R.I.P.: Bridget Dobson another brutal loss of one of daytime's finest

[Contessa Donatella]

This week, the beginning of a new year, in Atlanta, GA, the beautiful, brilliant, iconic, Creator, Writer & Producer Bridget Dobson, at the age of 85 passed on to that great afternoon timeslot in the sky. We will be diminished by the loss. She gave us so many characters. She gave us so many hours of entertainment on GH, GL, ATWT & Santa Barbara. She was the daughter of Frank & Doris Hursley. Her long-time partner, co-creator, co-writer, co-producer & husband Jerome Dobson has our many condolences. 

https://soaphub.com/days-of-our-lives/news-days/santa-barbara-creator-bridget-dobson-dead-at-85

 

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[Faulkner]

[Vee]

So much of her persona has always seemed deeply eccentric. I find her and her husband's GL work very intricate and fascinating, but her strange backstory with her family even moreso. (And their equally florid, convoluted ATWT work also is wild - their touchstones, obsessions, recurring themes at both shows.) What a legend. RIP.

I guess I should finally find a good episode of Santa Barbara to watch now. I've never known when or where to look.

[Franko]

Just seeing the news now. I tell you, it's eerie ... I mean, here we are, having been talking about her (and she's certainly not a talk about once and move on kind of person, that's for sure).

[Contessa Donatella]

I know! There have been so many conversations about her very recently & now here we are, first of the year, first death. GEEZE. 

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ATWT: Add First to pair Tom & Margo romantically. 

GL: Add Rita Stapleton

[Paul Raven]

Dusty Donovan was an iconic character? Amanda Spaulding?

'In terms of character creation the Dobsons were unmatched.'

I think Agnes Nixon, Irna Phillips and Bill Bell might have something to say about that.

Edited January 7, 2024 by Paul Raven

[titan1978]

It’s too bad she isn’t as quickly called out as one of the greats in this genre. She clearly wrote incredible material with her partners over the years. Complex writing.

I can’t imagine any of those shows without her characters.

I saw online someone posted her race to the stage to accept the SB Emmy before JFP could get there. Iconic.

[Contessa Donatella]

Personally I put weight behind Lesley & Laura, Stenbeck, Margo, Ross & Spauldings in general & other Marlers with Ross, so I'm not going to rise to defend your quibble of those two not-so-greats. If you only pulled out two, knowing you as I lovingly do, I am satisfied. 

Yes, I posted it. Love that clip! It's even better since lore had it that she & Jill had a physical altercation trying to wrest the statue from the other. Clearly you can see as much civility as an awards show can provide. 

If you watch it more than once you can see her trying to get free of the hugs to get to the podium! 

Edited January 7, 2024 by Donna L. Bridges
typos are always with us

[Khan]

Whenever I think of Bridget Dobson, the words "mad genius" spring to mind. 

Even as a junior high school student, learning about the ins and outs of this crazy industry through reading issues of SOD and SOW every week, I thought BD was screwy af, but also fascinating and, of course, brilliant.

I think she (and her husband) understood better than any other scribes in daytime that human beings aren't entirely heroic; that we are, in fact, deeply, deeply flawed; and that it is in our flaws where we find comedy and tragedy existing side by side, nuzzling each other's necks like a pair of illicit lovers in the midst of a stolen afternoon.

And, my God, how Bridget & Jerry loved to pen the most macabre and irreverent ideas!  I mean, what other head-writing team, past or present, would even dare have SaBa's Augusta Lockridge serve up her daughter's deceased pigeon to the rest of the family as an hors d'oeuvre!?  Even JER's mind wasn't so twisted - and that man, ICYMI, wrote a storyline where a character's penis was severed in a fit of anger, then reattached upside down!

When I was in the sixth grade, I chose to write a research paper (the first one I ever wrote) on the life and work of Irna Phillips.  To this day, I don't know why I chose her as my subject, except that I loved watching my mother's soaps and maybe I wanted to learn more about them.  Like I said, I don't know why I wrote my paper on Irna, but I'm glad I did write about her, for two reasons: one, the more I learned about the history of this genre and of the people who left their marks upon it - not just Irna, but others, like Agnes Nixon, and Bill Bell, and Douglas Marland, and Bridget and Jerome Dobson, and so on and so on - the more I fell in love with the industry and wished to be a part of it one day; and two, I'm grateful for whatever good sense that led me to write about Ms. Phillips, because it was BD, in particular, who gave me that little piece of cockeyed wisdom that has never steered me wrong in life from the moment I first came across it.

As BD told Christopher Schemering in his book commemorating GL's 50th TV anniversary: "We aim for purity...and we always miss."  She, of course, was talking in general about her and her husband's approach to soap writing - and if I don't have that quote letter-perfect, please forgive - but from the very first time I read her words, I thought they could apply not just to writing or to writing for the soaps, but also to how we go about this so-called "business of living."  

In life, we do aim always to do what's perfect and pure - and most of the time, we [!@#$%^&*] up royally.  (God knows you all have been witness to many times when I have!)  But even on those rare occasions when we don't eff up, we never get it exactly the way we pictured it either.  No matter how many times we promise ourselves that this time - this time - we'll get it right, like Bridget says, we always miss.

I thank Bridget and Jerome Dobson for the many hours of entertainment they gave us on GH, GL, ATWT and SaBa, but more than that, I thank Bridget Dobson for giving me my life's basic philosophy.  Like I said, Bridge, you were one looney chick, but damn if you weren't right.

Edited January 7, 2024 by Khan

[DRW50]

This is beautifully put.

[Vee]

What a eulogy! Khan, any SB episode recommendations are welcome; I've never really dug into it vs. her '70s GL which I have enjoyed.

I'll admit based on her deeply eccentric online interviews I often thought about crafting a young female writer character for GH based around some of her notoriously outsize reputation. But it felt appropriative (or inappropriate, I guess), as I was never a Dobson scholar.

Edited January 7, 2024 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

This is truly a lovely sentiment!

[Khan]

I'll wager that she would have appreciated it more if you had created a pair of sniping, sniveling dogs and then named them "Frank" and "Doris." 

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It's been a few semesters, so I can't recall any particular SaBa episodes that stand out to me.  Generally speaking, though, I wouldn't watch anything from the show's first year, as I agree with everyone else that the younger cast members, save for Marcy Walker and Robin Wright, were mostly awful.  Nor would I watch anything after 1987, because once the Dobsons are locked out, the show turns to [!@#$%^&*] almost immediately.  (You watched the Guza/Pratt era of GH, @Vee, so you probably have some idea, lol).

According to good ol' wikipedia, the Dobsons return as HW for a year starting in February '91.  I remember BD telling SOD that she and JD would need two years to turn things around.  (Me: "TWO YEARS???").  Obviously, they never fulfilled their promise, and that probably was for the best, because I remember becoming very bored with the show.  At one point, when Jack Wagner's Warren was in Russia, I was like, "If only the Cold War still existed, so he could get trapped there and never return."

In retrospect, it was obvious that the Dobsons had not watched their show while they were...um...away, and that they were writing a version of SaBa that no longer existed.

[Jdee43]

It's a shame the Dobsons weren't hired by any soaps after Santa Barbara. They definitely could have elevated the mid to late 90s and 2000s.

1984 Santa Barbara isn't that wretched; just fast forward all the scenes with the younger characters and it almost becomes watchable. The most quirky part of 1984 are the Lockridges, which might have been the characters who were also the most autobiographical for the Dobsons.

Edited January 7, 2024 by Jdee43

[Khan]

I think that's because their lawsuits with NBC and New World were so publicly messy that the other networks wouldn't go near them, fearing that they, too, would end up in court one day.  (Same goes, I think, for Pat Falken Smith, who should have worked in soaps a lot longer than she did).

Also, even before they had created SaBa, the Dobsons had essentially retired, claiming that head-writing was a nonstop grind that never allowed them much of a personal life.  NBC, however, lured them back with the promise of creative control - which, as we all know, was an assurance that would come back to bite all concerned in their respective asses, lol.

Maybe it's me, but I think there was a very good reason why the Dobsons never wrote much for teens and young adults on their other shows, lol.

Edited January 7, 2024 by Khan