Today in Soap Opera History (July 6)

1978: Ryan's Hope's Siobhan arrived in New York.
1987: Another World's Vicky found trouble in Vegas.
1987: Bold and Beautiful's Stephanie wanted another chance.
2004: Guiding Light's Dinah phoned home.

"History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images."
― Anselm Kiefer

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1965: On Another World, Pat (Susan Trustman) was worried she was the cause of Lee's (Gaye Huston) illness.

1965: On Peyton Place, Rodney (Ryan O'Neal) and Allison (Mia Farrow) played hide-and-seek- with Kim/

Today in Soap Opera History (July 6)

1978: Ryan's Hope's Siobhan arrived in New York.
1987: Another World's Vicky found trouble in Vegas.
1987: Bold and Beautiful's Stephanie wanted another chance.
2004: Guiding Light's Dinah phoned home.

"All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut."
― Anne Brontë in "Agnes Grey"

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1965: On Another World, Pat (Susan Trustman) was worried she was the cause of Lee's (Gaye Huston) illness.

1965: On Peyton Place, Rodney (Ryan O'Neal) and Allison (Mia Farrow) played hide-and-seek- with Kim/

Today in Soap Opera History (July 6)

1978: Ryan's Hope's Siobhan arrived in New York.
1987: Another World's Vicky found trouble in Vegas.
1987: Bold and Beautiful's Stephanie wanted another chance.
2004: Guiding Light's Dinah phoned home.

"History is a vast early warning system."
― Norman Cousins

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1965: On Another World, Pat (Susan Trustman) was worried she was the cause of Lee's (Gaye Huston) illness.

1965: On Peyton Place, Rodney (Ryan O'Neal) and Allison (Mia Farrow) played hide-and-seek- with Kim/

Today in Soap Opera History (July 6)

1978: Ryan's Hope's Siobhan arrived in New York.
1987: Another World's Vicky found trouble in Vegas and called for help.
1987: The Bold and the Beautiful's Stephanie wanted another chance.
2004: Guiding Light's Dinah phoned home.

"If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree."
― Michael Crichton

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1965: On Another World, Pat (Susan Trustman) was worried she was the cause of Lee's (Gaye Huston) illness.

1965: On Peyton Place, Rodney (Ryan O'Neal) and Allison (Mia Farrow) played hide-and-seek- with Kim/

FLASHBACK: Mother Daughter Relationships - An "Imitation of Life" on Daytime TV (Part 4 of 4)

Ellen Holly starred as Carla Hall on One Life to Live.

Mother Daughter Relationships: An "Imitation of Life" on Daytime TV

The Soap Box
Vol. IV No. 1 January 1979

(continued from Part 3)

The relationship Maeve Ryan (Ryan's Hope) has with her daughters Mary and Siobhan is a study in contrasts: Mary is everything Maeve wants in a daughter. She's bright, warm, competent, completely family-oriented and fairly conventional. Siobhan, on the other hand, is a rebel; a non-conformist who never allowed herself to be squeezed into the classic Ryan mold. While Johnny Ryan can accept Siobhan—and even enjoy the offbeat nature she most likely inherited from him—Maeve and her daughters are on a constant collision course. No one can deny that Mary is the favorite—not even Maeve—and that's something Siobhan will always have to live with. But what's harder for her to cope with is her mother's inability to have faith in her, to give her a chance. For her part, Siobhan reacts like a young child, testing her mother to see just how far she can go. Taking a job in a family planning center was just that kind of move, since Siobhan knew all-too-well her mother's strong feelings on abortion.

Today in Soap Opera History (July 6)

1978: Ryan's Hope's Siobhan arrived in New York.
1987: Another World's Vicky found trouble in Vegas and called for help.
1987: The Bold and the Beautiful's Stephanie wanted another chance.
2004: Guiding Light's Dinah called home.

"History never looks like history when you are living through it."
― John W. Gardner

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1965: On Another World, Pat (Susan Trustman) was worried she was the cause of Lee's (Gaye Huston) illness.

1965: On Peyton Place, Rodney (Ryan O'Neal) and Allison (Mia Farrow) played hide-and-seek- with Kim/

Today in Soap Opera History (July 7)

On this date in...

1947: On LORA LAWTON, Lora (Jan Miner) continued to worry about Peter.  The Frank and Anne Hummert radio soap opera ran from 1943 to 1950 on NBC.

Today in Soap Opera History (July 7)

On this date in...

1954: On PORTIA FACES LIFE, Portia (Frances Reid) was busy taking non-stop phone calls. Mary Fickett made an appearance on this episode as well.

CLASSIC CLIPS: Sarah Felder

Sarah Felder came in at #36 on the 50 Greatest Soap Actresses of All Time list. Here are some classic clips of Felder from her work on RYAN'S HOPE.

1978: Siobham comes home.
1978: Jack tries to mediate between Mary and Siobhan.

1978: Siobhan cheers up Jack in the hospital.
1978: Jack comes close to kissing Siobhan.

1979: Maeve and Siobhan are at odds over Pat and Nancy's relationship.
1979: Siobhan and Jack discuss her marriage to Joe and her pregnancy.

FLASHBACK: Sarah Felder 1979

Felder find road rocky in RYAN'S HOPE

By Steve H. Scheuer
King Features Syndicate
October 12, 1979

SARAH AS SIOBHAN. Life isn't always easy for the youngest daughter in the successful, strict, Irish Catholic family on RYAN'S HOPE. But Sarah Felder, who portrays Siobhan on the soap, finds the struggle exciting.

Sarah, like Siobhan Ryan, is a bit of a rebel. As fans recall, Siobhan was introduced as an English teacher who went on strike, was thrown in jail and finally hitchhiked across the country on crutches with a giant dog. Sarah explains that she then arrived at Ryan's Bar wearing wht she referred to as a little tea party dress.

"The producers wouldn't let me wear jeans for the first year," recalls Sarah. The issue became so important to Sarah's interpretation of Siobhan that she even considered leaving the soap.

FLASHBACK: Sarah Felder 1979

Sarah Felder: Sometimes I Could Just Scream!

By Jason Bonderoff
Daytime TV
March 1979

Sarah Felder was sitting on the floor, spooning dirt from a big bag into a little pot, performing surgery on a shriveled avocado plant.

The young actress, who plays Siobhan on RYAN'S HOPE, looked sadly at the limp leaves and winced. “My roommate just moved out and left me this thing,” she sighed. “I’m trying to bring it back from the dead.” But she seemed doubtful of her own nursing powers - like somebody with a cranky baby who didn’t know the first thing about diapering it.

And rescuing avocados is only one of her problems as a New York bachelor girl. Sarah ticks off her list of woes: she’s fought with her landlord and gone on a rent strike; she’s missed auditions, sitting in stalled subway trains and she doesn’t have much of a social life because the man she loves lives in Minnesota.

50 Greatest Soap Actresses: #36 Sarah Felder

NAME: Sarah Felder
RANK: 36
SOAP ROLES: Siobhan Ryan, RYAN'S HOPE (1978-1980)

COMMENTS FROM THE PANEL:
Lynn Liccardo: I was so pleased to see Sarah Felder's name on this list. In 1978, Felder originated the role of Siobhan Ryan Novak on RYAN'S HOPE, her first, and last, soap opera role. Her run is just now coming to an end, as SOAPnet airs the spring 1980 episodes, so I expect her inclusion is due more to this fortuitous timing than anything else.

Watching Felder's subtle, nuanced, textured performance over the past year (SOAPnet airs ten episodes a week), I simply cannot comprehend why she’s not found work as an actor since leaving RH, and instead works as a dialect coach. Of course, the writing didn’t hurt either; there’s an episode with Felder and Helen Gallagher in which Siobhan talks with her mother, Maeve, and slowly comes to the realization that her husband, Joe, is indeed part of his uncle’s criminal organization that's a master class in multi-layered storytelling. Felder's firing is one of those events that speaks volumes about the real reasons behind soaps' downward spiral over the past 30 years.