Marland Monday: His Funny Valentines
Oh, it’s that M day again, and you know what that means!
It’s Marland Monday!
Yes, Mondays are when we remember Douglas Marland, one of the GOATs in the soap opera genre. This Monday is on Valentine’s Day. On a soap opera, you need some loving. You need passion, you need super couples, you need misty-colored memories. Marland created so many great couples. On this V-Day, let’s look back and remember.
Alan and Monica: They married not for love, but Monica was on the rebound and Alan was handy. It also didn’t help that Alan bought a mansion and suddenly his parents and his sister Tracy moved in. Despite several affairs, a divorce, remarriage, breast cancer, mob ties, and bad behavior, the two remained linked until Alan’s death in 2007.
Laura and Scotty: These two had to deal with Laura’s killing of David Hamilton in self-defense (he tried to attack her) Scott using Bobbie as a friend with benefits, Bobbie saying she was pregnant when she wasn’t, then Laura getting into a car accident. Finally, Bobbie stepped aside, and Laura and Scotty were married in the summer of 1979. Their storyline became a sore point with Marland and Gloria Monty. Their differences-and Marland’s refusal to move to California, led to him leaving General Hospital and going to Guiding Light, where he created…
Kelly and Morgan: I’ve written so much about Kelly and Morgan that I really don’t have that much to add. Only that every time I hear Anne Murray’s “You Needed Me” it makes me think of love.
Nola and Quint: Like Kelly and Morgan, I don’t have anything new to add about Quola. Only that their love was as lovely as a Stanley Donen romance, and when I hear Pacibel’s Canon in D, it makes me think of them.
Ross and Carrie: It was opposites attract: he was the ruthless district attorney! She was the jogger who loved plants! But Carrie brought the best in Ross, and he defended her on a little double murder conviction (it was self-defense, honest!) They were married in February 1982. But the audience discovered that Carried had Dissociative Identity Disorder, with Carrie 1 (the Carrie we knew and loved) Carrie 2 (a hedonistic femme fatale), and Carrie 3 (timid and fearful of the world) Jane Elliot was wonderful as the three faces of Carrie but left the show a year later (the show’s EP Alan Potter said she was only supposed to be there for a year, Marland and Eliot said she was fired) so Ross and Carrie broke up. This was when Marland tipped his hat to Guiding Light, said see you later alligator, then went to ABC and wrote Loving for two years.
I hate saying this but I’m not sure of any great couples Marland had set up on Loving. He probably had them, but I can’t find any clips online. But he sure had couples on As The World Turns…
Casey and Lyla: Soap Opera Digest once wrote that Lyla Montgomery (Anne Sward) was “boring” Marland must’ve read that, because when he started writing ATWT, Lyla shed her nurse’s uniform every night, and sang standards at her son’s nightclub, The Mona Lisa. She also fell in love with a young doctor named Casey Perretti (Bill Shanks) who was crazy about her. They got married, then they were shocked and delighted when she got pregnant (Sward was pregnant in real life) and she had a daughter, Katie. But Casey soon found out he had Guillain-Barre syndrome, and lost the ability to walk, or even perform medicine. It was stepdaughter Margo who disconnected his life support and he died.
Lily and Holden: This is probably Marland’s best-known love story, one that lasted to the very end of the show. She was the poor little rich girl. He was the new stable boy wanting something better. Of course, these two kids were going to fall in love! There were small obstacles in the way like her biological mother was Holden’s sister Iva. Oh, wait, Iva was adopted. Never mind! There were also marriages to other people, a secret love child of Holden’s, Holden losing his memory, divorce, then countless ups and downs, the two looked like they were going to get back together in the last episode of ATWT.
Nancy and Dan: When Chris Hughes died, it looked like Nancy would be the strong widow. But Marland decided to pair her up with the crusty but kind Dan McCloskey, a lieutenant in the Oakdale police department. They had a lovely courtship then married in 1989. In 1992 Dan started to act oddly. It turned out to be dementia. They faced it head-on and showed grace under pressure until Dan died in 1996.
I know there are other couples, but I am only one woman and can only write so much! Tweet me your favorite Marland couple and use this hashtag: #marlandlovematch. In case you’re alone on this special day, take solace in this quote from Wendy Wasserstein:
No matter how lonely you get or how many birth announcements you receive, the trick is not to get frightened. There’s nothing wrong with being alone.
Tune in next week…
