Classic Soaps Week: One Life to Live (1968)

All Agnes Nixon wanted to do was break the usual daytime soap mold.

ABC hired Nixon away from NBC's Another World to develop a show for them. By focusing on other issues besides the usual family drama, One Life to Live was virtually an instant hit when it bowed in 1968, and began a 40-plus year run on ABC before moving online for a few months in 2013.

Set in the fictional Philadelphia suburb of Llanview, One Life did have the diverse families of different economic classes, but also, much like, say for example, The Edge of Night, was driven by crime drama at times, with some of the drama set at the Llanview Banner, the town newspaper.

One Life began as a standard half-hour show until 1976, when it expanded to 45 minutes, despite the fact that ABC had experimented and failed with a pair of 45 minute evening shows 7 years earlier (Music Scene & The New People). Two years later, One Life expanded again, as the hour long format became the standard for daytime drama.

When the series moved online for four months in 2013, rapper Snoop Dogg, then experimenting with reggae as Snoop Lion, became the show's musical director, emphasizing the direction the online version, now back in the original half-hour format, was taking, aiming at younger viewers.

The alumni list of One Life spans several generations of television. Some, like Philip Carey, who joined the show in 1980 (ex-Philip Marlowe, Untamed World), and David Canary (ex-Bonanza, in between stints on another Nixon show, All My Children), were no longer in demand for primetime. Others, such as James Noble (later of Benson), Colm Meaney (later of Star Trek: The Next Generation & Deep Space Nine), and, most notably, Judith Light (who moved on to Who's The Boss?) saw One Life as a springboard. The final cast in 2013 included the likes of Corbin Bleu ("High School Musical") and Hayden Panettiere (later of Heroes) representing today's generation.

Ye scribe would sit with mom and watch periodically while in high school or after work, before taking my current job. It was the drama at the Banner that tried holding my attention.

Here's a rare treat. A half-hour episode from 1969.



ABC acquired the rights to One Life to Live & All My Children, which bowed in 1970, from Nixon, effectively buying out her production company, in 1974, which would explain the expansions. In fact, since so few early episodes are available due to the then-common industry practice of "wiping" to recycle videotapes, Nixon insisted on preserving Children, and, we assume also, One Life, when they expanded to an hour. Tape collectors would love to get some of those vintage episodes. Yes, there are soap opera collectors, effendi.

Rating: B.