September 23: So Long, Pine Valley

By Sylvia Gurinsky

To quote Johnny Carson on his last night, "And so, it has come to this."

When Agnes Nixon created "All My Children" in 1970, Marshall Karp, then in charge of ABC's programming, laid out the show's mission:

"'All My Children' is particularly exciting, as it will tell a big story - that no man is an island - and while the drama will deal with a great variety of people and their dramatic conflicts, the stories will reflect the fact that beneath our loves, hates, fears and hostilities, we are all linked by the common bond of our humanity."

That's the ideal that has pretty much guided most, if not all, of the 41 years of storytelling. It's the ideal that guided the best of that storytelling. Rather than ranking it, here's a chronological recounting of the best of "AMC":

*1972: Ruth Martin opposes the Vietnam War: Seeing the effect of Phil Martin's presumed death in Vietnam, Ruth joined those speaking out against the war. Amy Tyler had already done the same during the show's first year - something "AMC" creator Agnes Nixon had planned from the very beginning.

*1973: Erica Kane has an abortion. Prime-time television - a 1972 episode of "Maude" - actually led the way even before Roe vs. Wade. Afterward, though, Erica, who was married to Jeff Martin, decided she didn't want a child to get in the way of her career. Selfish choice, yes - but the fact that she could legally make a choice was the point of the plotline.

*1978: Ruth Martin raped by Ray Gardner: Of all of "All My Children's" meanest characters, Ray Gardner - Tad Martin's biological father and Opal Gardner's first husband - was unquestionably the worst. There was no shying away from the effects of the rape or the aftermath for Ruth or the rest of the Martin family.

*1981-84: Jesse-Jenny friendship: At a time when the suspicion level between blacks and whites was just starting to go down, having an interracial friendship - particularly one between an African-American man and a white woman - was breaking ground. It was as rewarding watching Kim Delaney and Darnell Williams in these scenes as it was watching the love stories the two characters were involved in with other cast members:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FECGUHvCqsI


*1987: Erica leads intervention for Mark (and 2004: Mark helps with Erica's intervention.): Mark Dalton (Mark La Mura), Erica Kane's brother, had an addiction to cocaine during the 1980s. Many shows were addressing the drug crisis at that time, but "All My Children" had the luxury of time to show one means of helping an addict - the family intervention. Erica and Ellen Shepard (Kathleen Noonan) would help Mark.

Seventeen years later, Mark would return the favor for an alcoholic Erica:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naKdekoEaac&feature=related

*1987-89: Stuart and Cindy: Stuart Chandler, who was volunteering in Pine Valley Hospital, fell in love with Cindy Parker (Ellen Wheeler), who had contracted HIV from her drug addict-husband, who had died. Stuart and Cindy had to overcome much discrimination (including early on from Jesse Hubbard, Skye Chandler (Robin Christopher) and Stuart's own brother, Adam. They all had a change of heart later on, of course. The storyline did much to break the myths about HIV-AIDS a few years before real-life notables such as Magic Johnson and Arthur Ashe did.

David Canary, who plays both Adam and Stuart, won an Emmy for the storyline, as did Wheeler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuTdi2Fi68o

*1988: Laura Cudahy dies: Little Laura, the daughter of Tom and Brooke, was hit by a drunk driver. The scenes addressed not just the issue of drunk driving, but also organ donation, a process that was starting to get more notice during the 1980s. Susan Pratt, as Barbara Montgomery, Julia Barr as Brooke English and Richard Shoberg, as Tom Cudahy, were particularly outstanding in the scenes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeoZZavmDbw&feature=related


"General Hospital," in probably its most moving storyline, would also address these issues later.

*1998: Bianca's anorexia: During the last few years, some of the best "AMC" storylines have involved Erica's younger daughter, Bianca. In 1998, the teenaged Bianca (aged the way soap opera children usually are, since she was born in 1988) battled anorexia, a disease that many teenagers, particularly females, struggle with. Erica helped her through it. A short clip comes about 45 seconds into this reel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW8aiteeh1c

A happy real-life byproduct of this storyline was that Susan Lucci finally won an Emmy for playing Erica:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37nv9dHIuCc


*2000: Bianca comes out: Much-married Erica Kane had trouble dealing with the fact that her daughter was a lesbian. Lucci and Eden Riegel, who played Bianca for a decade, did a fine job:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLg0oXQ7MQc

**************************************************************************

Today's show ended, typically, with a couple of cliffhangers, in anticipation of the show moving to the Internet. Prospect Park, which will also air "One Life To Live" online, has signed a couple of current major "AMC" cast members. So far, Susan Lucci is not among them, nor are Walt Willey, Michael Knight, Darnell Williams or Julia Barr. Ray MacDonnell and David Canary have retired. Debbi Morgan is headed to CBS.

And so many of the pillars of the show - Ruth Warrick and Hugh Franklin, Frances Heflin, Larry Keith, James Mitchell, Eileen Herlie, Mary Fickett and Louis Edmonds - are, sadly, gone.

So whatever the online "All My Children" will be, it will likely be far different from the "AMC" I and millions of other Americans grew up - and grew - with.

But if it's true to the spirit of much of these 41 years on television, it will follow the motto creator Agnes Nixon introduced the show with on January 5, 1970, the motto the show's youngest cast members repeated today:


The Great and the Least,
The Rich and the Poor,
The Weak and the Strong,
In Sickness and in Health,
In Joy and Sorrow,
In Tragedy and Triumph,
You are ALL MY CHILDREN