Surviving soaps turn 50 … and 60

In the TV world, nothing lasts forever – not even soap operas.
A half-century ago, there were 15 of them; now there are three on the networks and one on Peacock. Still, two of those survivors have key milestones:
— CBS’ “The Young and the Restless” (shown here) turns 50 on March 26. That’s a Sunday (a no-soap day), so the multi-day celebration starts Thursday, March 23; there’s also a special at 8 p.m. March 27.
— ABC’s “General Hospital” (see separate story) turns 60 on April 1, a Saturday. It starts celebrating two days later.
For a time, no soaps were expected to survive. A decade ago, ABC dumped “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” leaving only “General Hospital,” whose actors felt doomed. “We all thought we were out of work,” Maurice Benard recalled.
But then “GH” got a new producer, a new focus and (last summer) its 15th Emmy for best daytime drama. “The best way to honor the past and the future … is to use the Nurses’ Ball as a jumping-off point, to bring {everyone) together,” said Dan O’Connor, one of the show’s two head writers.
That’s basically what “Y&R” will do, too. It has a masquerade ball … just as it did three decades ago.
“Everything about the Ball was spectacular: bigger, splashier, more memorable,” Mary Cassata and Barbara Irwin wrote in “The Young and the Restless: Most Memorable Moments” (General Publishing Group, 1996). That included a two-story set and a massive chandelier … plus a gunman who “was pursued by the police, fell into a trash compactor and was crushed to death.”
Now comes another mega-party. Let’s set aside “General Hospital” for now and focus on “Y&R,” with help from “The Restless Life of William J. Bell” (2012 Sourcebooks), by Michael Maloney.
Bell (formerly of “Days of Our Lives”) wrote a sort of a soap manifesto about what “Y&R” would be.
“It’s time that the daytime serial changes,” he wrote. “That we update and innovate! … Man-woman chemistry. Live, flesh-and-blood people who can get the adrenaline flowing. Nifty people who can turn you on and keep you turned on.”
One critic, Robert LaGuardia, praised a “Y&R” cast that “reeks of California-tanned good looks.”
The show wasn’t built on soap-style plot twists, producer John Conboy told the Variety trade paper. “The emphasis is on character and relationships. The story is not built on incidents.”
The show started in 1973 and revamped in 1980, when CBS insisted it double to an hour. “Y&R,” which had climbed from No. 15 to No. 3 in the soaps’ Nielsen ratings, slipped back to No. 6.
Another overhaul came in 1982, when Jaime Lynn Bauer left after almost a decade as Lorie. Instead of recasting – as he had done often – Bell dumped many of the characters and created two new families.
That time, “Y&R” didn’t slip. It reached No. 1 in ‘88 and has stayed there, albeit with lower numbers. Its CBS viewership is less than half its peak, but the show is also on Paramount+ and Pluto TV.
One Y&R specialty has been tall, handsome men. Tom Selleck, 6-foot-4, became Jed in 1974 and had a famous shower scene with Bauer. David Hasselhoff, also 6-4, admitted (in a forward to Maloney’s book) that he was a novice when he was cast as Snapper in 1975; Bell “told me that I was fairly ‘green’ as an actor, but there wasn’t a bad angle on me.”
And Eric Braeden, 6-1, arrived in 1980 as a classic villain. “Victor Newman was in concept a despicable, contemptible, unfaithful wife-abuser,” Bell once wrote.
Still, viewers seemed fascinated. Bell scuttled the plan to have him killed after 8-12 weeks on the show. Victor was gradually humanized; the ruthless business mogul has married Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott, shown here with Braden), a former stripper, three times, with other marriages in-between.
Scott recently passed her 44th anniversary on the show; she’s married to a long-time “Y&R” producer who’s now at CBS’ “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Braedon is near his 43rd, including a couple two-month gaps when salaries were being re-negotiated downward.
She’s 66, he’s 81 and their characters are about to host another masquerade ball, just like the one three decades ago … only maybe without the trash compactor.