You've Taken Away, Another World: Memories From Bay City, Part 1
By Michael Poirier
Contributing Writer, We Love Soaps Insider
Watching a beloved soap opera come to an end is never easy. For years, viewers share life’s triumphs, heartbreaks, and surprises with characters who become part of their daily lives. Fittingly, Another World began in 1964 with a death and ended in 1999 with a wedding.
Recently, actress Roberta Maxwell reflected on her time in Bay City, which reminded me just how many fascinating stories remain from the show’s 35-year run. One of my favorite features in the soap magazines of the past was the behind-the-scenes anecdote—the personal memory that revealed what life was really like at the studio.
So I reached out to several former Another World actors and writers and asked a simple question: What comes to mind when you think about your time on the NBC daytime drama?
Their answers offer a funny, touching, and revealing look at the people behind one of daytime television’s most enduring classics. And for fans eager for more Bay City history, keep an eye out for Tom Lisanti’s upcoming book, “Another World: The Drama Behind Daytime TV’s Only 90 Minute Soap.”
Tim Russ (Burt McGowan, 1977-1978):
Paul Rauch was kind enough to hire me for my first paying job. And I’ll never forget it. And I’ll never end being grateful to him for that. And Connie Ford, I remember very well. My very first scene I ever had to do. I had to come to Connie Ford, Ada, and tell her that my brother and my father, played by Dolph Sweet, had been blown up in a tin mine in Bolivia. And she was so sweet. She was so professional. She literally would stand there with me in the door and she would actually move me into my light and then she would move me over here to make sure I wasn’t in her light. I’ll never forget that.
She also taught me how to read the teleprompters, because what she would do, she would give her line to me like, “Wow, Burt, that’s a terrible story.” And then she’d look away to the teleprompter, read her line, come back to me, and go, “Yes, I can’t believe you are here to tell me that.” She was great, and she was an icon. No doubt.
Kathryn Barsky Lance (Head writer’s secretary 1969-1971, writer 1970-1971):
Perhaps I should explain here how soap operas are written. Usually, each show has one head writer. This is the person who, like Bob Cenedella, bears ultimate responsibility for scripts. Every six months or so, the head writer prepares an outline, known as a “long-term story projection,” which describes major events that will occur in the characters’ lives over the next half-year to a year.
In addition, there are also daily outlines, sometimes called “breakdowns,” which describe, act by act, what will happen on that day’s show. The daily breakdowns are assigned to one or more “dialogists,” whose job it is to take an outline and write a script from it. I was a dialogist. A typical outline might say something like:
Act 1. Mary’s living room, early morning. Ada drops by on her way to visit Rachel in the hospital. They discuss the situation with John and Pat, and recap what happened last night when Steve and Alice met at the restaurant. No mention is made of the murder, but we see it is on both their minds. Ada is about to leave when Steve arrives and we’ll go out on her consternation.
My job was to take that brief outline and turn it into five to eight pages of believable, interesting, and actable dialogue.
Eric Roberts (Ted Bancroft, 1977):
Paul Rauch?! Paul Rauch fired me from Another World way back in the mid late ‘70s. Then he rehired me again to come help his ratings for Young and the Restless. Who knew? But, I love Paul and his family. They’re incredible. Super loved Bev (McKinsey, who played Iris).
Kevin Conroy (Jerry Grove, 1980):
Ah, Jerry Grove. And he would come home from work every day and his wife was secretly selling police information to the mob. Very soap opera, right? So, I’d come home and she’d go, “Oh, honey, how was your day?” And I’d say, “Oh, well, we arrested so and so and so and so.” And she’d say, “Well, what are you going to do tomorrow?” And I say, “Oh, well, tomorrow we have an undercover sting and we’re going to do A, B, and C.” She’d say, “Oh, that’s fine. Honey, why don’t you go in and take a shower and relax?”
I go into the shower and vou’d hear the shower. going on off stage. And then she’d tiptoe over to the phone and dial the mob and tell them what I was going to do tomorrow. I was the cleanest character in daytime because every the only way they could get me out of that one-bedroom apartment so she could make phone calls was to put me in the bathroom having a shower. So, every day I went in and took a shower.
Judith Donato (writer, 1983-1985):
I was very young and just getting my footing as a breakdown writer. So, it was a bit of a pressure cooker for me, trying to prove myself. I will say this: the cast was amazing and gave 100% with all of the material. From the top of the roll, downward, it was an amazing crew to write for. I guess my one chuckle was noticing how often the beloved and indomitable Connie Ford loved those cue cards! We could tell! But no one dared to mention it to her, because she was so damn amazing as Ada.
Sharon Gabet (Brittany Peterson, 1985-1987):
Honestly I only had brief moments with the cast other than the people I worked with. It was a very friendly cast though, but since we shot set by set, it wasn’t like the family atmosphere on The Edge of Night where we shot every show as if it were live and everyone was on the set together.
The biggest thing about working on Another World was unfortunately having Bill Cosby doing his show there during that time and he kind of “owned the place”. He would walk around the entrance foyer and once asked me if I wanted to come “talk” in his dressing room and another time asked me if I wanted a ride back to Manhattan in his limo... I declined, but shudder now when I remember how many women said they were given drinks and drugged both in his dressing room and in his limo... So the angels were with me then.
Anne Heche (Victoria & Marley Love 1987-1991):
First of all, it was such a great moment in my life. And I have to say, my first day on set, I had to talk to the most wonderful Kale Brown through a phone because I had lost… Vicky had lost a million dollars in Vegas. After we were finished having the phone call, Kale walked over to me the first time I saw him and he looked at me as I was dripping wet a robe and shivering and he says, “You know what? You must have had a really f**ked up childhood, because we get along great.” And we did. From that moment on, I think maybe that’s my pool of friendships. People who have gone through a lot.
Anne Heche’s story feels like a perfect place to pause. From the writers who shaped Bay City’s earliest years to the actors who helped define the show’s most memorable eras, these memories offer a glimpse behind the curtain of one of daytime television’s most beloved dramas.
In Part 2, cast members and writers from Another World’s final decade share stories about the fast-paced realities of soap opera production, friendships that have lasted decades, and the heartbreaking day they learned Bay City’s journey was coming to an end.