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SOAP OPERAS

At the time of its cancellation in 2009, 'Guiding Light' was the longest-running scripted program in broadcasting history. The soap opera made its radio debut in 1937 before moving to television in 1952. By 1972, some 50 million viewers in total (mostly women ages 18 to 49) watched the then 16 half-hour daytime dramas on television between 10am and 3.30pm. The soaps normally featured five acts (with different stories-within-stories) separated by commercials. 

The popularity of the Monday-to-Friday soap operas generated some 1000 to 1500 jobs for actors, actresses, stagehand, grips, cameramen, hairdressers, makeup artists, costume and set designers, musicians, directors, associate directors, producers, publicists and writers. At the time, the cost of a weekly production was said to be over $1 million. 

It was said, "the soaps are a sort of mirror of our society." Ann Marcus of 'Knots Landing' told 'The Morning Call' in 1981 soap operas were studied for their sociological import and were even used by mental institutions in group therapy sessions "to get people to start talking about their own problem." At the St Ambrose College's Galvin Fine Arts Center in 1981, Douglas Sheehan told some 600 guests, "I think we have a bigger, better, more intelligent audience than any other forum. I think prime-time is coming to the soap operas. 

"When I started at 'General Hospital', I tried to apply rules of Shakesperean acting to the soap. That means studying what all the other characters have to say about your character. Well if you watch soaps, you know that doesn't apply at all. But it is just as difficult. You have to apply the rules of (Rudyard) Kipling, 'Ours is not to reason why, ours is just to do or die.' On our show, they keep a board with each character's name and the number of letters he receives. You have no idea how important your letters are to the network. Once an actor gets audience equity on a show, he can start commanding a storyline." 

Soap viewer John Holshouser of Brown Jewelry Co. noted in 1976, "Some people need this type of entertainment. They use it to compare their own problems and make themselves feel better." Another fan, Garnetta Barbour added, "I don't get emotionally involved with them. I don't think you should watch these stories too seriously or try to copy them in your own life, because if you do, you're bound to get only trouble." 

Arthur Hill maintained, "Even the unreality of a soap opera is special because it's ordered unreality – satisfying our need for order. We're all driven by the same needs." Bryna P. Laub expressed, "Conflict is what life's all about, and soap operas reflect the lives of the people that are watching it. The major things are romance, money and illness." 

Larry Haines made known, "You would be surprised at the number of erudite people who are addicted to the soap opera. I've been recognized by a former first lady of the land who was addicted to 'Search For Tomorrow'. Soap operas fill a tremendous void in a lot of people's lives. What else can the average wife watch other than a game show (on daytime)? We do a lot of good for shut-ins and elderly people who have nothing else to do. People who can't read because of failing eyesight are also in our audience." 

B Donald Grant believed, "The women who watch our shows (on NBC) are busy women – occupied, involved in civic activities, PTA, politics. We can give them sophisticated themes along with entertainment. In fact, you can get away with a lot more frankness on daytime TV than on some of our so-called 'serious' nighttime shows. People believe desperately in these characters. And they're looking for something familiar to identify with – and something unusual or bizarre to fantasize with." 

Bridget Dobson concurred, "People like to watch interesting characters and hopefully you'll have an exciting story. But on an established soap you can have a poor story but people will still watch if they like the characters." Pat Falken Smith pointed out, "Soaps are unlike any other medium as far as writers (and viewers) are concerned. They can't go back to reruns. They have to go on." 

On 'Days of our Lives', Melinda O. Fee played Mary Anderson, "I have no idea (who the phantom writers are during the Writers Guild of America strike in 1981). All I know is we're handed a new script every morning when we show up for work at NBC. There is no credit for the screenwriter, but there's generally a name on the script giving credit for the story. It's a mystery to me who writes them. 

"On almost all soap operas the story lines are projected a year in advance. I'm sure the outlines for our series were all planned ahead of the strike. The producers and directors never let the cast know what turns the story lines will take. They don't want us projecting our characters with knowledge of what is going to happen to them weeks or months ahead of time." Douglas Sheehan explained, "If we read ahead, we tend to act ahead, and anticipate the results of the plot." 

Critic Jon-Michael Reed observed, "Soaps today, like 'General Hospital', use better filming techniques, more locations and innovative lighting. The plots, the situations are appealing to a much wider audience. Now (in 1981), shows, like 'General Hospital' use many moving cameras, and even shoot in different locations. In the old days, if it didn’t happen in the living room or the kitchen, it was never shown." 

Bryna P. Laub made the point, "Soap opera are the only repertory we have left in this country, unless you're one of the chosen ones who can get into A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theater)." Melinda O. Fee continued, "I felt a great ambivalence about going back to a soap. You always give a lot of thought to a long-term commitment. Just as sure as you sign up, along come some very good and tempting offers. That’s what happened to me this time. I was offered a prime time series and a play at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The series went on the air and was renewed.

"But I went ahead with 'Days of our Lives'. I like the steadiness of employment in the soaps. I’m the only one of my coterie of actors who is working these days (in 1981). Soaps pay the actors by the day. Prime time series pay the cast on a weekly or monthly or annual salary. If you work five days a week in a soap the salaries are comparable to nighttime series. Of course there are no superstar salaries. They don’t exist because of the large casts in soaps.

"An hour show like ours has 25-30 running characters which means I work maybe three or four days a week. Soaps are good exposure for actors. I may get only three good scenes a month – scenes I can really sink my teeth into. But soaps are watched by people who count in this industry. There's a greater cross-section of acting competence in soaps now than there was five or 10 years ago (back in 1971).

"There are newcomers who do 'attitude acting' instead of really getting into their parts. But the acting is improving all the time. As an actress it’s more fun to play bitches than straight roles. My parts have been more dimensional and unpredictable than most. There is a special rhythm and sound to soaps, different from prime time. The pace is slower on the screen but it’s a lot faster on the set. It’s almost like doing theater with a new script every day."

Back in 1972, Larry Haines who played Stu Bergman in 'Search For Tomorrow' told 'Universal Press', "There's no such thing as a minor actor; there are only minor parts. The big advantage is that you work more frequently as a feature or supporting player than you do as a star. A star has to wait for the proper vehicle and the proper vehicle may come along only once every three years or so. The star also has to draw the public.

"If you do a play written by an unknown playwright and directed by an unknown director and you are the star, it's a tremendous responsibility. Everything hinges on you. So the pressure is there. Eli Wallach was a character actor for a number of years (before becoming a star). I don't think Jason Robards started as a star. I think Dustin Hoffman is another good example. So is Gene Hackman. The other night (back in 1972) I saw 'The Godfather' and I think Al Pacino will really zoom to super stardom. You just have to be seen in the right thing at the right time by the right person.

"Soap opera is one of the big sources of income for character actors in New York. It's about all we have in live television right now (in 1972). All the series are being shot in Hollywood … In soap opera, you have a new script to tackle every show. That keeps your mind alert, keeps you from getting bored. In the theater, however, you have to say the same thing night after night for a long run.

"The difficulty with soap opera is the speed with which it's done. There is not that much time to prepare or rehearse. We come in at eight o’clock in the morning and we have our first blocking and work to about 9.30. Then we are off to make-up and costume and we don't get back into the studio until 10.15. Then we have a dress rehearsal. We may work on it for a little more than two hours and that's it. Next we tape the show and it's 2 o'clock before we're through."

On soap operas, it was common to see the long dissolves while the organ played and the actors looked at each other until the commercial appeared. Larry Haines elaborated, "If the show is playing too fast, the director may take more time on a dissolve to stretch out the time. Then it's purely mechanical (acting) and you have to cooperate. Sure, it's uncomfortable. But it's one of the mechanical difficulties of television. Let's not lose sight of the fact that we are playing in a world of make believe and we do have to create situations and story lines to hold an audience. If we didn't, we wouldn't still be on the air. A soap opera is a cliff-hanger; but that's been an established fact since the early Pearl White serials and serial novels."

It was understood daytime soap operas on the major networks accounted for about $1.2 billion a year in advertising profits. However by 1996, the number of people watching soaps started to fall to 16 million viewers and the viewers were said getting older and were not being replaced with a comparable number of younger viewers. In 1996, the $35 billion consumer-product Procter & Gamble spent an estimated $206 million to advertise products like Tide laundry detergent, Crest toothpaste and Ivory soap on soap operas and spent another $90 million producing three daytime dramas, 'As The World Turns', 'Another World' and 'Guiding Light'.

At the height of soap operas popularity in 1976, 'Soap Opera Digest' was the people's choice of magazine at many newsstands and supermarket checkouts (circulation of 1.2 million). 'Soap Opera Digest' was originally a grassroots homegrown publication before the Hearst Corporation began distributing the magazine following a strong TV advertising campaign.

Editor-in-chief Lynn Leahey remembered in 1992, "It just exploded. We (soap operas) were a well-kept secret for a while. Then other people caught on to what kind of market this was. A lot of women going back to work are no longer watching every day. Magazines allow them to keep up with soaps. Not everyone has time to watch five hours a week even if you tape them. Soap magazines let you to keep up the fun habit of watching soaps even if you don't have the free time to always watch them."

Ruth A. Gordon recalled, "Before our first issue came out (in 1975), we already had readers." It was mentioned profits from the magazine came mostly from subscriptions (50 cents to $1 an issue) with subscribers comprised "a cross-section of America". 'Gannett News Service' reported in 1980, "As daytime serials have become more and more established, publishers jumped on the bandwagon. The first soap publication was 'Who's Who in Daytime TV', an annual started in 1967 by Paul Denis of the 'New York Post'.

"In 1969, he took the plunge with the first monthly in the field, 'Daytime TV'. So successful was the format that it was widely imitated by as many as 28 separate publications at one time. The market couldn't support that many, though, and had a mild collapse. There are about a dozen magazines left by 1980. As the gossip 'soap' mags flourished, an even more interesting development took place, housewives who happened to be soap opera fans created their own soap magazine format, incorporating a month's worth of story lines. They sold them to friends and neighbors at first and eventually wider audiences."

A spokesman for ABC told the press in 1981, "There is no question that daytime programming is a very important revenue center. They're very important to the company." Pat Falken Smith argued, "We're not exactly soap operas anymore and we're not exactly appealing to the coffee-klatch housewife. We have become a national fad. We have become a cult among university students to a point where many universities don't bother to schedule classes then." 

Hockey defenseman Ron Greschner revealed in 1980, "I've been watching soap operas for about four years now (since 1977). It works into my schedule. We play at night, what better thing is there to do in the afternoon? I enjoy them. I begin by watching 'Ryan's Hope' and I don't turn the dial from ABC all afternoon. About 4pm I take a nap and then head off to play in the game. I guess you could say I'm hooked because now (in 1980), during the off-season when I head to the beach, I find myself taking along a portable television."

Football linebacker Harry Carson confessed, "I don't care what anybody says. They're (soap operas) not just for women. A lot of guys can't pass up certain stories and I don't see why they should be ashamed that they watch them. I'm not ashamed. You know, it's getting to the point where a lot of people know me as the guy who watches soap operas, rather than the All-Pro football player. The other day (in 1980) after practice a bunch of fans came up to me. They didn't want to talk football. They wanted to know what I thought about this one character on 'The Young and the Restless' or what I thought was going to happen on 'One Life To Live'."

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