ATWT: All My Afternoons

Here is my summary of the As The World Turns chapter of All My Afternoons, a book from 1979 by Annie Gilbert. They break this chapter into three parts: one is general information, dressing room drama (quotes from actors on the show at the time) and from the script (one page of script from 1976.)

The chapter begins with the statement of all the soaps ATWT is “old fashioned.” There is a full-page picture of Nancy, Chris and Don Hughes. They note, “Richard Holland played the part of Don from high school valedictorian speech to earning his law degree.” According to Helen Wagner, who passed away in 2010, ATWT “has accomplished what people have been trying to accomplish on stage since the time of the Greeks—pure identification between the audience and the character.” The author states the show is about marriages, children and family (not drugs, war protesting and incest.)

Gilbert explains how the show is old fashioned. Dr. Dan Stewart makes house calls and Dr. Bob Hughes remembers all his patients. Virtue is shown by how Nancy Hughes allows her “bratty” former daughter-in-law in her home. Lisa is still a family friend regardless of everything she has done. People forgive and forget, but not before the evildoers get scorned. They quote the writers Edith Sommer and Robert Soderberg who were married at the time. “We do feel morality is involved. The audience wants our characters to do the decent thing whenever possible, and if we don’t live up to that, they let us know.” So basically if characters act badly the viewers would get angry and write the powers that be at ATWT.

It is noted that many of its large and loyal audience is over-50 even in the late 70s. The author posits that many of them started watching when the family got its first television set, and their kids were young. Now the kids were grown with children of their own. For these viewers ATWT isn’t about shock or education, but a reassuring visit with old friends whom viewers have come to know over the years. “The Fourth of July picnic in Oakdale is as important an event as mental breakdowns and divorces are in some of the other soap towns.” ATWT has WASPY characters, Stewarts, Hughes, Lowells and Colmans. There is no ethnic diversity as it hurt the ratings. The Lowells have money, but aren’t happy while the Hughes are stable, but middle class. Over the years, the Lowells disappeared while the Hughes grew and were even part of the show at the end.

There are additional photos of Don, Grandpa Hughes (Santos Ortega), Chris and Nancy, one of people in the legal field (Judge Lowell, Chris Hughes and Mitchell Drew), and one with Lisa, Chris (Don MacLaughlin) and Nancy, which talks about how Bob was in college when he got Lisa pregnant, eloped with her and then they moved into his parents’ house. There was another photo of Grandpa Hughes and Lisa. It explained how Grandpa moved away with a new wife on a farm with his son John. That way the program could wait in dealing with his death. Another was on Ellen Lowell and Penny. It summarizes that Ellen was pregnant and single, left town and gave the baby up for adoption. The baby came back to Oakdale with his new parents Betty and David Stewart and his name was Dan. There is also a photo of Penny and Jeff at their second wedding. The man who married the character was a real life minister with his own parish (St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City.)

Another theme of the show was about ambition is good, but not too much of it. They use Dr. John Dixon as an example. He lied to get Bob Hughes from the hospital. Eventually John lost his medical career and his wife. As we all know John was able to be a doctor again. The Kim, John, Susan and Dan triangle was also summarized as well as Lisa, Grant and Joyce triangle. Another was sisters Anne and Dee Stewart fighting a man named Beau Spencer.

After Nancy and Chris made it to their 20th anniversary on the air, people were asked to send letters to the show. At one point, Chris seemed attracted to another woman and the viewers were completely outraged. Since then they never had him like someone else again. Jim Lowell’s death was also mentioned along with the letter than Irna Phillips sent out to those who were upset. Bloopers were mentioned like at a picnic and Tom Hughes lifting up grass when he walked away.

They also go into very popular daytime stars from ATWT. Rosemary Prinz (Penny) seemed ambivalent on the genre after doing a press conference announcing that she was leaving the show. Eileen Fulton (Lisa) who was hired to play someone nice and agreeable went in the opposite direction for her performance. Kathyn Hays (Kim) had recently become very popular and was one of the last characters created by Irna. She said that Kim was like Kathyn when she was younger. She adopted two kids without a husband and Kim had a child out of wedlock.

Dressing Room Drama takes place in Helen Wagner’s dressing room at the CBS Broadcast Center at West 57th street. Fan mail is opened and in front of the mirror, a tattered and marked up script, a cot with a bedspread, and an embroidery that says “Home is where the heart is.” This interview took place on Thursday July 20 with Helen and Don. What is amusing is that Don forgot about the interview time, and Helen had to call him come to speak. Don shared a story from someone who worked at both ATWT and Edge of Night. He said that he felt EON was built on hate, since the characters were out to get each other, as there is violence and animosity. ATWT is different as it was based on love. Then Helen added that this person originally thought it was all about romantic relationships, but really it was about caring about people. Both Helen and Don talk about how they played a married couple for so many years, but the characters could weather the problems together.

Don and Helen were asked how ATWT has changed over the years. Don mentioned how the show is like The Waltons and doesn’t deal with issues. Helen thought the biggest change was when they went from 30 to 60 minutes. They split taped the cast, so only if you read the entire script would you know everything that was going on in Oakdale. In the past, they would gather and read the episode before they’d make the episode. Discussions and arguments were to be had, and in Helen’s opinion the show was better when it was live. When asked about if they had two marriages (home and at work) they both speak at once, and then look at each other and laugh. After the interview, they run into Eileen Fulton. They talk about cast photos and Don missed the memo and Helen fills him in, and they leave. It is a sunny summer afternoon, and Eileen goes into a limo, while “Don and Helen look at each other, nod in unspoken agreement, then turn to walk, arm and arm to the corner where they’ll catch the cross-town bus.

Don MacLaughlin also was quoted “Soap opera is basically character, not story. It’s the people in it who make it work. I think we could coast along and do nothing really for two weeks and they’d say, what’s the matter with those people, why aren’t they doing anything? But they’d still watch. It’s like the cave men telling a little story every night by the fire and then gathering the next night to hear a little more of it.” There are also quotes with Henderson Forsythe (David Stewart) that said the show reminds him of the midwest, where he grew up and Kathryn Hays about Kim’s morals strength. There is an excerpt from Eileen Fulton’s book “How My World Turns”.

Don Hastings (Bob Hughes) talks about how people outside of New York treat them like old friends and ask about their character’s family. There is also a page with quotes from Larry Bryggman (John Dixon). He talks about the character, as well as his approach to him. He doesn’t see John as evil even if the producers see him that way. He talks about how it frustrates and angers him when they speak down to the audience. This is a very long quote…here is a part of it “They don’t seem to care that much about character development. It’s all about ratings and numbers. If tomorrow it was proven that more people would watch this show if we all had humped backs, we’d all have humped backs. And if it was proven that viewers liked people with German accents better, we’d all be talking with German accents. The actors, the directors, and the people who are actually involved in putting the thing on try to create characters that make sense, but while you’ve got some people who are actually concerned with what they’re doing, you’ve also got a bunch of people who care about nothing but the ratings.” I find this attitude interesting for the 1970s though it only got worse.

Hastings and Bryggman also speak about playing doctors. Bob was in medical school for a month before he started working in the hospital. He mentions how Bob is a lot like Don because he had to round out the character. The writers would take cues from his performances to write the character. Also some characters that were supposed to be major on the program didn’t last. He shares that a doctor friend told him that he’s a better doctor than he is. Larry shares how they cannot mention a disease by name, but describe everything about it. What was even odder was how John asked for a fetal heart monitor, but the dialogue was cut as they were concerned women would ask their physicians for it. There was another scene with Larry and Helen about the monitor and it was cut that all the audience saw was the characters saying hello and goodbye.

The chapter ends with a typical scene in Nancy’s kitchen. Nancy and Don speak about his adventure in the park with Franny. Franny has an accident with ice cream, and they played in the sandbox. They talk about dinner that night in which they meet Valerie Conway (Judith McConnell) officially.

That’s the chapter on As the World Turns. It was rather long, and wasn’t fawning on the program. The author almost makes it sound like it is a bad thing to be traditional. Since this was before I watched soap operas, I can’t really say if the author is correct in that assessment.