The soap opera writers' discussion

[danfling]

I have just learned that television writer Larry Brody was a writer of the NBC serial Bright Promise.  Other writers for this show were Doris and Frank Hursley (creators), Rick Edelstein, and headwriter John Hess (who had written for Love of Life, The Young Marrieds, and The Secret Storm).

 

 

Below is a biography of Mr. Brody (copied from IMDb):

As a student at Northwestern University, Larry Brody majored in English and practiced his craft writing dozens of short stories, poetry and essays. Being an avid science fiction fan, he started writing in the genre, and by the time he graduated he was selling stories to The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction and various men's magazines on a fairly regular basis. After graduation he took a major career diversion by going to Law School but quit after one year and enrolled at the University of Iowa, which was well-known for its Writers Workshop.

During that first school year Larry sold his first novel. Armed with confidence from the book sale, LB and his first wife pulled up stakes and moved to L.A. in 1968. It was a tough adjustment for the young couple, both emotionally and financially. Larry's wife got a full-time teaching job while he struggled to finish his next novel, and take meetings with various showbiz power-brokers, hoping, like thousands of other Hollywood denizens, for his first big break. That big break came several months later through a chance meeting with a fellow resident of his apartment building, Sammy Jackson, star of the just cancelled series "No Time for Sergeants".

Painfully shy at the time, Larry avoided Jackson and sat quietly by the pool, reading scripts and working on his novel. But one fateful day, Sammy spotted a script lying in LB's lap and walked over to introduce himself. The two struck up a friendship that would ultimately launch Larry's career.

Encouraged by Sammy, LB worked day and night on a twenty-page short story that was to be the basis for Jackson's comeback show. Entitled 'Cornpone & Honey', it was a comedy about a cynical cartoonist who gets saddled with his neighbor's five-year old daughter, Honey, after her parents die in a car crash. Jerry Katzman, one of the producers that Jackson had shown the story to, liked it enough to set up a meeting with Larry. Katzman had a new project in development, a film entitled 'The Rise And Fall Of A Rock And Roll Singer', with Jim Morrison expected to star. To make sure the film appealed to youthful viewers, he wanted the 23-year-old Larry to co-write the script with Arthur Dreifuss, an old-time B movie maven who was also slated to direct.

Larry worked feverishly with Dreifuss to bring the Rock And Roll script in on a deadline. But before production could begin, the studio had to have a sit-down with Jim Morrison to discuss the project. All went well until twenty minutes into the meeting when the rock and roll icon abruptly nixed the entire deal. Why? Because he had a beard and was adamant about not shaving it for the role. And at this time, never in the history of motion pictures had there been a romantic hero with a full, flowing face, neck, and chest-full of hair!

Although the project was cancelled, word around town regarding the script was positive, and Larry's agent, Sylvia Hirsch, one of the grand dames of the William Morris Agency, used it as a sample to get Larry into the television writing business. Starting out slowly, as a freelancer on the show Here Come the Brides, by the early '70s Larry was one of the most in-demand writers in the medium. Soon he was Producer of the NBC series Police Story, the first of a series of such gigs that went on for over twenty years.

A strong believer in the social responsibility of not only the artist, but of the media as a whole, Larry has for years crusaded to raise standards so that productions will be meaningful as well as entertaining. To that end, he has established TV Writer.Com (www.tvwriter.com), the most highly regarded and visited television writing site on the web, where he shares his experience and insight into the business and artistry of TV writing today.

In the summer of 2002 Larry moved with his third wife, Gwen, and teenage daughter, Amber, to St. Joe, Arkansas, to establish the Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts (www.cloudcreek.org). A non-profit charitable corporation dedicated to the advancement of the arts. The mission of CCIA is to foster and advance creativity and interest in all the arts by helping new artists develop their talents and skills, and to create an environment of respect, appreciation, and support for the arts in the community at large.

Larry is the winner of the Humanitas Certificate and the Population Institute Award for his outstanding work on Medical Story, and was nominated for both an Emmy and a Writers Guild Award for Best Dramatic Writing on that groundbreaking series. Larry also won the Women in TV & Film Award for the NBC television movie, Farrell for the People (1982) (TV), as well as the Nosotros Award for his work on the critically acclaimed, multi-award winning drama, "Police Story" (1973).

He has written two e-books, nine novels, and six books of poetry. Nonfiction books include 'Television Writing From The Inside Out: Your Channel To Success' and 'Turning Points in Television. Currently (as of July 2007), Larry is a regular columnist for 'Movie Scope' magazine, and writes 'Live! From Paradise!' a syndicated newspaper column and blog about the life of a city writer who moves to the country.

 

 

 

[danfling]

John Torinov the son of Orin Toinov, has passed away.   His father was a soap opera writer and creator of NBC/Colgate-Palmolive's The Doctors.  Here is an obituary:

 

Obituary

John O. Tovrov, 73, of Concord, died on March 4, 2022. He died at home, surrounded by his family and with numerous messages from friends and patients.

The son of Orin, a radio and television pioneer, and Midge Tovrov, a dedicated local philanthropist, as a child John led a rural and adventurous life in Orleans, MA. Sailboat racing, rowing Cape Cod Bay with the Sea Scouts, and sewing terror up and down Route 6 in his Barracuda. John’s childhood instilled in him a love of the outdoors in general and the Cape in particular that he passes down to his sons. As a surfer, John bushwhacked trails through the Cape’s dune scrub that have since become big parking lots for both happy beachgoers and subsequent generations of East Coast surfers to use.

Leaving the Cape for college at Lake Forest in Illinois, John’s passion for adventure turned him onto rock climbing, ice climbing, white water canoeing, winter mountaineering, and even more sailing. With Lee Tibbetts and friends from the Appalachian Mountain Club, John summited Mount Hood, Devil’s Tower, and spent weeks in British Columbia’s glacial Cascade Range, among many other adventures over two decades of outdoorsmanship. He was also an early leader in AMC’s Mountain Leadership School, a staff member at Outward Bound’s Hurricane Island school in Maine, and an innovator in how mountaineering is taught.

For his first career in Social Work (Syracuse, MSW), John used this love of the outdoors to help his patients, leading trips for troubled city kids in the White Mountains as therapy. When John left Social Work in order to pursue an MBA (Boston University) to support his new family, John found a calling in Human Resources, where he could use the empathetic skills he learned on the trail to make corporate machines run in a more human and caring way. His return to Social Work in his sixties was like a rebirth, and he was dedicated to his patients to the end. Having stared down death many times as a young man, John was not afraid to go. His only regret was that he couldn’t help his patients “finish their stories.”

John is survived by his loving wife, Robin Kanarek, his sons Daniel and Jacob, sister Jessica, daughter-in-law Stacey, and nephews Aaron and Sam Rodgers.

Immediate family members gathered for a private burial service at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. A memorial celebrating John’s life will be held this spring.

In lieu of flowers, the family appreciates donations to the Concord Scout House, P.O. Box 73, Concord, MA 01742, an organization John was once President of that gives Metrowest kids the same kind of opportunities that shaped his life.

Arrangements are under the care of Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord.

 

[danfling]

My memory was refreshed this afternoon when I read that Joe Caldwell (one of the writers of Dark Shadows and, later, Strange Paradise) wrote for The Secret Storm in 1972.     I was thinking that he must have been writing with the late Gabrielle Upton/Gillian Houghton, but what I read listed Robert Cenedella as the headwriter of The Secret Storm at the time.

 

[danfling]

I would like to ask about some of the writers of Where the Heart Is.

I know that the show's co-creators, the late Lou Schofield and the still-living Margaret DePriest, were writers on The Edge of Night.  Ms. DePriest was an actress who became one of the show's writers.    (She also appeared on The Doctors as an actress.   I think that she also was a writer on that show.)

My understanding is that Mr. Schofield and Ms. DePriest had an affair.   Mr. Schofield had replaced James Lipton as the head writer for The Edge of Night (although some have told me that Mr. Lipton was not actually the head writer of the show.   This was after he had been replaced as head writer of Another World.)     Henry Slesar was hired as a substitute writer for The Edge of Night and wrote the show while Mr. Scofield was out with an illness.    Mr. Scofield returned to The Edge of Night, and Mr. Slesar continued writing the show, eventually become that show's head writer.

CBS decided to expand the amount of soap opera drama on the network.   Both The Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow were expanded to thirty-minute shows, and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, a new program created by Irna Phillips, had been added to the schedule.   Then, the network decided to add a new program.

I know that several ideas were submitted.    Roy Winsor wanted a spin-off of The Secret Storm called The Widening Circle.  Henry Slesar submitted (at one time - I am not sure if this was the point that his prospective show was submitted) about spies.    Actor Fred J. Scollay submitted a show, also.    CBS elected to air Where the Heart Is with Lou Schofield and Margaret DePriest as head writers.

After a year, CBS replaced them with Pat Falken Smith.  

Paul Avilla Mayer began working on the show, and later Claire Labine joined him.    I am thinking that Mr. Mayer replaced Pat Falken Smith in 1972 as the show's head writer, and Claire Labine was soon promoted as his co-head writer.     Mr. Mayer and Ms. Labine were the head writers up until the time of the show's cancellation in 1973.

Does anyone know who any of the other writers who worked with these head writers were?

I can imagine that perhaps Nancy Ford worked on the show.    Did she?    Who were some of the other writers?

 

[gimmetoo]

@danfling thanks for the many insights.  Where did you get all this info?  Is it published somewhere?  Would love to hear more...

Edited August 9, 2022 by gimmetoo

[Paul Raven]

re Pat Falken Smith.

She was writing Days of Our Lives with Bill Bell at this point so how was she free to headwrite Where The Heart Is?

 

[beebs]

Far as I was aware, she left DAYS in 1971 to headwrite WTHI, and came back to DAYS in 1972. Granted, there were people writing two shows at once at that time, but I'd expect since DAYS and WTHI were on competing networks and not owned by the same company, it wouldn't be a situation like Henry Slesar writing both Somerset and EON simultaneously.

[RavenWhitney]

Pat Falken Smith was a script writer at days on the following dates (according to Jason47 website). So she was only gone for six months in 71. In 1975 she became Days head writer.
Pat Falken Smith           5/66-7/66, 1/68-7/71, 1/72-5/75

 

[danfling]

It is odd that Pat Falken Smith was replaced on Where the Heart Is by Paul Avilla Mayer (and later Mr. Mayer and Claire Labine).

Then, Mr. Mayer and Ms. Labine were replaced on Ryan's Hope by Pat Falken Smith.

It does, though, seem somewhat logical that ABC would hire her to write Ryan's Hope.   ABC had wanted Ryan's Hope to be similiar to its serial General Hospital, and Pat Falken Smith had written General Hospital when it had shot to the top of the ratings.

I know that many, though, think that Pat Falken Smith was credited for the success of General Hospital, but that Douglas Marland (a terribly overrated writer, in my opinion) had actually been responsible for much of the show's success.

[Paul Raven]

Well the fact is that General Hospital's ratings showed dramatic increases in the time Doug Marland was there. Obviously Gloria Monty's production changes helped but as we know it is the writing that attracts viewers.

Pat Falken Smith inherited the storylines and set up that Marland created.

I wonder what lead Smith to leave a successful and long running stint at Days for a short term gig at Where The Heart Is.

I Have never read any details. Did CBS lure her with $$$ because of her success at Days? 

And it quickly went sour and she was happy to go back to Days? 

[danfling]

I will attempt to locate an obituary for Steve Wasserman and, upon finding it, will post.

 

 

 

Jessica Klein, who spent six seasons on Beverly Hills, 90210 as an invaluable writer, producer and story editor, has died. She was 66.

Klein died July 13 of pancreatic cancer at her home in Beverly Hills, her daughter, Shira Rose, announced.

Klein joined the Darren Star-created Fox primetime soap for its second season (1991-92) and received a writing/story by credit on 46 episodes, a story editor credit on 14 episodes and a producing credit on 156 episodes through the seventh season (1996-97). 

 

 

She worked on the show with her writing partner and then-husband, Steve Wasserman, who died in July 1998 when he fell overboard during a sailing trip from Marina del Rey to Santa Catalina Island. He was 45.

Klein and Wasserman also wrote for the CBS soap opera As the World Turns and for the primetime dramas Northern Exposure at CBS, Mancuso, F.B.I. at NBC and Gabriel’s Fire at ABC.

In 2013, she joined the ABC soap One Life to Live as a writer and producer. 

Klein was born in Manhattan on March 14, 1956. Her father, Saul, co-founded Barton’s Candy and was a Holocaust survivor who emigrated from Vienna in 1939; her mother, Ruth, was a senior administrator at Weill Medical College of Cornell and an avid collector of antique spectacles. 

After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Radcliffe in 1977 with a degree in psychology and social relations, she began her TV career at the Children’s Television Workshop as an assistant on Sesame Street. 

She moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s and met and married Wasserman.

The two-time Daytime Emmy nominee also wrote and/or produced shows including Capitol, Scout’s Safari and Just Deal; on the last two, she teamed with Tommy Lynch, her creative partner after Wasserman’s death. 

She taught screenwriting at Drexel University after she married Isaac Levenbrown, a painter and audiovisual expert who designed custom screening rooms, in 2000. After his death in 2014, she reunited with Lynch as head of creative on the TV shows Make It Pop and The Other Kingdom.

She returned to the L.A. area in 2018.

In addition to her daughter, survivors include her stepchildren, Josh, Brittany and Jonathan; grandchildren Shayna, Mendel, Zisi, Asher, Lily and Elliott; and brother David. 

 

[titan1978]

It’s almost like two different things happened at GH in those years.  Marland introduced important new characters, Monty and the network before she got there cast them well (Bobbie, Scotty and Laura come to mind as ones she didn’t really have a hand in hiring), and almost all the stories had movement.  And while the pace was increased, when you watch the shows still written by Marland they are more traditional than what we got once PFS takes over.  Marland is a very traditional soap writer- he certainly tackles complex issues and characters, but his pacing and style is not as revolutionary as what came after him.

What I think of as Monty’s style was really cemented from the summer on the run story for Luke & Laura through the Ice Princess.  Humor, intrigue, proto-supercouple writing, complex characters, strong women, danger and the canvas being dominated by a single story.  She also stopped doing things like recasts after Robin Mattson as Heather, and didn’t really do that from then on for any major character in her first run that I can remember.  The characters were important but the star system made it so they were not replaceable as recasts.  Marland would never let a pesky thing like an actor leaving end his stories.

I think that her formula was created under her time with PFS, and then she kept implementing it until she left in the later 80’s.  While Marland’s contributions cannot be ignored, I think GH became what it became in the cultural sense with Monty and PFS.

[Vee]

I would think Marland was the progenitor and source material, but I don't think you can discount the immense contributions of Monty at the same time (for all her sins), Pat Falken Smith and yes, people like Thom Racina, etc. who came later. Plus a lot of great staff writers in those years, including (IIRC) Bob Guza. From the copious episodes fortunately available from a wide range of these years and regimes, it was a magic time.

[danfling]

(copied)

Michael Malone, A Beloved Writer And Friend, RIP

“I want to write about my adored, extraordinary friend Michael Malone who died last night,” Passanante wrote on Facebook. “Right now, though, I’m just trying to adjust to the impossible idea of a world without him. ‘And when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars…'”

 

According to Dignity Memorial, Malone passed away on Friday, August 19 at his home in Clinton, Connecticut. He will be buried in the cemetery of St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

A Loving Family

A date of birth was not listed in Malone’s death notice however, it is said that he was born in 1942, which meant he was either 79 or 80 years old. He is survived by his wife, Maureen Quilligan, his sister Sheila Waller, his brother David Malone, his five nieces and one nephew, Lisa, Kelly, Tom, Shannon, Shayna, and Addie; his daughter Maggie, son-in-law Matt, and his 6-year-old granddaughter Maisie.

The scribe was new to daytime when he was hired by OLTL executive producer Linda Gottlieb to craft tales for the citizens of Llanview. Malone wrote for One Life to Live from 1991-96. 

“It is with the heaviest of hearts that I write this,” Smith shares.  “How do you honor a man that gave you so much? He gave me Nora, he gave Nora a beau called Bo. He wrote an Emmy Award-winning story for me to play with other Emmy Award-winning actors. He wrote me emotions to play that were so complex, I could only let them consume me. He wrote women with brains and hearts, with courage and fear and all of it wrapped up in bravado. He wrote me a character that I had to aspire to become. He wrote and we came to life. Thank you Michael Malone. You are the best of Times’ Witness!” (Times Witness was one of the many books written by Malone.)

OLTL fans recall Smith’s emotional, passionate tour-de-force as Nora Buchanan, an attorney who came to the chilling realization that the clients she was defending in a rape trial were, in fact, guilty. The scene, which can be viewed here, helped Smith take home the gold in 1994.

During his stay in Llanview, Malone also created the off-beat character Luna Moody (Susan Batten) and delved into the long-running feud between Victoria Lord (Erika Slezak) and Dorian Lord (Robin Strasser). Actor Thom Christopher, who won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role as OLTL’s Carlo Hesser in 1992, wrote on Facebook that Malone was a “grand man of words and creative ideas. His words are written on the winds of memory for a number of actors.”

After leaving OLTL, he moved over to Another World, which he wrote starting in 1997. In 2003, Malone returned to One Life to Live and incorporated his novel writing into the show. He wrote the book The Killing Club, which tied into the show’s storylines. The book was published in 2005 with the authors listed as Marcie Walsh (Kathy Brier) and Michael Malone. During its first week of publication, the novel rose to #16 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Hardback fiction. It later hit the No. 11 spot on the list.

 

Malone also won a Writers Guild Award in the Daytime Serials category for his work on One Life to Live in 1993. In addition to making his mark on the daytime world, Malone was a teacher and instructed a class of 300 students at Duke University in a course titled American Dreams American Movies. He also penned several novels. Malone was in the process of writing a fourth book in his Cuddy and Justin series when he fell ill with cancer.

A lover of cooking, musicals, jazz, dancing, and justice for all unfairly incarcerated, Malone spoke out against the death penalty and raised awareness about AIDS, Lupus (which Marty Saybrooke battled), and LGBTQ rights.

 

Malone’s family has asked that donations be made in his memory to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a charity to which he gave for over 40 years. Soap Hub sends deep sympathy to Malone’s family and loved ones at this difficult time.

[danfling]

Here is an obituary for writer Theodore Apstein from 1998.   He was a writer for Another World.

 

Theodore Apstein, 80, a Writer For Theater, Film and Television

•  

Theodore Apstein, a writer for theater, films and television, died on July 26 in Los Angeles. He was 80 and lived in Brentwood, Calif.

The cause was a stroke, his family said.

Mr. Apstein's theater work included ''The Innkeepers,'' which was produced on Broadway in 1956. Directed by Jose Quintero, the play starred Geraldine Page and Darren McGavin as a husband and wife who leave the United States for Mexico after he is deemed a security risk and is dismissed from his job.

Another play, ''Come Share My House,'' was produced Off Broadway in 1960. He also wrote several screenplays, including ''Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?,'' with Ms. Page, Ruth Gordon and Mildred Dunnock; ''Baffled,'' with Leonard Nimoy, and ''The Link,'' with Michael Moriarty and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

He was also a prolific writer for television, with more than 100 shows to his credit. He wrote original scripts for such series as ''Studio One,'' ''Alcoa Playhouse,'' ''Dr. Kildare,'' ''Marcus Welby, M.D.'' and ''The Waltons.''

 

 

Mr. Apstein taught play writing at Columbia University and play analysis at the American Theater Wing before joining the faculty at the University of Southern California at Berkeley, where he taught the master class in the graduate play writing program for 27 years.

He is survived by his wife, Patricia Elliott Apstein; two daughters, Catherine Ertel of Los Angeles and Susan Apstein of Phildelphia; three sons, Elliott, Norman and Michael, all of Los Angeles; a sister, Consuelo Patargo of Mexico City, and 11 grandchildren.

Edited August 31, 2022 by danfling