Friday, September 17, 2010

Today the world stops turning

It was probably sometime during 1956 when I stopped in to chat with a very young, stay at home mom, and was shushed because she was engrossed watching a "soap," As the World Turns, whose characters Penny Hughes (Rosemary Prinz) and Ellen Lowell (Wendy Drew) were struggling with Ellen's unwed pregnancy in the fictional Oakdale. The world stops turning today, September 17, 2010 having had a long run since it began April 2, 1956. I remember a few critical episodes from the 50's and 60's, like Ellen giving her son up for adoption and then later marrying the adoptive father, and Penny losing her husband Jeff (played by Mark Rydell) in an auto accident. I wouldn't recognize any of the story lines or characters today, so I don't think I'll tune in--I'll just remember them they way they were.


4 comments:

Three Score and Ten or more said...

I don't remember which character it was, but I remember the trauma when my brother came home from work and his first wife was sobbing uncontrollably."--------- died" was the message that finally came out. When after an hour or so of this he founf out that it was over a character in As the World Turnsm he had to leave the house to avoid a personal temper tantrum. (The marriage didn't break up for another twenty years.)

Norma said...

If it was the late 50s-early 60s, it was probably "Jeff." That was such a stunning scene (auto accident) that I even remember it after all these years. But it was a good move for Rydell who went on to direct some big hits--Golden Pond was one, I think.

Anonymous said...

I have never watch a "soap" in my life. My own life was enough of one to that it was "who needs it" time for me.

Norma said...

Although I know a few people married/divorced four or five times, the soap heroines usually had everyone beat. Although no one was in more danger than the relatives of mystery writer Jessica in "Murder she wrote," not a soap, but a popular series where almost every other week a nephew or cousin was in jail for something.