part of his career, Mr. Swanson butted heads with the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. As one of two special prosecutors in a vote fraud probe 40 years ago, Mr. Swanson won convictions against three Democratic precinct workers who pleaded guilty to altering ballots in the 1960 election. Then, in 1968, when board members of a civic group he headed, the Citizens of Greater Chicago, decided to give the late mayor an award for “safeguarding lives and property” during the Democratic convention, Mr. Swanson resigned the group in protest.

 

But he considered himself a friend of the younger Daley and his wife, Maggie.

Mr. Swanson’s partner of 17 years, Thomas Brown, called him “one of the finest attorneys I know.”

 

Mr. Swanson helped the city of Palos Heights incorporate during the 1950s and then stayed on as the city attorney for 40 years.

It was while working as an attorney that Mr. Swanson landed a job writing for soap operas.

Back in the ’60s, many of the well-known TV dramas were being created in Chicago. An attorney friend who had been asked to write a courtroom drama for “As the World Turns” was not interested and so he passed on the job to Mr. Swanson who took the assignment and ran with it. He became the lead writer for “As the World Turns” and “Another World” and helped create 15 other shows, including “Somerset.”

In 1977, Mr. Swanson joined forces with Steve Babecki and wrote a 38-page guide to Chicago-area museums, “Museums of Chicago.”

Mr. Swanson also owned such properties as the building housing the Ann Taylor store on Oak Street and he once owned the Helene Curtis building in the North Loop.

Survivors also include a grandson. Services were held Friday; the family is planning a celebration of his life at an as yet undetermined date in June.

Edited March 31, 2024 by Paul Raven

[VelekaCarruthers]

Just came across this writer connection. Deceased ATWT writers' assistant (95-96/Culliton period), Hallie Leland Leighton, was the daughter of veteran script writer, Lynda Myles.

https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9501E5DE1E3AF93AA25756C0A9659D8B63.html

[Paul Raven]

The Boston Globe June 11 2007

Jeanne Davis Glynn, 75, Emmy-nominated writer ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW FAIRFIELD, Conn. -

Jeanne Davis Glynn, an actress who received several Emmy nominations as a writer for daytime soap operas, died Friday at a local healthcare center, according to family members. She was 75. Ms. Glynn had been in treatment for cancer since 1999 and her health had started to fail earlier this year, said her former husband, Malachy Glynn.

Ms. Glynn received five Emmy Award nominations as a script writer in the 1980s and 1990s on the shows "General Hospital," "Guiding Light," "As the World Turns," "One Life to Live" and "Port Charles." She won a Writers Guild of America Award in 1984 for her work on "Search for Tomorrow," and received a Soap Opera Digest Award six years later for "General Hospital" scripts. "It was an actor in New York City who first challenged me to write soap operas," Ms. Glynn said in an interview last year with the News-Times newspaper of Danbury. "He said it was a good way of reaching young people and I already knew, of course, that TV was the greatest commercial tool in the world for telling stories about the human condition," she said.

Ms. Glynn was born in Chicago, and she grew up near Buffalo. She graduated from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and later toured Europe and the United States as an actor, producer, and director, family members said. In New York, she appeared in Christopher Plummer's television production of "Oedipus Rex" and acted, directed, and stage managed productions at Circle in the Square. Ms.

Glynn was a longtime resident of New Fairfield and had two sons: Danbury attorney Liam Glynn and John Glynn, an advertising executive in New York City. "She beat the odds both in her life and her illness," said her son John. "She was a role model both for her family and for many other people.".

[Paul Raven]

Robert Cenedella died Saturday afternoon, September 28, 2002 at Tucson Heart Hospital. He was 90 years old. Born in Milford, MA on October 8, 1911, Mr. Cenedella taught high school English and became principal there in the 1930's. Before moving to Tucson 10 years ago, he had a long and successful career as a writer and actor in New York City.

He published the critically acclaimed novel "A Little To The East" in 1963, as well as dozens of stories in magazines such as Playboy, Redbook, and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He wrote for radio, notably for Helen Hayes. As a member of the Board of the Radio Writers Guild in 1949 he founded the Radio Writers Guild committee against the blacklist - the first union to publicly acknowledge and actively oppose the McCarthy-era persecution of writers and others for their political beliefs or affiliations. He was the head writer of such daytime serials as "Another World" and "The Guiding Light," and he mentored several young writers who went on to successful careers themselves. Never the retiring type, Robert embarked on an acting career at age 65, and performed in theatre, film and TV roles until he was 89.

In Tucson he was a member of the Old Pueblo Playwrights, as well as other writing groups, continuing throughout the last years of his life to write and refine, and to help younger writers learn their craft. He was working on a new novel when he died. He is survived by his beloved wife of 41 years, Betsy Boyd Cenedella, and by his children: educator and writer Joan Cenedella; artist and teacher Robert Cenedella, Jr.; teacher and writer Michael Cenedella; and musician and writer Peter Cenedella; by three grandchildren; his sister Carlotta Catusi; and his Tucson family, Andrew, Camilla and Maura Cenedella. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Robert's name to Habitat for Humanity or the Actor's Fund

[Paul Raven]

Pete T Rich article undated from Berkshire Style website

According to wikipedia

All My Children

• Script Writer: 1994 - 1996

Days of Our Lives

• Script Writer: 1993, October 4, 2011 – July 27, 2012

Guiding Light

• Script Writer: 1984 - 1993, 1997–1999

Passions

• Script Writer: 1999 - 2008

Santa Barbara

• Script Writer: 1993

• Welcome to the Soaps

  by Joseph Montebello

  Before there were miniseries and weekly comedy hours, there were soap operas. Those wonderful half-hour segments that came on every day, five days a week and captured the hearts of women and men alike.

  And if you are as old as I am, you will remember soaps on the radio. Every day I would arrive home from school and find my mother absorbed in the trials and tribulations of Backstage Wife or Stella Dallas or Lorenzo Jones. I knew enough to go quietly to my room as my mother sat totally absorbed in the dialogue.

  Thanks to writers such as Pete Rich, television soap operas reigned supreme for many many years and some of the memorable characters he wrote for are still remembered fondly.

  Born in Atlanta, Rich moved to New York after college with the dream of becoming a comedy writer.

  “My friend Gail Lawrence and I were in this together,” he said, “and we had an interview with a man at ABC comedy development. He told us that one had to live in Los Angeles in order to write comedy for television. So off we went, only to discover that Bob Hope was looking for writers.”

  In the category of “too good to be true,” Rich and his friend did, indeed, get a job writing for Hope and, at 25 years old, they were the youngest writers he had ever employed. Unfortunately, a writers’ strike brought everything to a halt, so Rich and Lawrence moved back to New York. As luck would have it, the man from ABC who had encouraged them was now at NBC, and was looking for writers for a soap called The Doctors.

  “In the ’80s, when television soap operas were in their prime, they had a captive audience of housewives and college kids,” said Rich. “The shows got huge ratings and, compared to prime time shows, they were cheap to produce. The profits were staggering and it was rumored that daytime paid for prime time.”

  That was the beginning of Rich’s stellar career in the soaps which lasted almost 30 years. He will share his favorite memories of life on the soaps at the Women’s Forum, at the Litchfield Community Center Thursday, March 2nd, at 2:30 PM.

  In addition to The Doctors, he penned scripts for Guiding Light, listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running drama in television in American history—it was broadcast on CBS for 57 years—All My Children; Days of Our Lives; Santa Barbara, and Passions, Rich’s favorite show. His talent was acknowledged with six Daytime Emmy Awards and two awards from the Writers Guild of America.

  With such a stellar career, Rich has written many classic scenes and memorable dialogue and being asked to mention just one is like asking a mother to choose her favorite child.

  “Soaps opera lovers may remember what is considered one of the classic moments of daytime television when Reva Shayne on Guiding Light took off her clothes in a public fountain and baptized herself “the Slut of Springfield” to her crippled boyfriend, Josh. The speech went on for about five minutes as Reva basically had a meltdown. Actress Kim Zimmer won an Emmy for her acting and the episode itself received an Emmy as well. In true soap fashion, after Reva was taken home, she woke up in bed to find Josh watching her from his wheelchair. They made love, she cured his paralysis and made it rain–so potent a woman was she.”

  In their prime, soap operas managed to combine reality with incredibly convoluted plots and character studies. Where else could one find tortured men and women who fell in love, suffered infidelities, murder, lust, mysteries, lies, and secrets?

  “I think the days of soaps are really behind us,” said Rich. “The Internet has allowed everyone access to everything at anytime. And life has become so fast-paced that few people have five afternoon hours a week to devote to a show. Plus, reality TV, You Tube, and social media all entertain people in a customized way. Today what’s on the news is more outrageous and shocking than any soap ever was.”

  But we all have memories of those days when soaps held us rapt for that magical hour every day. Rich retired from writing for television and now spends his time decorating houses, designing gardens and writing fiction for fun.

[Ryanc2]

It’s sad that all these fabulous soap writers who truly understand the craft are dead/going to die soon. I wonder if there will ever be a resurgence of writers who can carry on their legacy one day.