Unique qualities of Another World
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Unique Qualities of Another World
Main article: Another World (television series)
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AW's early success story
AW's creator, Irna Phillips, modeled the show after her successful serial As the World Turns. In fact, the show's name suggests that AW was a distant spin-off, but it was actually quite different. While As the World Turns told more mundane stories in the 1960s, Another World would specialize in high melodrama, but in the same middle-to-upper-middle-class surroundings.
The show was the first to transition from black-and-white to color in 1966; it was also the first soap opera to move from live broadcasts to videotape, in the late 1960s.
The show was somewhat low-rated until Agnes Nixon was hired to write the show. She created the characters of Rachel, Ada, and later, Steve Frame. By writing these characters into the show, the show was guaranteed success well into the next decade. When Harding Lemay started writing the show in 1971, AW took off, and by the next year, it was pulling in nearly ten million viewers each day. By comparison, the lower-rated serials of the day were viewed by four to five million people daily.
AW expands to ninety minutes
In the late 1970s, Another World was so popular that the show extended to 90 minutes for a period of sixteen months, starting in March 1979. The show's ratings quickly halved. Instead of regularly topping the soap ratings like it had, the show was now only being viewed by five million people each day, sending it close to the bottom of the ratings. The show was moved back to 60 minutes (and placed in a new time slot) in August 1980. While the show's ratings stayed stable for most of the 1980s, AW was no longer a ratings winner, and wouldn't be for the rest of its run.
AW becomes an African-American showcase
The drop in ratings did not shake AW from branching out from the soap norm. The soap had a fairly healthy black ensemble. There were more black actors on AW than on any of the other soaps. By contrast, the nearest soap in terms of black exposure was All My Children, and there were only two black actors on contract on that show in the early 1980s. Another World had a half-dozen as regular cast members at this time: Jackee Harry, Howard E. Rollins, Jr. and Morgan Freeman got their start on AW in the '80s. Other black actors on the show at the time included John Dewey Carter, Michele Shay, and Petronia Paley. Later in the decade, the brother-sister team of Zack and Julie Ann Edwards (James Pickens, Jr. and Tara Wilson) were hired as contract actors, but by the latter part of the 1980s, they were the only black actors on the show. They did not serve the purpose that their predecessors had: they mostly filled the role of confidante to white characters, while the earlier characters drew support from organizations such as the NAACP due to their more integrated status with the white characters.
AW tackles AIDS
Chad Rollo's younger sister Dawn ( Barbara Bush) came to town to study music and immediately fell for Mary McKinnon's son Scott LaSalle (Hank Cheyne). They were unable to consummate their love, as they found out that Dawn had AIDS.
This was a landmark for daytime, as Another World was the first soap to introduce an HIV-positive character. The story was explained that Chad's sister had contracted AIDS via their mother, who had been a prostitute herself. In the story, Dawn and Scott went on a trip to Italy, as it was something she had always wanted to do. A month later, Scott came back alone, with the explanation that Dawn had succumbed to the disease while on the trip.
AW and the socio-economic status of the day
Linda Dano's character was glamorous and over-the-top. While the show was very accurate in portraying real people socio-economically, her character, Felicia, was a nod to the extravagant '80s and her wardrobe was selected with this in mind. An oddity on a usually grounded show, Felicia was a throwback to the decadence usually seen on Dynasty.
While there were many rich characters on AW, they were presented in "rags-to-riches" stories. Michael Hudson was a successful businessman but he started out as a lowly stable boy. Rachel Cory grew up poor and became a successful sculptress, not to mention marrying the wealthy Mac. Her mother, Ada, was a hairdresser and then a waitress; she was a working woman her whole life. The Frames were mostly a rural family. The Frame Farm, and the people living there, factored into storylines well into the 1990s.
A "little person" actor
Brent Collins, who played Wallingford, was daytime's first contract "little person" actor. He was on the show from 1984 until Collins died unexpectedly early in 1988. About a month later, Wallingford's death was written into the show, and a very special episode aired, involving Wally's friends Felicia and Cass coming to terms with their loss.
Sharlene's story
A story of sexual abuse and prostitution involving a popular character went on the back-burner for eleven years before it finally came to a boil, in a very dramatic courtroom scene in 1989.
When she was eight years old, Sharlene Frame (Anna Kathryn Holbrook) was raped by one of her brother Jason's friends. Jason received money in exchange for the act -- in essence, he was pimping Sharlene. The rape caused Sharlene to form multiple personalities. From then on, when she was threatened, a personality she called "Sharly" would emerge; Sharlene only cared about protecting herself.
In the early 1970s, when she was waitressing at a cocktail lounge, she found out that her husband, Floyd Watts, was killed in Vietnam. She slept with Army officers to bring herself closer to his memory, thus leading her to a career in prostitution.
When she first came to Bay City in 1975, she hid the secret from Russ Matthews, whom she was dating at the time. When they got married, Sharlene's malicious brother Willis told him that Sharlene was a slut. While they tried to reconcile at least twice, their marriage was essentially over before it had even started. When she left town, she was pregnant with Russ's child, even though she was led to believe that she was infertile.
In 1989, Felicia (Linda Dano) was on trial for Jason Frame's murder. Sharlene's boyfriend, John Hudson (David Forsyth), had implicated himself when he admitted on the stand that he suffered from delayed shock syndrome, a byproduct of his tour of Vietnam. To exonerate John, she was forced to admit that she had the motive -- Jason had threatened to tell the town that she had once been a prostitute. A grateful John told Sharlene that he loved her no matter what her past was.
While, for the most part, Sharlene lived a productive life, flashbacks to her rape and her prostitute days showed up from time to time.