In the world of soaps, women’s issues take front-burner status
15 April - 34 minsIrna Phillips created the cliff-hanger in broadcast storytelling and perfected the serial drama, first in radio, then on television. She mentored the creators of All My Children, One Life to Live, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. The latter two remain on television today. Phillips also created the television vixen, an archetype first seen on soap operas that still endures.
Agnes Nixon and married couple William and Lee Phillip Bell worked for Phillips in Chicago. Nixon was head writer of The Guiding Light. In 1962, she wanted to do a cancer storyline, about how uterine cancer is curable if caught in time. Doctors said women proactively asked for pPap smears aft...
Series Episodes
Meet Irna Phillips: The Queen of Daytime
Meet the Chicago woman who birthed the soap opera, first for radio in the 1930s and then TV in the 1950s.
21 mins
8 April Finished
