January 5
ALL MY CHILDREN DAY
The ABC daytime drama, All My Children, created by Agnes Nixon, premiered on this day in 1970. The scene: Pine Valley, New York, which later became Pine Valley, Pennsylvania. (Isn’t TV fun? With just the change of a script, a town can move to another state.)
The story line centered around Erica Kane, the most popular character in All My Children, and her many husbands -- so many, in fact, that we lost count. Actress Susan Lucci portrayed Erica. And, in 1999, Lucci, after 18 years of disappointment at the DayTime Emmy Awards, finally earned recognition as AMC’s leading actress.
Performers and behind-the-scenes staffers of All My Children were nominated for Daytime Emmy Awards more than 250 times.
The scripts of All My Children became known for covering subjects often considered taboo on daytime soaps -- story lines about homosexuality, racial bias and war are just a few of the social issues that played out on the TV screen on a daily basis on this risk-taker of a show.
And, as other soaps died around it, whether summer, spring, winter, or fall, the seduction of the audience by All My Children continued until Friday, September 23, 2011, when the TV screen went dark for the last time. The audience was left biting its collective nails as All My Children ended with open-ended plots. Will we ever learn who J.R. Chandler shot?
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
No portion of these files may be reproduced without the express, written permission of 440 International Inc.
