On this day in 1968, One Life to Live premiered on ABC daytime. The show created by Agnes Nixon was originally called Between Heaven and Hell. In honor of this anniversary I want to write about my early impressions and memories of the show in a non-linear style. If anything is inaccurate, I apologize as I am writing solely from memory.
My first real exposure to One Life to Live came in the 1980s. Paul Rauch was the executive producer back then and in Llanview, everything was bigger and brighter. The opening of the show was the one of the faces. This credit sequence was an extremely helpful tool in learning the names of the characters on the show as each person appeared on screen I would think of their name. As I became more familiar with the cast, I would also think of the actor’s name.
The main character on the show was Viki. She was married to Texan Clint Buchanan. They had three children, Kevin, Joey and Jessica. Professionally they ran a newspaper called The Banner, which I thought was cool. When I first started watching, I had no idea that Clint was not the biological father of any of these kids. Viki had a half-sister named Tina who was married to Clint’s son Cord. I thought that was odd. So Viki was both sister-in-law and mother-in-law to Cord. How often does that happen in real life? Viki’s father-in-law was a tycoon named Asa, who was a badass, though he had a soft spot for his family. For some reason, it seemed like Asa was usually fighting with his younger son Bo. Asa was with Renee a madam; I was confused on how people like this could be so powerful.
Bo Buchanan worked in television. I didn’t understand why they would have a soap being filmed in the middle of Pennsylvania, but okay. Television in the US films in New York City and California unless it is on cable access. Bo got involved with a woman named Sarah, who eventually died. They travelled to Austria, but called the country Mendorra, which made no sense though I eventually found out about the fake country soap opera convention.
There was an imposter Bo, whom I heard about but I didn’t see enough of that plot to make sense of it. The star of the soap within a soap called Fraternity Row was Megan. Megan is also Sarah’s half-sister. Megan was discovered to be the forgotten child of Viki from an underground city called Eterna. Hold on a minute, how could a woman not remember giving birth? What is an underground city is that even possible in real life?
Eventually I found out about Viki having more than one personality, which was very much moment of eureka. As an adult, I’ve found out that underground lodging exists, but it is not like Eterna. One of my memories of viewing the show was when I was in music class in school one day. On that particular episode everyone was clad in colored jumpsuits. The looks of confusion on the faces of my classmates were rather funny. The only show I knew of with matching colored outfits was Star Trek.
Viki had a rival in Dorian Lord. Why Dorian and Viki didn’t like each other, I wasn’t sure except that one was blonde and the other brunette like Betty and Veronica. I wondered if it was over a man. Years later, I found out it was Viki’s father that was the reason. Dorian had a daughter named Cassie who seemed very nice and not much like her mother. Cassie’s father was an attorney named Herb, later I found out he was her adoptive dad. He was an attorney. There were a few people with the last name Wolek: Larry, Wanda and Dan. Larry and Dan were doctors and Wanda worked in a restaurant.
Getting back to Megan, she was with a guy named Max. At one point, like Viki she was more than one personality. Was this genetic? Max had a child named Al with a former love named Gabrielle. Max was a con artist; I had no idea what Gabrielle did except she was a bad girl with long hair and an accent. I think we were supposed to like either Megan or Gabrielle, but I felt for both of them. Eventually Max and Gabrielle were together, and Megan found love with a new character named Jake.
If you asked me back then what interested me the most. I would have said the couples of Bo and Sarah and Tina and Cord. I also was interested in the fight between Gabrielle and Megan for Max. It seemed like Viki and Clint weren't on much during the summer and Dorian had been recast. If I don't see a character that often, it is harder for me to become interested especially back in those days when I was without a way of recording any soaps.
These are just some of my memories of One Life to Live. When you start watching a soap opera and aren’t familiar with the characters and story, things can be mighty confusing. This is exacerbated even further when one only can see a program when school was closed. Best wishes to OLTL on its 42nd birthday.
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