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| Irna Phillips dictated stories to her assistant, Rose Cooperman. |
Irna Phillips, considered by many to be the "queen" or "creator" of the daytime serial, was born on July 1, 1901. She died at age 72 on December 22, 1973, following a groundbreaking career that is still influencing the continuing stories being told on television. Below is an essay she wrote late in life about soap opera sharing lessons she learned from her many decades of experience in radio and television.
The modern soap opera is a living thing. It has a pace and pulse and, it sometimes seems, a will of its own. In As the World Turns, for example, the Hughes family is so well established in my mind and the minds of its audience that the family's behavior and responses are largely dictated by what has gone on before. The Hughes family believes in certain values, and it would be uncharacteristic - that is, dishonest - to tamper with those believes in the story. Contrary to popular opinion, the writer of a daytime serial cannot play God, manipulating characters as if they were puppets. The writer who hopes to have a successful series must think of characters as flesh-and-blood entities.
