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Other trials await actors too. Things are slightly less hectic now that the shows are taped. But a complete show must still be rehearsed, blocked and taped within twelve hours. Actors frequently call each other by their real names on-camera or get so confused by stage blocking that they walk through fake walls. Says Art Wolf, a director of Another World, the most elaborate soap: "The most difficult thing is putting an hour show together so fast." World has 37 sets, a live band and a discotheque; logistics alone requires a small army of a crew. The action is reminiscent of early Hollywood. "You can't spend time refining," says Wolf. "The most important thing is to develop a relationship between the actors." At best, this is tricky: fearful of being confused in the unforeseeable and fast-changing soap milieu, most actors do not learn their lines until the night before.
Oldtimers like Mary Stuart of Search for Tomorrow earn $100,000 a year. The average actor takes home $35,000—about what many Broadway stars get. "I got to talking to Julie Harris a few years ago," says Michael M. Ryan, a veteran soap actor who is now John Randolph in Another World, "and that was what she earned that year. I was horrified." Now Ryan believes that the soaps subsidize Broadway: "If it weren't for them, there would be no actors left in New York." In Los Angeles, where General Hospital, Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless are made, a soap job is almost equally important. Three hundred and fifty actresses showed up recently for a Days audition.
They did not come just for the money. Currently, soaps offer women the widest range of roles available. Still, nobody starts out with soaps as a goal. "When I first went into soaps," recalls Victoria Wyndham, who plays the femme fatale Rachel, "I didn't tell my serious acting friends. I thought they'd laugh. But now I'm proud of my work; some of the best acting, best moments are in this medium."
Many stars, including Ellen Burstyn, Warren Beatty, Lee Grant and Sandy Dennis, have passed through the soaps. Even Lee Strasberg has something nice to say about them: "It's good training; you learn to improvise because you don't know what's going to happen next."
Fans find out what is happening to their favorites through a dozen-odd soap magazines. Daytime TV is the largest and purest: it has a 380,000 circulation and discusses only soaps. Mostly the stories are breathless accounts of stars' offscreen habits and romances. Item: Carolee Campbell is leaving her role in The Doctors to pursue her interest in the martial arts. Last year the mags had some real meat to chew. Another World Actor George Reinholt, the soaps' bad boy, had so many off-camera tantrums that enraged Head Writer Harding Lemay wrote him out of the show.
That was an impolitic move. Reinholt and Actress Jacquie Courtney (Alice Frame) had become the serials' second hottest lovers (after Days of Our Lives' Doug and Julie). Soon after, Jacquie was dumped too. George and Jacquie took the row to the pages of Daily TV Serials. Now George and Jacquie are back together on One Life to Live, and their onscreen love affair has already pumped the ratings.