Hall of Fame: Genie Francis

Genie Francis
2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• Alice Dennison, Family
• Laura Vining Webber, General Hospital
• Patricia "Tyger" Hayes, Bare Essence
• unknown role, Glitter
• Jenny Bernard, Hotel
• Melinda Jenkins, Hotel
• Diana Colville, Days of Our Lives
• Ceara Connor, All My Children
• Ceara Connor, Loving

Eugenia Ann Francis, better known as Genie Francis to her fans, was born on May 26, 1962 in Englewood, New Jersey is probably daytime TV's most famous teen star ever.

Her father, Ivor Francis, a Canadian actor of English descent, was on the Gloria Monty-directed soap opera Bright Promise in the early 1970s, a few years before his daughter would work for her. He died in 1986 from the effects of multiple strokes. He played a brief role on General Hospital as an adoption counselor when his daughter was also on the show. Her mother, Rosemary Daley, is a former actress/model of Lithuanian descent. Genie is a confirmed Catholic. She has an older brother Ivor Jr., a younger brother Kenneth, and an older half-sister Shelley from her father's first marriage.

Genie met actor/director Jonathan Frakes while filming the television show, Bare Essence. After meeting again during the filming of the miniseries, North and South, Genie and Jonathan started dating in 1985. They became engaged in 1986, and married on May 28, 1988. The couple have two children, Jameson Ivor Frakes, born in 1994, and Elizabeth Francis Frakes, born in 1997. They have just recently moved from Belfast, Maine to Beverly Hills, California.

Genie's acting career started at the age of 13 with a guest appearance on the Aaron Spelling primetime series Family playing Alice Dennison, an unfriendly classmate of Kristy McNichol's Buddy Lawrence, in 1976. Even with only one professional acting credit to her name, she followed that with her most famous role, that of Laura Webber Spencer on General Hospital, a role in which fans got to watch her grow from a young teen of 14 into a young woman.

When Monty took over the producer position on the ailing show and decided that the dramatic focus should be on the younger characters, Douglas Marland wrote a daring story in which the confused, immature Laura took an older man as a lover. When her lover David Hamilton taunted Laura with the fact that it was really her mother that he loved, Laura accidentally killed him, and her mother took the rap for the murder.

Her ferocious, highly emotional performance at fifteen amazed her peers and, through word of mouth, hordes of teenagers were brought into the General Hospital audience. The highly melocramatic storyline was beautifully juxtaposed by a sweet, puppy-love romance with Scotty Baldwin (Kin Shriner). The ratings took off.

Then Pat Falken Smith, well known for her rape stories on Days of Our Lives, took over and wrote a highly ambiguous, controversial storyline in which Laura would fall in love with her rapist-seducer, Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary). The chemistry between Francis and Geary was undeniable, adn when "the powers that be" got around to calling the rap a seduction, Francis felt - and justifiably so - that her highly skilled performance as a rape victim had been negated.

The series of stories would bring her instant stardom though. A series of Luke-and-Laura-on-the-run stories would make Luke and Laura an international phenomenon and bring General Hospital unprecedented ratings. The stories sealed forever Luke and Laura as the most popular super couple in daytime history and brought them appearances on the covers of TV Guide, Us Weekly, and People magazines.

The television couple wed on November 16, 1981, with 30 million viewers tuning in to make this episode the highest-rated hour in soap opera history.

Francis was exhausted. For five years she had appeared almost daily, learing 50 pages of dialogue everyday along with her high school tudor on the set. She had no personal life at all, and felt that her whole adolescence and teenage years had been skipped. While she was in the midst of her tumultuous affair onscreen, she had not even been kissed in real life. At the peak of her success, Francis left the show in December 1982 to try her hand at primetime television and to take a brief break from the life of a soap opera actress. Her last scenes as Laura showed Laura disappearing in the fog while being trailed by a kidnapper.

Soon after, she landed a contract from CBS which included two big-budget TV movies and a series pilot. She landed the starring role in the made-for-TV movie, Bare Essence. The movie received high ratings, putting an end to the speculation that a former daytime actress could not lure a large primetime audience. When the movie was opted for a weekly series by NBC, she found herself starring in her own series. Sadly, Bare Essence, was not a success, being unable to capture the impact the movie had made, most in part due to lethargic writing that never was able to showcase the talent Francis had at all.

She decided to take time off to study and moved to New York, also hoping to launch a career on the stage. Genie had remained a fan favorite and viewers of GH wanted her back. GH offered a huge salary for thirty appearances and despite her desire to work on the stage, she agreed to come back. Fans were delighted when she returned to General Hospital on November 14, 1983. Her return was brought about to coincide with the departure of Luke when Geary decided to leave the series. During her first week on the show, the ratings jumped, adding three million viewers to the GH audience. When her limited run ended, Francis stayed true to her theater ambitions and returned to New York. She would return to General Hospital for one more brief visit in November 1984, but her work during this time was mostly on the stage and in primetime television.

She co-starred in the hit ABC miniseries, North and South (Books I and II), as the good Southern sister, Brett Main. Genie's extensive television work also included recurring appearances on Murder, She Wrote. Later she was seen in the television movie, Perry Mason and the Case of the Killer Kiss, and in Heaven and Hell, the third North and South installment.

She also was lucky in finding work on the stage where she has appeared in Crimes of the Heart and See How They Run. In 1991, Ms. Francis appeared in the Williamstown Festival Theater production of Defying Gravity. That same year, she made her New York City debut in The Baby Dance at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village. She also appeared in a Comedic Curtain Raiser at Manhattan Class Company for their festival of One Acts, called "The Group."

Through the years, other daytime soaps have pursued Francis because of her tremendous popularity. She appeared on Days of our Lives as Diana Colville from 1987 to 1989 and on All My Children as con artist and incest victim Ceara Connor Hunter from 1990 to 1992. She reprised her role as Ceara on Loving in November 1991. She then returned to GH in 1993. In 1994, when Francis fell pregnant with her first child, the pregnancy was written into the show and Genie took six weeks off for maternity leave. However in early 1997 when she fell pregnant again, she took a much longer absence from the show, staying away for nearly a year and a half.

In September 2002 she abruptly left General Hospital following ABC's refusal to work out a contract she wanted.

In June 2006, Francis began negotiating with the casting directors on the show in returning to the role of Laura Webber Spencer for a limited run through November. She returned to the show with spectacular fanfare to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Luke and Laura's wedding. The magic of Luke and Laura was recaptured, and the reunion garnered the show more publicity than it had seen in years. Though she reprised the role for only one month, Francis's stint was so successful that she garnered a Daytime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, which she ended up winning in June 2007. "Oh my goodness!" she said. "Thank you so much. I am overwhelmed. I've waited 31 years for this moment."

In December 2007, Francis had a starring role in the Hallmark Channel movie, The Note, which earned her critical acclaim.

Genie Francis returned to General Hospital in August 2008 to reprise her role as Laura Webber Spencer. Francis told the AP, "It's a mother-daughter story. Years ago when I started playing the character as a 14-year-old girl, it was a mother-daughter story, only I was the daughter. So it's kinda cool this is full circle. It's nice to come back for visits. General Hospital is my home." She continued, "I would stay on, but General Hospital honestly doesn't seem to want that relationship with this character at the moment," said Francis. "They want little short doses during sweeps periods. It's not entirely up to me. I'm thrilled and delighted my audience stands behind me. If they didn't, you can be sure I wouldn't get to come back for these visits." Laura's character was written off as returning to France for treatment for her illness.

Hall of Fame: Eileen Fulton

Eileen Fulton
2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• Lisa Miller, As The World Turns
• Lisa Miller Hughes, Our Private World

Television's most famous villianess and the most popular soap star of the 1960s, Eileen Fulton was born Margaret Elizabeth McLarty on September 13, 1933 in Asheville, North Carolina; the daughter of a Methodist minister. Her father was a descendant of a long line of clergymen.

She majored in music and minored in dramatics at Greensboro College in North Carolina and made her professional debut in The Lost Colony, an annual presentation at Manteo, NC. While at Greensboro College, she received a Best Actress award for her performances in the productions of Candide and Thurber's Thirteen Clocks. In 1956, she moved to New York and studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater. She came to New York with a two-fold goal: to make it as a singer and an actress.

While studying her craft, Fulton worked at Macy's, selling hats and occasionally modeling for photos used to illustrate the stories in True Confessions magazine. After a few small theater gigs and a co-starring role opposite Anne Francis in the 1960 film Girl of the Night where she played a girl named Lisa, she fell into the role with which she would forever be identified.

Fulton had auditioned for a part on the CBS soap opera The Brighter Day (ironically as a minister's daughter), but producers thought she would be better cast as Bob Hughes' social-climbing girlfriend on As The World Turns. The role was originally supposed to be temporary, but William J. Bell and Irna Phillips became intrigued by the charm and energy Fulton brought to the role, and began to develop the character. She has now played Lisa almost continually (with two notable interruptions) since May 18, 1960, almost 50 years; pretty impressive for a role that was originally intended to be temporary.

When the devious Lisa had Bob Hughes (Don Hastings) and his family under her thumb, outraged mail poured into CBS. By the time Lisa had taken up with shoe salesman Bruce Elliott (James Pritchett), Fulton had to hire a security guard to protect her from the overenthusiastic, sometimes violent fans as she made her way to the studio.

The character of Lisa has been put through some wild situations -- over three dozen lovers, married eight times, divorced three times, widowed four times (with her most recent marriage annulled), murder trials, rapes, amnesia, a Mexican mudslide, a phantom fetus. Through it all fans have always been transfixed by Fulton's refreshing originality, enormous vitality, and her flamboyant comedy style as she brings Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Grimaldi Chedwyn to life on their screens.

Fulton's portrayal of Lisa created the strongest prototype of its time for the daytime vixen; the character and actress were, in Fulton's first decades on As the World Turns, very popular (to the point where, in the late 1960s, Fulton had to hire a publicist, the first soap actress to do so). Her popularity earned her the title of daytime TV's most hated woman for a number of yeras, and when Daytime TV magazine debuted it's Reader's Poll in April 1970, she graced the poll as it's first ever Best Actress. She would go on to place in the Top 10 in the poll 58 times during the first 80 polls conducted and recorded by the magazine. Her last appearance in the top 10 was in 1977.

Among her fans through the years have been the famous such as Van Cliburn, Renata Tabaldi and Bette Davis who called Fulton "absolutely the most chic, best looking put-together woman I've ever seen."

Despite her popularity, Fulton's run has not been without controversy. During the late 1960s, after her onscreen son was SORASed from age 12 to 19, Fulton was noted for insisting it be written into her contract that her character could not become a grandmother, as she feared it would impede the glamorous, fast-paced storylines in which she was involved at the time. As a result, the actress received enormous amounts of "hate mail" when Lisa's onscreen daughter-in-law, Margo, had a miscarriage in 1986. (It is unclear whether the "granny clause", as it became known, was still in effect at the time.) Now in her seventies, Fulton no longer has the "granny clause" in her contract; her character has two sons -- a third son died a number of years ago -- and four grandchildren.

She left the show three times - first in 1963 to focus more on her stage career when she was replaced in the role of Lisa by actress Pamela King; in 1965 to bring her Lisa character to her own prime time soap spin-off, Our Private World (CBS's attempt to mimic the success of ABC's Peyton Place). On Our Private World, Lisa was written as a variation on the Bette Davis character in Beyond the Forest, a girl who pined for fun and freedom in Chicago. Our Private World lasted only thru the summer. Fulton returned to As The World Turns for ten weeks to wrap up the storylines begun on Our Private World. She then took a year off from the show to sing in various nightclubs and returned to the soap on January 16, 1967 as a new and glamorous Lisa. She left again in 1983 after a contract dispute with executive producer Mary-Ellis Bunim. In a burst of publicity, Fulton again returned to Oakdale in teh summer of 1984 as Lisa discovered the body of her fifth husband, Whit McColl, thus setting off another season of murder, mystery, and melodrama. During Fulton's 1983-1984 absence, the role of Lisa was played by Betsy von Furstenberg. The following actresses played the part during Fulton's temporary leaves: Lynn Rogers (1977-1978), Jane Powell (1991, 1993, and 1994), Maeve McGuire (1992) and Carmen Duncan (2004).

Although the character of Lisa is still appearing on the show, Fulton has been vocal about her displeasure at not being more prominently featured. Fulton was prominently featured in April 2006 during the show's 50th anniversary episode, and from January 2008 to August 2008, was roughly seen in at least two episodes per week. Her appearances have dropped off since then but she recently signed a new two year contract that will run through her 50th year on the show, 2010.

While working on ATWT, Fulton has remained very busy offscreen as well. Among other things, including the Broadway productions of The Fantasticks and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opposite her ATWT co-star Henderson Forsythe, Fulton has written two memoirs, How My World Turns and As My World Still Turns. She also wrote a mystery novel, called Soap Opera, loosely based on her experiences on As the World Turns as well as a series of six murder mystery novels including Take One for Murder about a soap opera star "Nina" and her detective boyfriend "Dino." Fulton is a talented cabaret singer and has sung in many top nightclubs around the country and starred in several one-woman shows.

She is an active supporter of many charities such as UNICEF, March of Dimes, Cerebal Palsy, Lupus Foundation, and Martha's Table, which benefits poor and homeless mothers and children. She has established a musical scholarship in her father's name at Brevarad College in North Carolina, and a Fine Arts Scholarship in her & her mother's names at their alma mater, Greensboro. She is also a women's right's advocate.

Fulton is a 1955 graduate of Greensboro College and was granted an honorary doctorate in 2005, on the 50h anniversary of her college graduation. She was the commencement speaker at Greensboro's graduation ceremony in 2005.

For her work on As The World Turns, she received one Daytime Emmy nomination for Supporting Actress in 1988. She also received the Lifetime Achivement Award from the Daytime Emmys in 2004. She was nominated twice for the Soap Opera Digest Awards: for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1996; and for Outstanding Contribution by an Actor/Actress to the Form of Continuing Drama who is currently on a Daytime Serial in 1986. In 1991, Soap Opera Digest awarded her with the Editor's Award.

She currently resides in Manhattan.

Hall of Fame: Douglas Watson

Douglas Watson
2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• Dr. Clay Carroll, The Nurses
• Dr. Robert Wallace, Moment of Truth
• Walter Haskins, Search For Tomorrow
• Dr. Lloyd Phillips, Love of Life
• Mackenzie Cory, Another World

Larkin Douglass Watson III was born February 24, 1921 in Jackson, Georgia where his ancestors were granted land for fighting in the American Revolution. One of his famous relatives was named Douglas Watson. He was a famous Indian scout, who discovered Indian Springs, site of the current Georgia State Park. After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1942, he studied acting in Hollywood with the legendary Maria Ouspenskaya.

A character actor since 1950, his most notable roles were in the movies Julius Caesar (1953), Sayonara (1957), and The Money Pit (1986). He was also one of the most acclaimed actors on the New York stage, acting in several Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. In addition, he played on such daytime dramatic dramas as Moment of Truth (1965) (a Canadian serial), Search for Tomorrow (1966-1968), Love of Life (1972-1973), and Another World (1974-1989).

Before his acting career began, he received two Purple Heart awards and a Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in the Air Force during World War II.

After the war, he toured as Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor and made his New York debut in 1947, personally selected by Eugene O'Neill to play Don Parrit in The Iceman Cometh.

His theater career quickly took off with a Theatre World Award for his performance the next year as Eros in Antony and Cleopatra. In 1949, Watson won the Clarence Derwent Award for That Lady opposite Katharine Cornell, and the next year he topped Variety's New York Drama Critics Poll for The Wisteria Trees opposite Helen Hayes. A number of critically acclaimed roles followed in the 1950s, including Romeo opposite Olivia de Havilland's Juliet, Eben Cabot in Desire Under the Elms, Christian de Neuvilette in Cyrano de Bergerac, the title role in Henry V, Mr. Harcourt in The Country Wife opposite Julie Harris, Ralph Touchett in Portrait of a Lady opposite Jennifer Jones, Brian O'Bannion in Auntie Mame opposite Constance Bennett, and the title role T. S. Eliot's The Confidential Clerk.

Celebrated for his outstanding performances in a series of Shakesperean productions, Watson broke into motion pictures in 1953 as Octavius in Julius Caesar opposite Marlon Brando's Mark Antony. Four years later, he was reunited with Brando in the film version of Sayonara. During the 1960s he continued his Shakesperean award-winning theater streak, appearing in A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Othello. He appeared in a number of non-Shakesperean roles, including King Henry VIII in A Man For All Seasons, Herald in Marat/Sade, Teddy Lloyd in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie opposite Zoe Caldwell, and the Major General in The Pirates of Penzance.

After two decades of busy stage work, Watson starred in his own daytime serial, Moment of Truth, in 1965. He played Dr. Bob Wallace, a psychiatrist, in this ill-fated, Canadian produced entry. Then he was seen as Walter Haskins on Search For Tomorrow for awhile, followed by a stint in 1972 as Dr. Lloyd Phillips on Love of Life. Nancy Marchand who would later appear with him on Another World portrayed his wife, Vinnie.

In 1974, he joined the cast of Another World. On Another World, Watson portrayed Mackenzie "Mac" Cory; the third actor to play the role, he had replaced Robert Emhardt. Watson earned the Another World role after a critically-acclaimed turn playing Kent in King Lear at the 1974 New York Shakespeare Festival.

As the doting father of the spoiled Iris, who found his match in the fiery Rachel, Watson quickly garnered notice inside the industry for his alternately charming and volatile performances, resulting in two Emmy awards for Outstanding Actor in 1980 and 1981.

Although Mac was busy enough for a dozen men (three marriages to Rachel, a poisoning administered by his wife Janice, a hostage kidnapped for weeks, a plane crash survivor who wandered for days on frozen tundra), Watson found time for other projects besides soaps during the 1970s and early 1980s. He appeared in the film Ulzana's Raid with Burt Lancaster and repeated his stage performance in The Trial of the Cantonville Nine in the film version. In 1973, after starring as Don Pedro in the highly praised Joe Papp production of Much Ado About Nothing, he repeated the role in a television production. He also appeared on Broadway in the musical Over Here with the Andrews Sisters and in the revival of The Philadelphia Story.

As if acting with Dame Judith Anderson in Medea, dancing with Martha Graham in several of her premier works, and singing with The New York City Opera were not enough, Watson also managed an equally impressive home life. From November 28, 1942 to his death, he was married to Harriet Eugenia (Genie) Clark. The Watsons had three children: Larkin Douglas Watson, a construction engineer; Celia Strome, a national award-winning poet; and Randall Forsberg, an internationally recognized expert on world armaments and the originator of the Nuclear Freeze Movement.

Watson died on May 1, 1989 from a heart attack at the age of 68, just a few days short of Another World's silver anniversary. His character on the show also died shortly afterward. Douglass Watson is interred at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Hall of Fame: Don Hastings

Don Hastings
2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• The Video Ranger, Captain Video and His Video Rangers
• Unknown Role, A Date With Life
• Unknown Role, Modern Romances
• Jack Lane, The Edge of Night
• Bob Hughes, As The World Turns
• Bob Hughes, Our Private World
• Writer, The Guiding Light
• Writer, As The World Turns

Television's first teen idol, Donald Francis Hastings was born April 1, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York.

Don started his show business career at the age of six when he accompanied his older brother Bob Hastings to the children's radio program in which Bob sang. When the producer heard that Don could sing too, he had Don audition for the program, Coast to Coast on the Bus. The exposure that Don received led to a part in the national company of Life With Father in 1941. Don toured with the company for three years and has acted ever since.

Don made his Broadway debut in the 1944 production of I Remember Mama.

After working sporadically in theater and television, Don turned to television full time in 1944, landing his first big role in 1949 at the age of 15. He played Captain Video's teenaged sidekick, The Video Ranger in the DuMont television series Captain Video and His Video Rangers, which ran from 1949 to 1955. In this role, he played one of television's first superheroes designed to appeal to young children. For every youngster lucky enough to have a TV in the early 50s, Don Hastings and The Video Ranger becamse their idol for six years.

He guest starred in a number of television series including Studio One and daytime dramas A Date with Life and Modern Romances.

From 1956 to 1960, he played the role of Jack Lane on the soap opera The Edge of Night, speaking the shows opening line on April 1, 1956. Since October 7, 1960, he has portrayed Bob Hughes on As the World Turns. In perhaps the most difficult role in daytime television, that of the sturdy, saintlike matinee idol, the actor has always infused the part with a brisk playing style and refreshing good humor.

Hastings currently holds the record for longest continuous actor in the history of television serials; he is second in line to co-star Helen Wagner in having the distinction of playing the same role for the longest period of time on television. William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow on the British soap Coronation Street is widely believed to be the record-holder for males, but Don Hastings has portrayed Bob Hughes for two months longer than Roache has played Ken. Neither actor has taken a break during their respective tenures. The Guinness Book of Records states that the non-continuous record is held by Helen Wagner, who has played Nancy Hughes on the same soap opera, As the World Turns, since April 1956. Wagner left between 1981 and 1985.

In 1971, under tutelage of Irna Phillips, Hastings began to moonlight as a dialogue writer for ATWT and later contributed scripts to The Guiding Light as well. He used the pseudonym J.J. Matthew, which combined the names of his children: Julie, Jennifer and Matthew.

In 1977, Don toured with co-star Kathryn Hays in the musical concert act, Hastings and Hayes on Love and later they both were cast members of an off-Broadway production of Algonquin Sampler.

Possessing a strong vocal talent, Hastings has performed on television on the shows Chevrolet on Broadway and The Ed Sullivan Show, as well as recording material for Columbia records.

In 1980, soon after a 1978 storyline in which Bob romanced Karen Peters on the series, Don married actress Leslie Denniston, the actress who had played the mysterious Karen. They live in New York state with their daughter, Katharine Scott Hastings (b. 9/23/82). Don also has two daughters, Jennifer and Julie, plus a son, Matthew, from a previous marriage. Don's hobbies include travel and golf.

Active in show business (on television) since 1949. In 2009, he celebrates two big milestones, his 75th birthday and 60 years on television.

In honor of his long years on As The World Turns and daytime, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Daytime Emmys in 2005. He was given the Silver Circle Award, given by the Academy of Television Arts & Science, in 1993 for his many years of achievement in the television industry. Sadly he has never been nominated for a Daytime Emmy award.

Hall of Fame: Denise Alexander

Denise Alexander

2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• unknown role, Perry Mason
• Lois Adams, The Clear Horizon
• unknown role, General Hospital
• Emily Sanders, Ben Jerrod
• Lorna Hill, General Hospital
• Susan Hunter, Days of Our Lives
• Dr. Lesley Wiliams, General Hospital
• Gail McLain, Hotel
• Mary McKinnon, Another World
• Sister Beatrice, Sunset Beach

Denise Alexander (born November 11, 1939) is best known to modern audiences for her role as Lesley Webber on General Hospital, a role she created in 1973. She has been called at times the most consistently popular actress in the history of television soap operas.

Born on Long Island, New York, she moved to Los Angeles when her father, Alec Alexander, an agent who handled at that point such notables as Frank Gorshin and Sal Mineo, decided to make the switch from the east to the west coast.

Alexander began her career as a child actress performing in radio shows such as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I Remember Mama, The Marriage where she played the daughter of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, and the radio soap opera Perry Mason. A successful child actress, Alexander racked up literally thousands of performing credits on TV and radio, 5000 in radio alone, by the time she was a junior at UCLA where she majored in English. On the stage, she starred on Broadway as Evelyn Munn in the revival of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour and appeared with Ethel Waters in A Member of the Wedding. She made her feature movie debut at age fourteen in the John Cassavetes film Crime In The Streets in 1956. Television began to claim her almost exclusively, and she eventually guested in over 200 shows, including Father Knows Best, I Remember Mama, Ben Casey, Twilight Zone, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Virginian, The Danny Kaye Show, and Combat.

On daytime television, she got her first regular job in 1960 portraying Lois Adams on The Clear Horizon for two years. She next appeared in daytime on the pilot episode of General Hospital on April 1, 1963; the name of her character is unknown. Next she would have a shorter stint as Emily Sanders on the short-lived NBC soap opera, Ben Jerrod, which had debuted the same day as General Hospital.

Alexander took a brief reprieve from acting and tried to sell real estate. Her return to acting happened in 1965, again on General Hospital for a short stint, this time as Lorna Hill.

Alexander first came to fame in the soap opera genre by playing Susan Hunter Martin on Days of our Lives a role she created in March 1966. A popular actress, much of the show's early success had to do with Susan's rivalry with Julie Olson (played the longest by Susan Seaforth Hayes). She became so popular in the role that she was frequently at number 1 in the most popular fan poll of the time conducted by Daytime TV magazine; twice being named Best Actress of the Year for 1972 and 1973. For seven years, her character was involved in a never-ending series of melodramtic turns -- mental instability, serious illness, rape, murder, etc. -- but Alexander tore into the role with exquisite emotionalism and gothic beauty that kept viewers riveted.

In 1973, Susan Martin was written out of the show temporarily when the Days casting office hit a snag renewing her contract and the contract lapsed. ABC Daytime rushed to offer her a then-unheard of salary/perks package to join General Hospital. When Susan Martin finally returned to Days, a new actress was playing her.

A few months later, she started on General Hospital, playing the role of Dr. Lesley Williams, which would become her longest-tenured role in daytime. At the time of her move to General Hospital, she received the highest salary every paid to a daytime actress.

For several years, the character of Lesley lacked direction. She was burdened with frigidity, a psychopathic husband, and a child that aged ten years overnight. It seemed for at least awhile that General Hospital just didn't know what to do with the character. That all changed as Alexander as Lesley proved pivotal to the show's comeback in 1978 after the late Gloria Monty took over as producer. In a storyline written by the late Douglas Marland, Lesley took the rap for her daughter's murder of David Hamilton, culminating in Lesley's trial for murder and the alienation of her husband Rick. Alexander's performance in this plotline and in the subsequent Rick-Lesley-Monica triangle was just as important as the Luke and Laura love story in bringing General Hospital to number one in the ratings. This culminated in her once again being named Best Actress of the Year by Daytime TV magazine in 1980.

In a 1981 People Weekly interview, Alexander spoke about her General Hospital boss, calling the late Gloria Monty "a wonderfully bossy little lady."

Alexander stayed with the show for eleven years, choosing to leave after tense contract negotiations in 1984. She last appeared in March 1984. Fans were outraged when her character was not just written out but killed off in an automobile accident, leaving little chance of a return to the show, especially since at this time returns from the dead were not standard fare in daytime dramas. Fans picketed the ABC studios. General Hospital's ratings which were already declining continued to do so after her departure.

In 1986, she was offered a big salary to portray the absent McKinnon matriarch, Mary, on Another World. The role was created by Margaret DePriest who had written for General Hospital years before, and had worked with Alexander there. When the commute from her home in Los Angeles to Another World's studio in New York City proved to be difficult for her, she left in 1989. In 1996, she returned to General Hospital and has played the character of Lesley on a recurring basis. In 1997, she began appearing for a few months as Sister Beatrice on the NBC soap opera, Sunset Beach.

Outside of soaps, she has produced for both network and cable television, spoken as guest lecturer/speaker to groups from charities to civic groups to college audiences. She has also worked as a photojournalist for Ladies Home Journal and other magazines. For the Katherine Hepburn film Olly, Olly, Oxen Free, directed by her longtime companion Richard Colla, she served as still photographer and production coordinator.

In 1982, she also co-produced and co-starred in Shaft of Love for Showtime Cable Network. The soap opera comedy featured such daytime favorites as Tony Geary, Kin Shriner, Morgan Fairchild, Ed Nelson, and Susan Flannery.

Besides her wins as Best Actress mentioned above, Alexander holds the record as being the performer with the most appearances in their monthly Top 10. She received one Daytime Emmy nomination in 1976 as Best Actress for the role of Lesley.

Hall of Fame: Charita Bauer

Charita Bauer

2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• unknown role, David Harum
• unknown role, Front Page Farrell
• unknown role, Orphans of Divorce
• unknown role, Rose of My Dreams
• unknown role, Stella Dallas
• Gail Carver, Lora Lawton
• Susan Wakefield, The Right to Happiness
• Fran Cummings, Second Husband
• Millie Baxter, Young Widder Brown
• Mary Aldrich, The Aldrich Family
• Lanette, Our Gal Sunday
• Maudie Mason, Maudie's Diary
• Bertha Miller Bauer, The Guiding Light

One of the most beloved actresses in the history of soap operas, Charita Bauer (December 20, 1922 – February 28, 1985) was born in Newark, New Jersey, and began her career at the age of eight as a model for clothing ads. She attended the Professional Children's School in New York and made her acting debut on Broadway in Thunder on the Left (1933) at the age of nine.

Also on Broadway she was the original Little Mary in Claire Boote Luce's acclaimed all-female comedy The Women, which ran for two years on Broadway with Bauer in every performance.

She was active throughout the 1930s and 1940s on numerous radio dramas and sitcoms of the day, portraying a wide array of characters as a Chinese boy, a mosquito, and a blind hillbilly. Some of the series she appeared on included Let's Pretend, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons. The March of Time, The FBI in Peace and War, Suspense and other programs. Her longest role in radio was as Mary Aldrich on the comedy soap opera, The Aldrich Family. She portrayed the role from 1941 to 1953 on radio, as well as playing the role in the television sitcom version during the 1949-1950 season.

She was best known for playing headstrong and opinionated Bertha "Bert" Miller Bauer - the last name is just a neat coincidence - on the long-running soap opera The Guiding Light, both on radio from February 3, 1950 to June 29, 1956 and on TV from June 30, 1952 to December 10, 1984 - a total of 34 years, 10 months and 7 days as Bert Bauer. Her character was a spitfire in the earlier days, constantly nagging her husband Bill, and always meddling into other people's business. As Bert matured, she became the heart of the Bauer family and the heart of Springfield. The 1960s saw her character constantly dealing with her husband's alcoholism and his skirt chasing. By the 1970s she had been relegated to the ceremonial role of town matriarch. In 1951, to avoid confusion between her real life and her popular soap role, Charita asked the show's producer's to name her soap opera son Michael after her own son Michael Crawford. (The show was aired live in the early days, and a mistake like addressing her TV son by an incorrect name would have been difficult to cover.)

Bauer was no stranger to social issue storylines -- in 1962, she became the first actress on daytime television to tackle a real-life medical dilemma, as Bert was diagnosed with uterine cancer. The storyline helped millions of women realize the importance of regular checkups and pap smear screenings. Bauer received a record amount of mail from fans thanks to the wonderful storyline written by Agnes Nixon.

In 1978 Bert was involved in her first major storyline in years, as her troublesome, alcoholic husband Bill reappeared after an absence of ten years. Bauer's performance, as Bert went from shock to anger to forgiveness, was one of the season's highlights. The next year the actress was presented with the Outstanding Mother Award by the National Mother's Day Committe for heading up two families, one real and one fictional.

Her next major story came along in 1983 when Bert befriended a dying man.

On May 24, 1983, she was one of several stars of Guiding Light who appeared in the made-for-TV movie The Cradle Will Fall. The screenplay for the movie was based on Guiding Light storylines, and required the appearance of several characters from the show.

Just before Thanksgiving 1983, complications from a blood clot forced her to have her leg amputated. When she returned to the show in March 1984, her character's life mirrored her own. After visiting her sister-in-law Meta in New York, Bert returned to Springfield and began experiencing pain in her leg. She ended up having her leg amputated just as the actress who played her had. For the first time in decades, Bert had to depend upon others to wait on her hand and foot, resulting in one of the series' most memorable stories. (Bert, sitting in a wheelchair at Cedars Hospital, told Josh Lewis, who had been paralyzed recently and had given up hope, that life itself was a miracle and never to forget it.) In a moving scene, Bert dropped a teacup. She tried to get it, but could not, and in sheer frustration, she burst into tears.

With her health failing, Bauer made her last appearance as Bert on December 10, 1984. On February 28, 1985, Bauer died of complications stemming from diabetes only weeks shy of her 35th anniversary on the show. She was 62 years old.

Even with almost 35 years in the role, she passed away with very little fanfare, due in part to the snobbery that was placed on soap opera by much of the media which was far worse then than it is today. It was appropriate for this great lady though as Charita Bauer lived her life with a quiet modesty, always considering her work to be part of the great ensemble. She received a posthumous Lifetime Contribution Daytime Emmy Award that summer, along with Search for Tomorrow's Larry Haines and Mary Stuart. Her character Bert died in March 1986, a full year after Bauer died.

Christopher Schemering described her acting style this way: "Her acting was deceivingly simple, a brisk, technically astute playing style which exuded so much warmth that in later performances her characterization seemed to bask in nothing less than a Chekovian brand of heartbreaking merriment."

Bauer did what few performers ever get to do. She stopped being just an actress playing a part; she became the character of Bert. As Bert she became a national treasure. She was "the guiding light" for generations of Americans.

Hall of Fame: Bill Hayes

Bill Hayes

2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• Doug Williams, Days of Our Lives
• Byron Carmichael, Days of Our Lives

Bill Hayes was born William Foster Hayes III on June 5, 1925 in Harvey, Illinois. He grew up throughout the Midwest. His father was an encyclopedia salesman for 41 years. He got his talent from his dad who enjoyed singing and local community theater performing on the sly.

Hayes entered WWII as a naval airman, then studied at De Pauw University, where he met and married first wife Mary Hobbs. They married in 1947. The marriage ended in divorce in 1969. They went on to have five children. He later received his master's degree at Northwestern.

Blessed with a sturdy tenor, his interest in a professional career was piqued after happening upon a tour of Carousel in 1947. From singing telegrams to singing at Irish wakes to singing as a cantor in a synagogue to singing in barbershop quartets to choir directing to jazz group vocals, Hayes persevered musically until earning his first big break on TV. A lead singing/stooge role in Olsen & Johnson's zany burlesque revue Funzapoppin' in 1949 led to him joining the pair on their short-lived TV show. This led to his biggest break. Hayes was a singer on the Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca variety show Your Show of Shows from 1950 to 1953.

In the meantime he also performed in vaudeville and broke into films with a supporting role in Stop, You're Killing Me (1952). Despite a wife and family to support, he left Your Show of Shows on his own volition in 1953 for the chance to star in a new Broadway musical. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Me and Juliet which opened with moderate success in 1953 and lasted over a year, touring with the show in its aftermath.

During the Davy Crockett craze in 1955, three recorded versions of the Ballad of Davy Crockett were in the top 30. Hayes' version was the most popular, reaching #1 on the Billboard charts, selling over three million copies, and reaching #3 for the year. He had other small hits in the 1950's including The Berry Tree and covers of High Noon and Wringle, Wrangle.

A nightclub and TV-variety fixture in the late 1950s. In 1959, he co-starred with Florence Henderson in Oldsmobile Musical Theatre, a short-lived, experimental TV series that integrated dama and song in live half-hour stories.

He later managed to flex his vocal chords in such musicals as Bye Bye Birdie (national tour during the 1961-1962 season), Brigadoon, The Pajama Game and George M! He played a major role in the Otto Preminger film version of The Cardinal in 1963.

The 1960s were a slow, difficult time for Hayes professionally and personally, which culminated in the breakup of his marriage. Hayes scrambled to find a steady job to support his five children, who were all left in his care after the divorce.

Luck and talent played a part when he was hired to join the cast of Days of Our Lives playing the role of Doug Williams. The character was originally a louse and con artist, paid to seduce Julie Olson, but grew more reputable after his character fell in love with the feisty troublemaker Julie, played by Susan Seaforth. Throughout the 70s and a good part of the 80s, Bill and Susan reigned as the Lunt and Fontanne of daytime soaps earning them the title "the first couple of daytime". Doug's partnership with Julie is widely considered by many critics and fans to be the first supercoupling on the American daytime serials despite the equally or similarly popular couplings of the likes of Jeff and Penny on As The World Turns or Steve and Alice on Another World that preceded them.

They were both almost permanent fixtures on the popular Daytime TV magazine reader's poll. In the yearly awards given by the magazine Hayes won Best Actor of the Year for 1973, 1976 and 1977. His partner won the Best Actress title in 1976 and 1977.

Doug and Julie, along with writer Pat Falken Smith, are generally credited with Days of Our Lives popular and critical success of the early to mid 1970s.

Off-screen the couple also ignited sparks and, despite their major age difference (she is 18 years his junior), they married on October 12, 1974.

Hayes originally played the role from 1970 to 1984. His singing career also found its way into his storyline; in the story, Doug was introduced as a convict who was also a lounge singer.

While continuing in the soap role, Hayes worked in cabaret, continued to record albums, wrote a column in Soap Opera Digest, created a soap opera student workshop, and worked on the development of serial spin-off of Days of Our Lives.

In 1984, after 14 years, the cover of Time magazine, two daytime Emmy nominations, he and Susan chose not to renew their contracts with Days mostly over disagreement with storyline direction for Doug and Julie. Also due to the fact that it was felt by the current powers that be that the once pivotal characters were not needed and wanted to relegate them to permanent supporting status. Focus was now on Doug's daughter Hope and her onscreen beau, Bo Brady. The powers that be wanted to make Doug & Julie the heavy's in the story, completely ignoring that with all Doug & Julie went through to be together they would never stand in the way of true love. It was a total rewrite of the history of the relationship. The decision to leave was a mutual one between all parties, even though the Hayes' would have preferred to stay with the show they loved.

While Susan went on to join the cast of The Young and the Restless the following year, Hayes refocused on his singing by performing on the cabaret circuit and recording a few albums.

The character of Doug returned in 1986 and 1987, as well as 1993 and 1996. Most recently, he has been on the show since 1999, only to have his character killed off in the spring of 2004 by Dr. Marlena Evans (This was done to reduce the show's budget). In an elaborate plot hatched by head writer James E. Reilly, Doug Williams turned up alive on a tropical island and went home to his wife.

In 2005, the couple published their joint autobiography, Like Sands Through The Hourglass.

Bill is still performing on stage, more recently playing Beauregard in Mame and with his wife in productions of A Christmas Carol, Love Letters and Same Time, Another Year, which is a sequel to Same Time, Next Year.

Hall of Fame: Anthony Geary

Anthony Geary

2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• David Lockhart, Bright Promise
• George Curtis, Young & the Restless
• Lucas Lorenzo Spencer, General Hospital
• Eli Gilmour, Hotel
• Phil Tanner, Hotel
• Bill Eckert, General Hospital
• Luke Spencer, Port Charles
• Luke Spencer, General Hospital: Night Shift

Anthony Geary, the first media superstar created exclusively by daytime drama, was born May 29, 1947 in Coalville, Utah, a small mountain community of eight hundred people. He has earned the adulation of millions for his emotionally provocative, often hillarious performances of anti-hero Luke Spencer on ABC's General Hospital.

Geary was a gifted student in Coalville, attending the University of Utah as a Presidential Award Scholar in theater. Jack Albertson saw Geary perform there, and cast him as his son in the tour of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Subject Was Roses. The production, starring Albertson and Martha Scott, toured Hawaii and settled at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Los Angeles, where Geary decided to establish himself, taking a job selling toys in a department store while making the audtion rounds. One of the highlights of his department store job was selling trains to Shelley Winters. He took other odd jobs such as a Vegas chorus boy and acted in summer stock, eventually racking up credits in over forty stage productions. A highlight in this period was his co-starring engagement with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas in Your Show of Shows.

For nearly a decade, Geary shuttled back and forth between the stage, film, primetime and daytime television.

Among his early films, he was in a quickie Western called Educated Heart and a horror exploitation film Blood Sabbath, which was mercifully never released. His best movie role was a small part in the 1971 anti-war cult film Johnny Get Your Gun, adapted from Dalton Trumbo's novel and directed by Trumbo.

Geary has performed in more than 50 stage productions throughout the United States. His extensive theatrical credits include roles in productions of The Wild Duck, The Inspector General, The Cat's Paw, The Glass Menagerie, and Barabbas at the Los Angeles Theater Center. In addition, he toured with a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, portraying the title role. He also portrayed Octavius Caesar, opposite Lynn Redgrave and Timothy Dalton, in a production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra for PBS and the BBC.

He has made guest appearances on more than 40 primetime television series. Among his TV credits are roles on Starsky & Hutch, Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco, The Blue Knight, All in the Family, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Partridge Family, Most Wanted, Mannix, The Mod Squad, Room 222, Doc Elliot, Temperatures Rising, Marcus Welby, M.D., Arthur Hailey's Hotel and Murder, She Wrote. In the 1971 All in the Family episode, Geary guest-starred as a friend of Mike (portrayed by series regular Rob Reiner). In the episode with him was fellow future soap star Phil Carey, where in a strange turn of events Geary's character is mistaken as gay by the town bigot Archie Bunker. The real gay man turned out to be Archie's best friend (Carey's character).

He also performed in the television movies, Perry Mason and the Case of the Murdered Madam, Kicks, Sins of the Past, The Imposter, Intimate Agony and Do You Know the Muffin Man?.

He received unanimous critical acclaim, and a DramaLogue Award, for his one-man show, Human Scratchings, performed to sold-out houses in Los Angeles in 1996. As a producer, Geary received a Cindy Award for the drama, "Sound of Sunshine, Sound of Rain," a children's story for Public Radio. He has also taught improvisation and story-theater techniques. He competed in track and field and swimming events as a college student, and also raced horses. He is a certified scuba diver as well as an accomplished rollerblader. He also claims to be "the world's oldest Hip Hop dancer."

It was in daytime television though that Geary became a household name.

He took his first role in daytime in 1971, working for the first time with future General Hospital executive producer Gloria Monty as a sensitive young man David Lockhart who was unjustly committed to a mental hospital as a child on ABC's Bright Promise, a role that first brought him praise from daytime critics. His surrogate mother in the series was portrayed by his future General Hospital co-star Susan Brown.

In 1973, he followed that role portraying rapist George Curtis on Young and the Restless on CBS. Again although his character was not a likable one, critics noted the talent of the young man. The six-month storyline where Curtis raped virginal heroine Chris Brooks, shocking in it's day, put Young and the Restless in the thick of the ratings race and gave Geary the dubious distinction of perpetuating daytime TV's first non-marital rape, a distinction that would later haunt him on General Hospital when Luke raped -- or seduced -- Laura on the famous disco floor.

In 1978, Monty, who had directed Geary in both Bright Promise and in the TV movie Sorority Kill, was in the midst of renovating the ailing General Hospital. She remembered Geary's work and he auditioned for the role of Mitch Williams, an ambitious politician who would be paired romantically with the volatile Tracy Quartermaine, portrayed by Jane Elliot. In a sense of coming full circle, years later Geary would end up as the romantic partner of Tracy onscreen.

Monty decided that Geary's talents would be better suited for a different part, and writer Douglas Marland created the pivotal role of Luke Spencer for Geary.

Geary's character began as a rather sleazy foil for his white-trash sister Bobbie, who played dirty tricks on Laura (portrayed by Genie Francis), the young woman to whom Luke became perversely attracted, leading him to rape her on the floor of the disco as Herb Alpert's Rise played in the background. Luke's love for the confused Laura humanized him, and Geary's poignant pantomiming touched a responsive chord among viewers.

The character became so popular that the writers turned Luke into a protagonist. His popularity soared, especially during a series of Luke-and-Laura-on-the-run stories. These were nearly improbable storylines seemingly lifted from the pages of a spy novel, which only served to further the character's popularity. Those stories and their 1981 wedding began what was arguably the greatest love affair in the history of General Hospital, if not daytime television.

Viewers quickly warmed to Luke, and easily forgot or overlooked the rape, due to his street-smart sarcasm, his inventive humor (often improvised by Geary), and his outlandish dress -- a wardrobe presumably from Geary's own closet. Luke Spencer has been described as the most popular character in soap opera history.

As Luke and Laura, Geary and Francis jumped to the top of fan magazines. Both were named Best Actor and Best Actress at the 11th Annual Daytime TV Magazine year end awards.

Luke's populariy was due in big part to Geary's portrayal, his acting. The audience found Geary's performance refreshing, especially after a generation of blandly handsome, often passive leading men. One critic said, "Geary's individualism, uniqueness and awesome range is the most notable in daytime (television) history," a statement that is typical of the actor's reviews. Early on, he was rewarded with three consecutive Outstanding Lead Actor nominations from the Daytime Emmys, taking the award in 1982.

In 1983, Geary took a three-month hiatus from the show to star in a the TV movie Intimate Agony opposite One Life To Live star, Judith Light. Geary gave an appealing, low-key performance in the story about a doctor fighting an epidemic of herpes at a popular beach resort. He returned to GH with a reported salary of $500,000, unprecedented at the time. He was back in top form as Luke fought to regain use of his legs after an accident. He found the dramatic storyline a relief after all the spoofy, science fiction adventures the character had boxed into. Geary soon chose to depart from the show though. A year after his return, his departure was handled in grand style, with the return of Genie Francis and a happy ending for soap opera's most famous love story.

He returned to the series the first time in 1984 in a special, limited appearance.

In January 1991, Geary returned to General Hospital in the role of Bill Eckert, a cousin of Luke Spencer's, and a man of many, often dark, colors. As the story progressed, he was seen on-screen as both Bill Eckert and Luke Spencer, when Luke returned for good on October 29, 1993, until the death of Eckert in 1993.

He has won the Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" for General Hospital six times, a record for male actors and tying with Erika Slezak and Justin Deas for the most Daytime Emmy wins by an actor.

Geary has a winter and summer vacation from General Hospital every year where he is gone for a few months. He usually spends his time at his other home in Amsterdam.

Hall of Fame: Al Freeman Jr.

Al Freeman Jr.

2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• Ben Lee, The Edge of Night
• Ed Hall, One Life To Live
• Director, One Life To Live

The first African American to win a Daytime Emmy, Albert Cornelius "Al" Freeman, Jr. was born March 21, 1934, in San Antonio, Texas. His father was Albert Cornelius Sr., who was a jazz pianist and actor. His mother was the former Lottie Brisette. He was married Sevara E. Clemon on January 8, 1960; they separated, c. 1986.Freeman fell into acting while studying pre-law at Los Angeles City College, where he won the Outstanding Drama Student award in 1957.

After a stint in the Air Force after graduation, Freeman began his celebrated career in theater, film and television with a series of plays on Broadway. In 1962, he starred in Tiger Tiger Burning Bright with Ellen Holly, his future co-star on One Life To Live. The rest of the cast of the play reads like a Who's Who of African American actors: Claudia McNeil, Cicely Tyson, Diana Sands, Roscoe Lee Browne, Alvin Ailey, and Billy Dee Williams. Two years later he was acclaimed for his roles in Blues for Mr. Charlie and LeRoi Jone's Slave.

It was another LeRoi Jones play, the highly controversial Dutchman, that made Freeman one of the most sought after black actors in the country. He went on to star in the film version of Dutchman in 1967, and then found other movie work in The Detective, Finian's Rainbow, and A Fable, a film version of Slave that Freeman directed and starred in. Television work followed as the actor guested on The Defenders, The FBI, and the TV movie My Sweet Charlie for which he earned an Emmy nomination acting opposite Patty Duke.

In 1965, he took his first role on in daytime TV on The Edge of Night as Ben Lee, an assistant district attorney in the town of Monticello. The part was a small role. In 1972, he began to make periodic appearances on One Life To Live as Lieutenant Ed Hall, a police officer who eventually wooed and married Carla Gray, portrayed by Ellen Holly. By the mid 1970s, Freeman was a regular on the soap, while continuing to work in theater and primetime television in such shows as Maude and Kojak. He left One Life To Live briefly to appear in the network's controversial sitcom Hot L Baltimore. During that period, "Ed" was played by another actor, Arthur Pendleton. He was also a director of One Life to Live for several episodes, and was one of the first, if not the first, African-Americans who directed a soap opera. In 1979, he won a Daytime Emmy award as best lead actor, the first African-American actor to be so honored. The same year he received critical acclaim for portraying Malcolm X in the primetime mini-series, Roots: The Next Generation.

Two years later, he made a triumphant return to Broadway starring in an all-black version of Long Day's Journey into Night. At One Life To Live his work became less demanding when his co-star Ellen Holly took a two year hiatus from the series. Freeman still appeared often but had a much less demanding schedule. In 1983, he was nominated once again by his daytime peers; this time for Outstanding Supporting Actor. He left One Life To Live in 1985, but came back for short recurring runs in 1988 and 2000. He has continued to work on the stage, in film and on television, getting Oscar buzz for his supporting role in the 1992 film, Malcolm X. He has made guest appearances on several primetime TV series such as The Cosby Show, Law & Order, and Homicide: Life on the Street. He currently teaches acting as a professor at Howard University, located in Washington DC.

Hall of Fame: Agnes Nixon

Agnes Nixon

2009 Soap Opera Hall of Fame Inductee

• Writer, Woman in White
• Co-Creator/Head Writer, Search For Tomorrow
• Writer, As The World Turns
• Head Writer, The Guiding Light
• Head Writer, Another World
• Head Writer/Executive Producer/Creator, One Life To Live
• Head Writer/Executive Producer/Creator/Story Consultant, All My Children
• Head Writer/Creator/Story Consultant, Loving
• Co-Creator/Story Consultant, The City
• ABC Daytime Overall Story Consultant
• Agnes Eckhart, All My Children
• Agnes Eckhardt, One Life To Live
• Aggie, All My Children
  
  

Often termed the "queen" of contemporary soap opera, Williams Agnes Eckhardt Nixon, better known simply as Agnes Nixon, was born December 10, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. She is often called the most respected and influential writer in daytime drama. She is best known, and most honored, for introducing social issues into the soaps.

Shortly after her birth, her parents divorced. Nixon's mother returned to Nashville with her. They lived with Nixon's grandmother and invalid aunt. Her grandmother was said to be a difficult woman, and Nixon's mother strived to give Nixon as normal a life as possible. As a child she cut out pictures from comic stips such as Etta Kent and Tillie the Toiler, and played with them as if they were paper dolls, moving them about and creating her own variations of the stories. As she grew older she became enchanted with the novels of Louisa May Alcott, followed the serial Little Orphan Annie on radio, and took drama lessons.

Nixon was gifted and petite; a vivacious and beautiful blond. These attributes caused her to suffer a great deal of envy and spitefulness from her peers. She attended St. Cecilia Academy of Dominican sisters in Nashville. During that time, she studied privately with Eleanor Dubuission Fossick, who first identified her as gifted, and taught her "expression" and music. Nixon was "Miss Eleanor's" delightful protégé, and she wanted to attend Northwestern University. Her father, who had a company that provided materials for funeral businesses, refused to underwrite this, and instead wanted her to work for him. Nixon was distraught. She disclosed this situation to her teacher. "Miss Eleanor" told her to write to her father as though she had not received his letter refusing Northwestern, and tell him how wonderful he was and how all her friends were jealous that her father was going to pay for this. Shortly after, her father wrote her, saying "he was in a bad mood" when he wrote his letter of denial, and of course he would pay for Northwestern.

At Northwestern she majored in speech and drama. In her class were such luminaries as Charlton Heston, Patricia Neal, Martha Hyer and Cloris Leachman. She is said to have observed the enormous talent pool there, and instead of pursuing acting, opted instead to write.

She had been engaged to a young World War II pilot, Hank. Hank went missing in action. This was devastating for young Nixon. She dated again, and once had a semi-long distance relationship with a young Frenchman named Etienne. It was said to be fascinating to hear her prattle in French, long distance, with him. She was also friends with one of Hank's buddies, Robert "Bob" Nixon, an executive with the Chrysler Corporation. "Miss Eleanor" remarked to her that her eyes only sparkled when she spoke of Bob, and not when she spoke of Etienne. In the end, she married Bob Nixon on April 6, 1951. Together, they had four children. Her oldest daughter, Cathy Chicos, became a dialogue writer for All My Children. Nixon was loyal to her mentors, and visited "Miss Eleanor" several times during her last illness and attended her funeral. "Miss Eleanor" had directed seven roses be placed on her casket. The first six were for members of her family, and the seventh was for Nixon, symbolizing "All My Children" she had taught throughout the years. Nixon had always said she wanted to write the great American novel. She did this as a collaborative effort, and the book was made into a mini series in the 1980s called Manions of America. It is believed it was loosely based on her own ancestry.

While still at Northwestern, she sold a radio play, and to avoid working in her father's burial-garment business, went to see soap opera queen Irna Phillips with dreams of becoming a professional writer.

The formidable Phillips took Eckhardt's script and, to the shock of the young writer, read every word of it aloud. After she finished reading, Phillips turned to the trembling author and asked, "Would you like to work for me?"

Under Phillips' tutelage, Eckhardt began her job as a dialogue writer for the radio soap opera Woman in White at $100 per week.

Later she struck out on her own, free-lancing in New York during television's Golden Age of live drama -- a golden age that, she said, "lasted fifteen minutes." She wrote teleplays for Studio One, Playhouse 90, The Hallmark Hall of Fame, and My True Story.

In 1951, the same year of her marriage and move to Pennsylvania, she created the NBC soap opera Search For Tomorrow with Roy Winsor. She stayed with the series, writing the first three-month cycle. It became the first successful daytime television soap opera, and would for awhile hold the honor of the longest-running serial in the history of televison.

A few years later, she was reunited with Irna Phillips, and became a writer for The Guiding Light. After co-creating As The World Turns with Phillips in 1956, she became head writer at The Guiding Light in 1958. There she began her much-heralded "relevance" campaign, mixing social issues and education crusades into the story.

A friend of Nixon's had died from cervical cancer, and Nixon wanted to do something to educate women about getting a Pap smear. She wrote it into The Guiding Light by having the lead character, Bert Bauer, encounter a cancer scare. This storyline aired in 1962; Nixon had to work around some difficulties of getting this storyline to air, as she could not make use of the words “cancer,” “uterus,” and “Pap test”. However, after this storyline the number of women who took a Pap smear surged dramatically. The studio and Nixon both received numerous letters from appreciative women, some of whom said that the story had saved their lives by prodding them to seek regular checkups. In 2002 she received a special Sentinel for Health "pioneer award" for her work on The Guiding Light.

In 1965, Nixon, while on vacation in St. Croix, completed the first proposal/Bible for her future soap opera All My Children. Procter & Gamble at first optioned the series, but could not find any room for the series at the time.

Instead of shopping the new series around to another network, Nixon was convinced by the rejection that the new series wasn’t any good, she went back to TGL. P&G decided that Nixon might just be what the struggling NBC soap opera Another World needed and moved her over to head write the struggling soap. She took the job as a challenge. She met the challenge and ended up turning AW into a certifiable hit.

Her first order of business was getting rid of the previous writer's new family and returning the Matthews family to prominence. To accomplish this, she simply killed off the entire Gregory family in a plane crash. She then crafted a compelling storyline for Bill & Missy where Missy married the dastardly Danny Fargo (Antony Ponzini) out of convenience, was raped and impregnated by him, and then put on trial for Danny’s eventual murder, bringing Bill & Missy back together. Nixon also moved TGL characters Mike Bauer and young daughter Hope to AW and plunged Mike into a romantic triangle with rivals Pat Randolph and Lee Randolph while hooking up Lenore Moore (Judith Barcroft, and later Susan Sullivan), a former girlfriend of Bill’s and who’d been much more socially acceptable to Liz, with social climbing attorney Walter Curtin (Val Dufour). In the end, Nixon’s take on the show worked! Viewers couldn’t wait to see what twists and turns would befall the residents of Bay City and the ratings began to rise. Then Nixon would introduce two new characters and a storyline that would send the ratings through the roof.

She was intensely invested in a conniving character in her rejected soap opera named Erica Kane and wanted, if nothing else, for that character to see realization on screen. To this end, she created the character of Rachel Davis along with her long-suffering mother Ada. Rachel & Ada (Robin Strasser and Constance Ford) had been abandoned years earlier by Ada’s husband and Rachel’s father Gerald. Ada was determined to make up for the abandonment and indulged Rachel’s every whim, leaving the poor young girl immensely spoiled. A conniver and social climber of the highest order, Rachel set her sights on her doctor – intern Russ Matthews – and married him in secret. Shortly thereafter, Agnes introduced the wealthy and rakish Steve Frame (George Reinholt) who was taken with Russ’s sister Alice. As Steve & Alice fell in love, Rachel grew dismayed with the life of a doctor’s wife and took a liking to Steve. Before long, Steve had slept with Rachel (who was still married to Russ) and got her pregnant, but Rachel attempted to pass the baby off as Russ’s. The Russ/Rachel/Steve/Alice quadrangle was a smash! Viewers swooned to Steve & Alice, sympathized with Russ, and loved to hate Rachel.

Ratings skyrocketed. AW, once in danger of cancellation, was the first soap opera to break through CBS’s ratings dominance. For the 1966-1967 TV season, AW ranked 7th behind all of CBS’s soaps. For the 1967-1968 season, AW had shot up to 2nd, right behind ATWT.

Her success at AW didn’t go unnoticed. ABC, seeing the magic she’d worked, lured her away to create a hit soap for their own struggling line-up and Nixon jumped at the chance, leaving Irna Phillips and P&G for good.

ABC executives passed on the earlier program she created, but asked her to create a show that would reflect a more "contemporary" tone; that creation was One Life to Live. Nixon, "tired of the restraints imposed by the WASPy, non-controversial nature of daytime drama, presented the network with a startingly original premise and cast of characters. Although the show was built along the classic soap formula of a rich family and a poor family, One Life to Live emphasized the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the people of Llanview, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

The real beginning for her presentation of issues in television soap opera was One Life to Live. In 1968 social structures and attitudes were changing, and One Life was rich in issue stories and characters: leads who were Jewish, up-from-poverty Irish-American, Polish, and the first African-American leads, Carla Gray (Ellen Holly), doctor-to-be, and Ed Hall (Al Freeman, Jr.). Gray's story, for example, had her develop from a character who was passing as white to one who embodied black pride, with white and black loves along the way, to antagonize racists. When Carla kissed the black intern she had become engaged to, one affiliate in Texas cancelled the program immediately. Ironically, when Holly and Freeman brought Carla and Ed back to One Life in the mid-1980s, they seemed out of place in by-then WASP-ish Llanview, Pennsylvania. "Color" in this era was created not by race, but by style, in the persons of the nouveau riche, Dallas-style oil family, the Buchanans. By the Democratic mid-1990s, however, interracial and Hispanic families had become central characters.

Agnes Nixon created One Life to Live for ABC in order to obtain the opportunity to write her "dream" story, All My Children. It all happened in 1970. Based on her success with OLTL, ABC decided they wanted the project P&G had passed on. AMC was more personal than OLTL, but social issues were still tackled: child abuse (again tied to a real organization in Philadelphia, and again drawing a strong and practical response); the Vietnam War; and the first legal abortion, Erica Kane's, in May 1971. Assuming the audience would be shocked, AMC's writers gave Erica a "bad" motive (she wanted a modeling job), and, following the abortion, septicemia (planned as educational as well as "poetic justice"). But Susan Lucci's fan mail cheered Erica on, and urged her to take the modeling job in spite of the objections of her then-husband.

Other issues pioneered by Nixon include political nonconformity, very rare in prime-time television, rarer still in daytime drama. When All My Children debuted in 1970, it featured Amy Tyler (Rosemary Prinz) as a peace activist. Next Nixon had the young hero, Phillip Brent, drafted against his will and later missing in action. Political pages in U.S. newspapers took note of a speech against the war by Ruth Martin (Mary Fickett), who had raised Phillip as her son: even the mothers on those escapist soap operas were against the war, the newspapers said. Fickett won the first Emmy given to a daytime performer, for her work during the 1972-73 season. In 1987, Agnes Nixon remembered simply, "I didn't feel that took so much courage. It was like a mother speaking. Like Friendly Fire." But Friendly Fire was not published until 1976. In 1974, Nixon turned to humanizing the Vietnamese, showing Phillip, in one of the few war scenes on TV soap opera, being rescued by a young Vietnamese (played by a man who had been adopted one of Nixon's friends).

Nixon's stories characteristically show both sides of the issues on which she focuses: of the teenage prostitute, the drug addict, even the wife beater. When she feels there should be no sympathy for the other side, she works toward empathy--as in the 1988 AIDS story in which she had a lead character, Skye Cudahy (Robin Christopher) become so irrational with AIDS fear that she almost killed Cindy (Ellen Wheeler). Nixon sees both sides, and usually has a third type of character--perhaps in a position similar to that of most viewers--who is pulled in both directions.

Characteristic of Nixon's soaps, AMC hooked young people and men. The focus on young adult characters included not only romance--and sex--but also their growing pains. AMC, from its earliest days, presented Erica Kane, the willful but winningly vulnerable teenager who, in the hands of Agnes Nixon and Susan Lucci, has grown through multiple lovers (usually husbands) and careers. She has found her "lost" father, a surprise daughter and in the 1990s--even some women friends. In the early 1980s, AMC's popularity soared as young people raced home (or to their dormitory lounges) at lunch time to watch the classic star-crossed romance of Jenny Gardner (Kim Delaney) and Greg Nelson (Laurence Lau). The issue was class: Jenny was from a troubled, lower-class family; Greg's mother, Enid Nelson, was Pine Valley's stereotypical snob. Equally popular were Angie Baxter (Debbi Morgan) and Jesse Hubbard (Darnell Williams), soap opera's first African-American super-couple.

Delaney and Williams, an Emmy winner, were given daytime drama's highest honor when they left AMC. Their characters were killed off so no other actor could play them. Jenny Gardner's kid brother Tad (Michael Knight)--flirting, cheating on girls, and otherwise adventuring--epitomized another Agnes Nixon gift to soap opera: humor, the "lighter" moment amid the Sturm und Drang. A waif-foundling, Tad is an archetypal character, his story a myth, or fairy-folk tale. He has two sets of parents. His biological parents consist of an evil father, Ray Gardner (dead since the 1980s), and a loving but ditzy mother, Nixon's famed comic creation, Opal Gardner. But Tad was raised by Joe and Ruth Martin (Ray MacDonnell and Mary Fickett, retired in the mid-1990s and replaced by Lee Meriwether), after his father abandoned him in a park. Joe and Ruth Martin are the central father and mother of AMC, and in folk-myth terms, they are the good parents, as steadfast as Tad's blood parents are unreliable and frightening.

Nixon's other archetypal creations include "tentpole" characters, usually older women such as Erica's mother Mona Tyler (the late Frances Heflin) and Myrtle Fargate (the late Eileen Herlie). Tentpole characters, says Nixon, are "the Greek chorus, in a sense ..., telling the audience how to feel."

Besides folk myth, Nixon also draws on the religious and mystical. One of her favorite tales is from the third soap opera she created (with the late Douglas Marland), Loving (ABC, 1983; later changed to The City). Archetypal good-bad twins Keith and Jonathan (John O'Hurley) battle, and in one twist, evil Jonathan, fallen from Golden Gate Bridge, returns with supernatural powers. Nixon says Jonathan made a pact with a devil. Wisely, the pact-making was not shown, and the evil one, though shown, was unlabelled--he left the Bridge area, slithering away as a snake. For this story, she cites as sources Faust and C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters.

Loving also allowed Nixon to break one of daytime's last taboos. That was her story of a father sexually abusing his daughter. Other shows had done similar stories but the abuser was always a step-father, never a blood relation. Nixon and Marland broke that taboo with the story of Garth Slater abusing his daughter Lily. Even with that story, it was only one of the many issues that Loving tackled in its first year and entire run.

Agnes Nixon, in her long and much-honored tenure as queen of soap opera, has created a treasure trove of characters and stories as rich as Aladdin's, tales from the deepest depths of our fears and the starriest heights of our dreams. She is indeed "the storyteller."

Through the years, she has been a member of the International Radio and TV Society; National Academy of TV Arts and Sciences; The Friars Club; and the Board of Harvard Foundation. She has been the recipient of the National Academy of TV Arts and Sciences Trustees Award, 1981; Junior Diabetes Foundation Super Achiever Award; Wilmer Eye Institute Award; American Women In Radio and TV Communicator Award, 1984; American Academy of Achievement Gold Plate Award, 1993; TV Hall of Fame, 1993; Soap Opera Weekly's Soap Opera Hall of Fame, 1994; Editor's Choice Award from Soap Opera Digest, 1996; and The Innovator Award (SoapsWEB), 2008.

She has received five Writer's Guild of America Awards; one primetime Emmy Award; five Daytime Emmy Awards, and numerous nominations.

The Soap Opera Hall of Fame

One of the projects I was proudest of accomplishing with SoapsWEB was the establishment of the Soap Opera Hall of Fame. When I was on staff at Daytime Royalty I attempted to do one there - working to get folks involved in the process but it didn't really work out. I eventually lost interest and dropped the project. The Soap Opera Hall of Fame is a project near and dear to my heart. Why in the world there is not one has really bothered me for a long time. Back in the 1970s, Daytime TV magazine instituted one but it only lasted 2 or 3 years inducting folks like Mary Stuart and Judith Light. Later Soap Opera Weekly instituted another inducting Eileen Fulton, Susan Lucci and a few others. Both projects failed sadly. So I wanted Soaps WEB to definitely do one - the biggest thing for me was been getting the time to do it right and deciding the best way to go about it. I decided at the first of April 2009 that I would launch it that month, and I sat down and decided that there were 5 individuals that had to be there and then I made a list of others that should be there. I started to go with those 5 being the initial inductees, but ultimately decided that the Hall of Fame is something that should have been done years ago and instead of trying to catch up I put the people who I feel should have already been in the Hall of Fame in there the first year. In the coming days and weeks I will reveal the inductees for 2009.