Tuesday, January 26, 2010

FLASHBACK: Mary Stuart 1962

Mary Stuart Wins Notice In Soap Opera

By Cynthia Lowry
Associated Press
June 13, 1962

NEW YORK (AP) - For the past 11 years, actress Mary Stuart has been learning 15 pages of dialogue a day five days a week, rehearsing all morning and acting for 15 minutes - live - in CBS' mid-day serial, SEARCH FOR TOMORROW.

As Mrs. Arthur Tate, wife, mother and solid citizen, she has suffered mightily - even gone on trial for murder (the normal lot of any soap opera heroine).

In exchange, Miss Stuart receives a big regular salary check and is constantly showered with homemade aprons and pot-holders from affection viewers.

VERY GRATIFYING

But the professional life of the performer in the daytime serial, despite many advantages, does not have quite the status and professional chic of the primetime actors. Therefore, Miss Stuart was especially gratified when, last month, she was nominated as one of the five candidates for a television "Emmy" in the category for best actress in a series.

She didn't win the statue - Shirley Booth did - but the recognition was immensely satisfying.

Miss Stuart, a native of Florida and in private life a wife and mother of two childrend aged 6 and 5, says that the trick in serial acting is to be real.

"These programs are difficult to write and to act," she reflected. You must be the woman next door to the audience. And because they can see you - their imagination is not called into play - you can't get into the sophisticated type of thing you could do in radio."

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