Evening News

Soap veteran Ellen Wheeler follows a new script
Ellen Wheeler knows a thing or two about reinvention and survival.

In the 1980s, the Emmy-winning actress portrayed twins Marley and Vicky Love Hudson on the soap opera ANOTEHR WORLD. She moved to ALL MY CHILDREN as one of the first characters on TV with AIDS. In the late 1990s, she reprised her role as Marley Hudson on ANOTHER WORLD. Because she didn't resemble her on-camera twin, the writers decided that Wheeler's Marley would be crushed in a car wreck and then, while recovering, burned and disfigured in a horrible hospital fire.

Wheeler is still blazing soap opera trails.

Now working behind the camera, the 46-year-old executive producer of GUIDING LIGHT early this year ditched the format used since the 1950s to produce soaps: three large pedestal cameras to shoot scenes in a handful of studio sets. As part of her gutsy gambit, GUIDING LIGHT crews now use hand-held digital cameras to rove the three dozen small sets constructed within the hulking CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan and outdoors in nearby Peapack, N.J.

Wheeler is trying to create a more modern look to attract younger viewers -- and keep the show alive.

"This is all about making sure that soap operas stay vital," Wheeler says, sitting in a wooden pew in her sparse New York office, which has been converted into a set. "We just couldn't sit quietly and let ourselves slide away into the night."

Axed Miller from AMC speaks out
"I kind of figured it would happen," admits Billy Miller, whose been let go as AMC's bad boy Richie. Find out how he got the bad news and buzz on where he might land next in the June 24 Soap Opera Digest.