A 1940 Time magazine story referred to Phillips, who was credited with writing more than two million words a year, both as a “pigeon-plump spinster of 37” and “the highest-paid aerial litterateuse in the country.” (She made $4,000 a week.) Phillips’s protégée, Agnes Nixon, went on to create “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.” The daytime industry they built, like any feminized (and thereby marginalized) genre, was one in which borders went unpatrolled that, along with a culture of mentorship, meant that other ambitious and talented women unable to find purchase in prime time or film became soap-opera producers and writers at roughly the same rate as men - a still-inconceivable parity. Irna Phillips, who in 1930 created “Painted Dreams,” a 15-minute episodic radio program often cited as the first soap, and who went on to develop “Guiding Light,” “As the World Turns” and other shows, became a veritable mogul in an era when women’s opportunities to wield creative power, let alone hold dominion over the worlds they invented, simply didn’t exist in Hollywood. In addition to diverting us for decades, soaps have also played a crucial role in the history of American entertainment, especially for women. Soaps have been justifiably derided for their wacked-out story lines, and I concede that as a fan, I have watched with dismay as favorite characters have been possessed by the devil or fallen for space aliens or returned from the dead, sometimes more than once.īut for all the weird plot devices - and who can blame writers who churn out five hours of television 52 weeks a year for occasionally hitting the narrative crack pipe? - it’s only right to take a moment to mark the loss of daily serialized drama. In January, after “One Life to Live” wraps up, only four daytime soaps will remain where once more than a dozen aired. The forced conclusion of “All My Children” follows the recent cancellations of “As the World Turns,” which ran for 54 years, and “Guiding Light,” which aired first on radio and then on television for 72 years. 23, “All My Children” concludes its 41-year run, and with it, unthinkably, will disappear the genre’s most celebrated siren, Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Montgomery Montgomery Marrick Marrick Marrick Montgomery. ![]() ![]() ![]() The soap opera, one of the nation’s most under–appreciated art forms, is in serious trouble.
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