This article appeared in the October 24, 1992 issue of TV
Guide. Accompanying the article is a photo of James DePaiva (Max), Linda
Gottlieb (ex-executive producer) and David Ledingham (ex-Suede)
Life is back from the
dead
by Michael Logan
It's been 15 months since ABC - desperate to resuscitate One Life To
Live - boldly went where no network had gone before: to the producer
of smash-hit movie. But in hiring Linda Gottlieb (whose credits
include the 1987 blockbuster "Dirty Dancing," HBO's "Citizen Cohn," and
the CBS TV-movie "Face of a Stranger," which won Gena Rowlands a
1992 Emmy), ABC did much more than jump-start its 24-year-old junk heap.
It may possibly have salvaged the medium.
For way too many years, network heads have labored under the assumption
that to executive produce or head-write a soap, extensive daytime
experience is a must. This meant new blood was consistently overlooked
while show after show fell victim to a select group of rotating dinosaurs
- most of whom had reputations that far exceeded their talents. Reeling
from the calamitous 1990 return of executive producer Gloria Monty
to General Hospital, ABC broke with tradition and, starting with
OLTL, turned three of its four soaps over to non-soap executive
producers. The results are mixed: GH is still messy, but
Loving is nicely improved and One Life is barely
recognizable.
Chockablock with hambone performances and dorky sci-fi plots (time
travel, underground civilizations), OLTL was the laughingstock of
daytime when Gottlieb showed up. Armed with a head writer who also had
no suds experience - acclaimed novelist Michael Malone - she
energized the show (and raised the ratings) with short-term,
groundbreaking story arcs dealing with lupus, wife-beating, homophobia,
even S&M sex. She introduced three red-hot discoveries - Susan
Batten (Luna), Susan Haskell (Marty) and Grace Phillips
(Sarah). But, more important, she and Malone mined deep into
OLTL's existent landscape and struck a mother lode with several
regulars who had long been ill-used. Among them: Elaine Princi
(Dorian), Tonja Walker (Alex), Patricia Elliott (Renee)
and, especially, veteran cowboy star Phil Carey (Asa), who
- lo and behold - isn't the crusty old fossil we'd been led to believe
but a powerful, ripsnortin' performer who deserves some respect come Emmy
time. Even three-time Emmy winner Erika Slezak - who for years
had been playing matriarch Viki Buchanan like a high-falutin puff-toad -
has come magnificently down to earth in her romance with Roy
Thinnes (Sloan). Toiling under Gottlieb - who reportedly changes her
mind as often as she exhales - ain't exactly nirvana. She is said to be
a perfectionist and a whip-cracker. In the final analysis, though, not
only is she proof that an outsider can deliver the goods in daytime, but
she's also shown an entire industry how to execute a splendid U-turn.
