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| Ted Corday |
- Alexis de Tocqueville
"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.
On this date in...
1966: Producer and director Ted Corday died at age 58. Corday moved from Broadway to radio dramas to television directing at The Guiding Light and As the World Turns. In 1965 NBC asked Corday to create three new daytime soap operas leading to the premieres of Days of our Lives, Paradise Bay and Morning Star. Days continues to this day while the other two shows were went off the air July 1, 1966, three weeks before Corday's death.
1968: On Another World, as he sat on the porch drinking lemonade with Jim and Mary, Steve (George Reinholt) remembered how he had run five lemonade stands when he was eight, then said he probably bought the Bay City Bengals to compensate for never having had time for games.
1980: Texas actor Chandler Hill Harben debuted on Another World as Max Dekker. He played the role on Texas until February 1981 when future Guiding Light star Jay Hammer took over. Harben went on to star in cable soap Another Life.
1984: On Guiding Light, Darcy (Robin Johnson) wanted Lujack (Vincent Irizarry) to prove he was really back with the Galahads.
1987: Quinn Redeker aired for the final time as Alex Marshall in Days of our Lives.
1987: on All My Children, Skye (Robin Christopher) headed into surgery after crashing her car.
1990: On General Hospital, Decker (Michael Watson) refused to pull over his car so Dawn grabbed the wheel causing Decker to lose control and crash.
1997: On Another World, Toni (Rhonda Ross) was terrified when she saw Nick (Mark Mortimer) in the alley.
2009: On The Young and the Restless, Adam (Michael Muhney) broke up with Rafe (Yani Gellman), who believed that Adam was ending things because he wasn't ready to face his sexuality. Adam assured him that he was merely confused and scared. Later, Victor (Eric Braeden) confronted Adam and explained to him that he knew Adam was gay. Victor stunned Adam further when he assured him he accepted him no matter what ("It's all right. I don't want you to worry about a thing. You're my son no matter what. Okay? You'll always be my son.").
Thanks to FoxCrane for sending in the clip above.
Celebrating a birthday today are:
Terry Davis (ex-Stacey, Another World; ex-Hillary, Sunset Beach; ex-April, The Edge of Night) - 63
Edie McClurg (ex-Hilda, Melrose Place; ex-Airline Passenger, Days of our Lives) - 63
James Acheson (ex-Jack, Days of our Lives) - 55
Eriq La Salle (ex-Mike, One Life to Live) - 52
Beth Ehlers (Coryn, River Ridge; ex-Taylor, All My Children; ex-Harley, Guiding Light) - 46
Charisma Carpenter (ex-Rebecca, The Lying Game; ex-Corelia, Buffy The Vampire Slayer; ex-Ashley, Malibu Shores) - 44
Stephen Martines (ex-Frederick, The Vampire Diaries; ex-Tony, Guiding Light; ex-Nikolas, General Hospital) - 39
Kalup Linzy (ex-Kalup, General Hospital) - 37
Paul Wesley (Stefan, The Vampire Diaries; ex-Logan, Army Wives; ex-Max, Guiding Light; ex-Sean, Another World) - 32
EDITOR'S NOTE: If you have a tip on a bit of soap history on this date or future dates, let us know. Send an email to [email protected]
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ReplyDeleteTed Corday Sort Of Resembles Playwright Tennessee Williams In This Picture!
ReplyDeleteBrian :-)
Looking back, the whole Adam Newman saga is classic example of a character ruined by too many writers - we could call it John Blacking a character but that is probably not politically correct - from re-naming himself Adam in his 20's (weren't his facebook friends form college confused?) to being blind and bisexual the character was unrecognizable by the time he left the show. BTW - people renaming themselves seems to only happen in the soap universe. I am willing to accept Raven gave herself a nickname as a kid and it stuck but weren't the old friends of Palmer Cortlandt in Pigeon Hollow confused when they saw his picture in the newspaper years later? Weren't Noelle Keaton's modeling peers puzzled when she suddenly called herself SIlver Kane? IRL people don't just change their names because they move to a new town. Which always leads back to the question - If Victor Newman changed his name in his 20's order to re-invent himself why did his brother Matt, his mother Cora and his father George call him Victor after not speaking to him for years - wouldn't they still call him Christian? Felicia Gallant's mother still called her Fanny.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we get a few obligatory references to the old name, and some actually refer to their relative by the old name, but most of the time everyone acts like they've always called the person by their new name. Soap kids have a fondness for returning from boarding school with a new name. :)
DeleteY&R has committed this egregious practice numerous times. MAB loved to do this during her stint. Katie became Chloe and although, I could understand Chloe going by an alias in NYC but when the cat was out of the bag, she should have been known as Katie again. At the very least, Esther, who named her in honor of Katherine Chancellor, still should have called her Katie.
DeleteYolanda/Harmony was so sloppily done, which was a huge disservice to Debbi Morgan, for as talented as she is, through no fault of her own, I found myself thinking the original incarnation of Yolanda was far more earnest.
Adam will always be Victor Jr. to me. I find it ludicrous that the character would assert himself as Adam while functioning increasingly as if he were Victor Sr.'s Mini Me.
As I recall, when Liz Hendrickson's non-contract role of "Chloe Mitchell" was first introduced (during the 2007-08 writer's strike), the character was not envisioned to be "Kate Valentine." It was only after things settled down from the coup d'etat, and they decided to keep and sign the actress to a contract, that they decided to connect Chloe to someone, by making her Esther's daughter. So that kind of explains that particular alias. .. But I agree - once Chloe came to terms with her "Mother the Maid" - and especially after she gave birth to her own daughter and named her "Cordelia Katherine Valentine Abbott" - she should have had a change of heart and told everyone she was proud to be known as "Kate Valentine."
DeleteAnd as for the Adam thing, we specifically heard why "Vic Wilson" didn't want to go by "Victor" when he arrived in Genoa City, saying he didn't want the connection to Victor Newman known or the inference of nepotism that came with it, so he opted to go by his middle name, Adam, and continue to use the surname "Wilson" that he'd grown up with. Plus, just from a writing and viewers' perspective, how confusing to have three characters in the same family with some version of the name "Victor" walking around (as Victoria is referred to as "Vicky" and "Vic" as well) .. lol! .. Similarly, good thing John Abbott, Jr. goes by "Jack" - it was perplexing enough at times when Jill was dating John Silva.
A couple more - Sarah "flash" Roberts falls into the kid who gave themselves a nickname so I can endorse it but, Blake/Cristina Thorpe never cut the mustard. Blake is not a nickname, Chris or Tina would have been acceptable but Blake is especially odd because her mother called her Blake but her father called her Christina. I understand that soaps are a universe where families name one kid Greg and one kid Snapper but I don't think enough time has been spent pondering re-naming in soaps.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Kaplan changed his name to Brad Carlton to save himself from danger before he married Lisa Mansfield then left her and worked as a gardener for the Abbotts but he didn't think to change his name again which resulted in his crazy ex wife kidnapping him.
Don't get me started on the bullying tactics that Christine must have engaged in to get the entire town to stop calling her Cricket.