Books about: "Role of a Lifetime"

One of my hobbies is having books about television, movies, and theater, etc. "Role of a Lifetime": four professional actors and how they built their careers by Robert Simonson was published by Backstage Books in 1999. Below will be a bit about the non-fiction book, and what was in it.

I bought this book some time after 1999, at a bookstore that is no longer in existence. It focuses on mainly the professional careers (with a little insight of personal struggles) of four performers who had extensive careers in theater (regional and NY): Austin Pendleton, Gloria Foster, Lois Smith, and Ron Rifkin. When I bought this, I picked it up due to my familiarity with Ron Rifkin as Sloan on "Alias", but since this blog is about soaps, I'm going to be focusing this post on Lois Smith, as they actually write about her time in daytime soaps. Since her run on "The Doctors" ended on RetroTV, I feel like I can finally share the contents of this book. Each person gets a 30-60 page treatment with photos from different projects up until publication.

Lois Smith's quick bio was that she was born in Kansas, lived in Missouri for a time, and then ended up in Seattle, to a religious family, who moved from east to west. Her father did plays in church, and that got her interested in acting, as she was in them. She got a scholarship to University of Washington, which was seen as an unholy school, but there she could study acting. She met her husband, who was a became an academic, and they spent years together, even having a child named Moon Elizabeth, but the marriage ultimately failed in the late 60s, as he stayed in Philadelphia, and she went to New York City full time. All of the theater productions including plays by Tennessee Williams, regional theater, television roles (both live and on tape) were all mentioned, some with more detail than others.

The first soap reference was to a job she got on "As the World Turns" as a standby after  her divorce and was paid $225 for not getting the part. Other than that money, child support and unemployment, were her only income in 1968. Then some of the ads she did in the late 60s and 70s were mentioned. A Geritol ad in 1969 netted her $2,000, but her most successful commercial was for Vanquish (no idea what that is), that gave her $6,000 in residuals in 1974. In late 1970, she had a little work on "As the World Turns" - no character is mentioned, so probably not memoable, In 1972, she was Mrs. Bendarik on Love of Life for a summer, though it was a non-contract role. Her first contract was on "Somerset", the P&G spinoff of "Another World", which filmed in Astoria, Queens. She played Zoe Cannell, who was a wife and mother, who ended up becoming a murderer. The soap schedule of working during the day, free most nights, and weekends off, was was more normal. In July 1973, she was called back as Zoe escaped from prison, and killed again, she came back in August, September and November and was the axe person, who would murder the person who was chose to leave or was fired.

Her second contract role of "The Doctors" from 1975 - 1977, as Eleanor Conrad. It summarizes it as the mentally unstable wife of a philandering husband attempting to gaslight her into an institution. The characters were written out after a year, but a new headwriter liked her and came in, and extended the role. The problem was that only central character who knew Eleanor was Dr. Althea Davis (Elizabeth Hubbard).  So at first she was only used to drink coffee and then had a younger bad boy lover, before leaving for good. There is a note that she continued doing other roles on soaps over the years. She is quoted as saying "I definitely did not prefer it. they were very helpful to my overall situation. It keeps you busy, it keeps you off the streets, but it's not satisfying." While not someone who is all soaps are awesome and great at least she admitted it helps you continue to work as an actor, or criticized anyone who made their living primarily from work in daytime.

When it comes to this book, I really enjoyed it. Of course, it makes me yearn for a time machine, to have seen some of these productions, when the playwrights were alive, and directors of renown were still working. The book goes through the late 90s of all the actors' careers, so it is a great read if one is interested in that sort of thing.