For the first time in 25 years, a new daytime drama is coming to network television. “Beyond the Gates,” scheduled to premiere on Monday, February 24, is also the first new soap opera to debut on CBS since 1987. It’s the first new show for Procter & Gamble Productions, the company that put the “soap” in “soap opera,” since “As the World Turns” went off the air in 2010, and it’s the first time the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has stepped up as a co-presenter.
None of it would have been possible if it weren’t for a Jewish woman from Chicago named Irna Phillips.
I fell in love with soap operas at the age of 10. Luke and Laura were on the run on “General Hospital” and I, along with much of America, was entranced. At the time, I thought it was just because I loved the fast-paced, romantic, adventurous story. Only as an adult was I able to figure out that the reason I fell in love with the genre – “General Hospital” watching was followed by “All My Children” watching, “One Life to Live” watching, “Days of Our Lives” watching, “Guiding Light” watching, “As the World Turns” watching, “Another World” watching… you get the idea (I had a very wayward youth) – was because, for a kid who had recently emigrated from the Soviet Union, who was home alone most days and many evenings while my parents worked multiple jobs, my daily soap opera intake provided a stability the rest of my life lacked. They were my friends, they were my guides into what I thought was “real” American life, and they were my surrogate family.
Which was exactly what their creator intended them to be. Because that was exactly what their creator herself needed.
Irna Phillips was born on July 1, 1901 in Chicago to a German-Jewish family. She was the youngest of 10 children who lost her father at the age of 8, growing up poor, lonely and prone to acting out intricate dramas with her toys (who among us can’t relate?). Irna studied drama at the University of Illinois and hoped to be an actress, but teachers told her she was too plain to succeed.
At age 18, Irna became pregnant by a married doctor. When he denied paternity, Irna hauled the heartless cad into court, demanding child support and, stunningly for 1919, actually won! Tragically, their son was stillborn, but the experience would go on to guide many of Irna’s decisions moving forward.
In 1930, she created “Painted Dreams,” believed to be radio’s first soap opera. The show featured Mother Moynihan, a widow caring for her large brood of children. She was based on Irna’s own mother, but made Irish instead of Jewish, as that ethnicity was considered more palatable to audiences. With “Painted Dreams,” Irna established the concept of a cliff-hanger, cutting off each episode on a dramatic note that would keep listeners tuning in tomorrow, and popularized amnesia stories and murder trials, as well as the famous organ sting still associated with soaps today. Irna also dared to explore topics like adultery, divorce, juvenile delinquency and the struggle of veterans returning from World War I, which contemporary programs shunned as being inappropriate for women’s delicate ears.
She would go on to write a second serial, “Today’s Children,” but it wasn’t until 1937 and her third creation, “The Guiding Light,” that her brainchild truly broke out into the mainstream.
By this time, Irna had converted to Unitarianism, citing the support she received from a kind minister during her pregnancy as one of the reasons for the reformation. She also made the central character in “The Guiding Light” Reverend Ruthledge, who always kept a light burning in his window for any soul who might need rescuing.
But Irna obviously hadn’t forgotten the girl she’d once been and where she came from. Despite popular opinion holding that American audiences didn’t appreciate stories about “foreigners,” Irna wrote a tale for “The Guiding Light” featuring Rose Kransky, an Orthodox Jewish girl who wanted more from life than merely getting married and working in her father’s secondhand store.
Reverend Ruthledge loaned Rose money to attend secretarial school, which led to her working for a handsome – and WASP-y… and married – book publisher. Which led to an affair. Which led to Rose’s pregnancy. Which led to her lover denying his responsibility… Sound familiar?
Like Irna, Rose fought for her rights and decided to keep her child. Unlike Irna, Rose’s son was born healthy. Irna admitted that in writing Rose’s story, she “followed a path I would have taken had my own baby lived.”
Irna went on to create another half dozen radio series, as well as transition “The Guiding Light” to television – a move she paid for with her own money to prove that the concept was viable and TV was more than just a passing fad. She created “As the World Turns” and “Another World” directly for television, and contributed to “Days of Our Lives.”
Irna wouldn’t write out her dialogue but dictate it to her secretary in a stream of consciousness, not stopping to identify who was speaking. The only clue was the way Irna would alter her voice for each line. As she explained, “I really don’t think I write – I act.”
At her peak, Irna was producing two million words per year (about 40 novels worth), and earning over $300,000 annually (close to four million in today’s dollars).
Irna never married. Her stance was, “Why would I want to get married? If I want to pick a fight, I can always call up one of the buffoons in Cincinnati,” referring to where the headquarters of Procter & Gamble were, who sponsored – and controlled – Irna’s shows.
She did, however, according to her own reports, carry on multiple romantic relationships, primarily with doctors and lawyers – professions which, not at all coincidentally, were also most often the leading men in her stories.
Once established in her career, she adopted a son and a daughter, raising them on her own. All of Irna’s shows were unusually sympathetic to the plight of single mothers, showing them as capable and even heroic. (Though their children were kidnapped, fell ill and traumatized at disturbingly high rates, but, well, such is the nature of the beast.)
In addition, Irna was ahead of her time when it came to representing minority characters. Rose Kransky was even briefly spun off into a show of her own called “The Right To Happiness,” and “Guiding Light” was the first soap opera to introduce African-American contract players. In 1966, Jim Frazier was played by Billy Dee Williams, then James Earl Jones, while his wife, Martha, was portrayed by Cicely Tyson, then Ruby Dee in 1967.
The diversity of “Beyond the Gates” cast, which includes Clifton Davis (“Amen”) and Tamara Tunie (“Law & Order: SVU”) is a direct descendant of Phillips’ groundbreaking multicultural storylines, as well as those of one of her protegees, Agnes Nixon. In 1968 for “One Life to Live,” Nixon penned the story of Carla (Ellen Holly), a Black woman passing for white, which is remembered and celebrated to this day. In 1995, “One Life To Live,” which originally premiered with a Jewish family front and center, also featured a wedding officiated by a rabbi (played by Camryn Manheim before “The Practice”), a minister and Little Richard!
I didn’t know any of that when I first fell in love with soap operas. All I knew was that I drew comfort from their reliability. No matter what upheaval was taking place in my own life, these shows would always be there for me.
Soaps got me through middle school drama, high school drama, college drama, family drama, friendship drama and romantic drama.
They also led to romance and a family of my own.
In 1994, I moved to New York City to work for ABC Daytime, the network which still airs “General Hospital.” It was all very full circle. Because of that move, I met my husband (26 years married this January!).
I went on to work for Procter & Gamble Productions (the same buffoons from Cincinnati that Irna tailed against. Full disclosure: They were lovely to me, the nicest corporation I was ever associated with).
I had the thrill of following in Irna’s footsteps when I wrote “Oakdale Confidential” and “The Man From Oakdale,” tie-in novels to Irna’s “As the World Turns,” and co-wrote “Jonathan’s Story,” a “Guiding Light” tie-in.
I admit, it felt very l’dor vador (from generation to generation).
Irna Phillips was a complex woman. Nixon described, “Irna was her own creation. She was colorful and quite a character and she knew it. She set out to do it all on her own and this was all very pre-women’s lib.”
On the one hand, Irna told Lucy Rittenberg, one of the “Guiding Light” producers, “I’m very fond of you, Lucy, but I can’t work with women.”
On the other, she gave women, starting with Jewish women, a voice that otherwise wouldn’t be heard on network radio, and then television.
This is the Irna Phillips that I tried to capture, contradictions, warts and all, in my upcoming historical fiction, “Go On Pretending,” where she features as a supporting character.
Because it’s a story that not enough people know. And they should.
If it weren’t for this Jewish mother, every medium that we consume today – from daytime soap operas like the newly launched “Beyond the Gates,” to primetime shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” to sitcoms where the story continues from episode to episode like “Friends,” to the Marvel cinematic universe where you have to watch all the movies or miss key parts of the plot, to TikTok/YouTube/Facebook/X which demand you watch the next reel to get the complete story – would look very different.
