Elizabeth Searle - Soap Opera Confidential: Writers and Soap Insiders on Why Well Tune in Tomorrow as the World Turns Restlessly by the Guiding Light of Our Lives

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

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e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-2759-5

2017 Elizabeth Searle and Suzanne Strempek Shea. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover image 2017 joste_dj/iStock

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

To Elisabeth Wilkins Lombardo,
always bold, forever beautiful

Elizabeth Searle and Suzanne Strempek Shea would like to thank all their contributors, without whom this book would be an empty soap bubble, and a wider circle of gratitude goes to all who were involved on camera and behind the scenes of the daytime serials the two have enjoyed over the years. The two also send endless episodes of thanks to Michele Barker, whose eagle-eyed copy editing wins her title of Soapy MVP; John Hodgkinson, husband extraordinaire and creator of our classic subtitle; Tommy Shea, equally extraordinaire husband, and essay contributor; Mom Barbara Searle, who updated her daughters on our show every day when driving them home from school; Mom Julie Strempek, who said her daughter could have the TV on as long as she was knitting or sewing (or writing) at the same time; Babci Mary Milewski, who greeted granddaughter Suzanne with the afternoon soaps when she came through the front door every day after school; Elizabeths great friend, hair stylist and Soapy soulmate, Theresa Pappas; Charlie Mason, a true guiding light; and John Talbot, ever-able agent.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for the following: A Guiding Light Extinguished, by Suzanne Strempek Shea, first published in Obit magazine and used by permission of the author; My Soap Opera Journal from I Cant Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays by Elinor Lipman, copyright 2013 by Elinor Lipman, reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, all rights reserved; I Thickened the Plot by David Hiltbrand, first published in the Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine and used by permission of the author; Quentin, Were Trapped! by Rita Ciresi, first published in Nineteen: Contemporary Writers on Nineteenth Century Experience and used by permission of the author; Waterbed by Thorsten Kaye, first published in A Solid Wheel of Colored Ribbons and used by permission of Cat and Moon Productions and the author.

SUZANNE STREMPEK SHEA

Our shows. Our programs. Our worlds.

Existing in universes assigned to channel numbers, lasting for decadeseven from one century to the nextfirst hatched in radio studios, to be soaked up on the kitchen-shelf radio while the latest baby wailed and laundry awaited the line; soon beamed to us in fuzzied black and white; now instantly available in living color and at any hour on an array of space-age devices, including screens sported on wrist. Yet, in whatever the language, the stories remain the same in terms of romance, of mystery, of entanglements large and small. Of blood, of neighborhood, of workplace, of circumstance. Of enormous events, including weddings and wakes and weather. The anywhere-else-unbelievable-but-commonplace-here thrives: very human aliens, undetectable facial transplants, the resurfacing of long-lost twins (including children of mothers who cant recall their offsprings births), the worst of enemies trapped together in the worst of elevators, the longest-missing of long-lost lovers finding mid-blizzard reunion sanctuary in a hunting cabin on an estate so enormous the couple can remain in their place on the floor in front of the fireplace and beneath the bearskin rug for a week before the rescue party arrives. There are smaller moments that comfort us and that help mark our seasons: an annual barbecue, an all-cast hello at the end of a Christmas party episode, a mysterious character (also possibly the long-lost loved one referenced above) slipping in between the other costumed regulars at a Valentines Day bash. All this we watch while moving through our own daily story lineshealth crises, career triumphs, love affairs, and family traditions shared and sometimes rivaling the drama on the screen, other days blissfully mundane. All the while, the screen in the background is alive with the love of life.

In modern soap-situation style, this collection of essays has two mothers: longtime friends, teaching colleagues, and writers who bonded over our shared passion for The Young and the Restless. Monday through Friday over here in woodsy western Massachusetts, I put aside my current project to enjoy lunch with Y&R (Whatevers going on in your life, I frequently note to those who ask about the structure of my writing day, the people in Genoa City always have it worse), while across the state in urban Arlington, Elizabeth Searle is finding the energy for her latest chapter or movie-script scene switching to a higher gear when Y&R begins. As for the paternity of this book, its unknownfitting for programs that hang so many cliffs on the little windowpane of a home pregnancy test, as well as the official results of a DNA testwhich in at least one Guiding Light story line made it clear there was a separate father for each child in a set of twins. We do know the rest of this books family. The 33 other writers and soap insiders whove filled these pages with enthusiastic responses to Elizabeths and my questions, first posed six years ago: Do you watch soaps? Would you want to write something about them?

The result is a blanket as thick and warm and detailed as any Allan G. Hunters mother might have been knitting over in England as she demanded silence in which to absorb every second of the Dallas episodes she saw as a mirror of American life. Its a companion as steadfast as the one Leigh Montville relied upon when, as a solo latchkey second-grader, he walked home to eat lunch in a Connecticut apartment where Love of Life kept him company. Its a hand to hold in tough times, as Jamie Cat Callan found, literally, with then-budding soap star Meg Ryan both on and off the small screen. Its a timeline as detailed as the one Elinor Lipman employs to mark the events in her life with events in the soaps. Its reality as big as what David Hiltbrand lived when he was penning scripts for All My Children, and its as touching as the revelations Ann Hood makes about her Mama Rose and family when recalling her earliest soap encounters. It also can be as fanciful and sparkly as the poem by Thorsten Kaye, which gives us a glimpse into the eternally youthful spirit of an actor and soap star.

And its a book that will remind you youre not alone.

When Elizabeth asked novelist and memoirist Jacquelyn Mitchard about any soap addiction suffered in and around her writing, the response was quick and illustrated the comfort she found on her screen: I had a long, long period of addiction to