Actors - Irna Phillips

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	Actors - Irna Phillips

Irna Phillips (July 1, 1901 - December 22, 1973) wrote and created many of the first American soap operas. She is considered by many to be the mother of the genre.

She is best known for creating soap operas for television, like Guiding Light (1937-1956 on radio, and 1952-present on television), The Brighter Day (1948-1956 on radio and 1954-1962 on television), As the World Turns (1956-present), and Another World (1964-1999).

She also created Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1967-1973), the short-lived Our Private World (1965), the radio version of Young Dr. Malone, and Days of Our Lives (1965-present). Irna was creative consultant of Peyton Place (1964-1969). She was an unofficial consultant on A World Apart, which was created by her adopted daughter Katherine (some of the story elements were reportedly based on Phillips' own life).

She is recognized as one of the most important pioneers in television history, and as the originator of the daytime TV drama (i.e. television soap opera). She was also the mentor to Agnes Nixon, the creator of All My Children and One Life to Live, and William J. Bell, the creator of The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. As of 2004, only two (Passions and General Hospital) out of the nine daytime soaps have no ties to the Phillips legacy.

Personal life

Phillips was one of ten children born to a German Jewish family in the Midwest United States. She studied drama at the University of Illinois, receiving a Master of Arts degree before going on the postgraduate studied at the University of Wisconsin. While at college she was in the Phi Sigma Sigma Fraternity. Phillips wanted to be an actress, but quickly realized she was not attractive enough to have a successful career.

From 1925 to 1930 she worked as a school teacher in Dayton, Ohio teaching drama and theatre history to schoolchildren. While working in this capacity she continued to attempt a career as an actress and after performing several acting roles for radio productions at WGN in Chicago she left her career as a teacher.

She said she was in love only once, and she once had an affair with a man who refused to marry her when he learned she could not conceive a child. At 42, she adopted a son, Thomas Dirk Phillips. A year later, she adopted a daughter, Katherine.

Phillips is also said to have suffered a still-born child at the age of 19.

Early radio career

After working as a staff writer on a daytime talk show Irna created the serial Painted Dreams which historians now believe to have been the first daytime serial specifically targeted for women. On this show Phillips wrote every episode in addition to starring in the show as family matriarch Mother Moynihan. It is believed that this serial incorporated much autobiographical material, with Phillips immigrant Jewish family being replaced by an immigrant Irish family. Although this show started unsponsored Phillips quickly recognised that a radio series must be a "utility to its sponsors" and that it must "actually sell merchandise; otherwise the object of radio advertising has failed" With this in mind she wrote in an engagement and a wedding which provided the possibility of product tie ins.

Dispute about Painted Dreams

By 1932 Painted Dreams had become so successful that Phillips urged the local Chicago station WGN to sell the show to a national network. When they refused Phillips took them to court claiming the show as her own property. In the meantime Phillips created a new show Today's Children, which was little more than a thinly disguised version of Painted Dreams. For example Mother Moynihan became Mother Moran, while much of the storyline remained the same. Historians believe that Today's Children represents the first instance of a broadcast network soap opera - thereby crediting Phillips with inventing the genre.

By 1938 Today's Children was a massive hit on NBC radio. Later that year Painted Dreams emerged from the courts and was purchased by CBS. The nature of the court settlement prohibited Phillips from any future involvement with the series, however, the national broadcast of Painted Dreams never matched the popularity of Today's Children. Later in 1938 Irna Phillips' mother, who had been the inspiration for the matriarch character, passed away and Phillips demanded that Today's Children be discontinued out of respect. Instead of taking Phillips to court, NBC agreed and replaced it with her new series Woman in White.

Woman in White

Woman in White was one of the first serials to focus on the internal workings of a hospital. It has been suggested by many individuals ranging from soap opera historians to Agnes Nixon and Harding Lemay that Phillips was hypochondriac; she allegedly consulted a doctor every day. In the 1970s, shortly before Phillips' death, Nixon and Lemay both recalled an incident where Phillips had finally decided to take a trip to Europe - she had booked passage on a hospital ship docked in the harbor.

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