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The Godmother Of Soap Operas

Irna Phillips led a life similar to those she wrote about

By Edward AndersonPublished 2 years ago 6 min read
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Irna Phillips Image from CBS/Wikimedia

As a child, Irna Phillips was sickly. Because of this, she found it hard to make friends with her classmates. Instead, she found refuge in books and other forms of storytelling.

In 1909, Irna's father died. She was just eight years old. Her mother did all she could to hold the family together, using income from rental properties to maintain finances. They were far from wealthy but were able to keep a lifestyle that was acceptable to the matriarch.

Irna revealed that she was often given hand-me-down clothes when she was young. She also talked about the origins of her love for long stories. Often, she would perform these stories with her dolls. Her family was entertained.

But her mother also warned that she needed to find a practical job and a husband.

Still, the young woman knew what she wanted to do. Her heart belonged to acting. When it was time to attend college, she majored in drama. A shock to her family, who thought Irna would go into teaching.

Her higher education started at Northwestern University in 1918. Not content with what they were teaching, Irna transferred to the University of Illinois the following year. She told her family that it was better for her academic career, but they not so secretly hoped there was more to the story.

With each passing year, her mother grew concerned that her daughter would never get married and never have her own family. But there was hope she was following a gentleman to the new school.

That was not the case. Irna thought that the University of Illinois had a better drama program.

Leap Into Radio

Irna's dreams of being an actress went up in smoke while at school. Professors told her that she would not find success on the stage because she was too plain. She was determined to prove them wrong.

But after a talk with her mother, Irna agreed that it would be best for her to teach for a while. In 1925, she accepted a position as a drama teacher in Dayton, Ohio. Her classes were popular, and life seemed to be going well for the future icon.

While keeping her day job, Irna auditioned for acting jobs on the side. She landed several roles on productions for radio station WGN. After working with her for several years, they encouraged her to leave teaching and join their staff full time in 1930.

In addition to having her work as a voice actress, WGN assigned Irna to write for a daytime talk show. Noticing how popular her episodes were, the executives were eager to keep her happy.

When she pitched them a new show, Painted Dreams, they were eager to get it on air. The show revolved around a widowed matriarch of a large family and the lengths she went to keep everything together. It was based mainly on her mother.

In addition to starring in the show as Mother Moynihan and Sue Morton, Irna wrote every episode. She also created the organ music that led from one scene to the next and the cliffhanger ending to every episode to ensure the audience would tune in tomorrow.

As the show gained in popularity, people credited her with inventing the American soap opera.

Painted War

While critics hated the show, the audience loved it. Irna sensed an opportunity to make more money from the show. She went to the executives at the radio and pitched having the show sponsored. They worried there was no way to make this happen.

To disprove their theory, Irna wrote an elaborate romance for one of the main characters. It included an engagement and a grand wedding. Sponsors lined up to be mentioned during the show. Everyone was happy with the financial windfall.

With the show making money, Irna wanted to take the venture one step further. She wanted WGN to sell Painted Dreams to a national network in 1932. It would have netted a lot of money for everyone involved. The radio station would have received a massive cash infusion, and Irna's profile would have been raised significantly.

The executives told her no.

Irna was not willing to accept this as an answer. She was determined to see the show grow beyond the WGN market, so she weighed her options. Eventually, she opted to take the radio station and its executives to court.

In the lawsuit, she claimed all rights to Painted Dreams. WGN manager Henry Selinger countered that it was his idea to create a daytime serial and sell products. The court battle became ugly as neither side wanted to give in.

Today Comes

Because of the court battle, Irna left WGN and the show altogether. While the show went on, the ratings fell without her at the helm. Execs huddled together to determine what their next move should be.

Most of them thought the best way to reverse course was to bring Irna back. However, she moved on to a competing radio station and created a brand new show, Today's Children for WMAQ.

Today's Children shared a plot, character archetypes, and premise with Painted Dreams. The new show was super popular and brought in much revenue for Irna's new partner. WGN executives seethed that she was stealing their thunder and too busy to return to her first show.

One of the reasons was that Irna owned the rights to the new show. Since she felt that WGN was unfair to her, she made sure it was written into her contracts that the rights stayed with her and the contract was only a licensing deal.

Something that paid off for her in 1937. She worked with Emmons Carlson in creating The Guiding Light for NBC. She used the sermons she listened to after a miscarriage as the center of the show. Things were starting to look up for Irna.

In 1938, the court battle over Painted Dreams came to an end. Irna walked away with the rights to the show. Almost immediately, she sold it to CBS. But there was a restriction; the settlement required her to have nothing to do with the production of the show.

But as with all good soap operas, there would be a tragic twist.

End Of Today

Irna's mother passed away just months after the court settlement. She asked CBS to discontinue Today's Children, which they did gladly. They informed the audience that it was out of respect for the Phillips family.

Woman In White replaced the canceled show. This was the first American show to be based in a hospital. It also brought three of soap operas' finest creators together for the first time. Irna mentored All My Children creator Agnes Nixon and The Young and The Restless creator William J. Bell.

The three writers would form a friendship during this time. They would work together on countless other serials and celebrate one another's successes.

Agnes and William celebrated when Irna adopted her son, Thomas, in 1943. There was more joy for the family just a year later, when she adopted her daughter, Katherine.

With television rising in popularity in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Irna seized on the opportunity to create a serialized TV show. These Are My Children, which she created in 1949, is widely credited as the first ongoing television serial, but NBC canceled it after one month.

In 1952, Irna worked with CBS to bring The Guiding Light to television. It ran for 57 years on broadcast television.

Irna Phillips created an entire genre of radio and television. One that she was proud of and worked in until she died in 1972. Agnes only learned that her longtime friend had died when she called to wish her well on Christmas.

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About the Creator

Edward Anderson

Edward has written hundreds of acclaimed true crime articles and has won numerous awards for his short stories.

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