Marland Monday: The Click Boom Bye of Hank Eliot
It’s the second Monday in June and what does that mean cats and kittens?
It’s Marland Monday!
Marland Mondays are when we celebrate and remember the life of Douglas Marland, one of the GOATs of writing soap operas. It’s also Pride month, so let’s get down to it.
In 1988, there was a new guy in Oakdale. His name was Hank Elliot. He was a fashion designer, working with Barbara Ryan. He was very handsome, very kind. He was friendly and made friends with the Oakdale teens, plus Iva Snyder (Lisa Brown) Iva was immediately attracted to him.
One night they were on the Snyder farm talking about wishes. Hank asked Iva what was her wish. It was simple: Iva wanted her bio-daughter Lily “a lifetime of happiness.” He encouraged her to be a little selfish. What would she wish for herself? He said he would love for a perfect man to come into her life and give her the happiness she deserved. He also said, “Part of me wishes I could be that man.” He then explained that it was time to tell her something big. He gently told her that he had been with someone for five years now. The person’s name was Charles. Hank was gay.
Nowadays this probably wouldn’t be a big deal. But in 1988 darlings, pearls might’ve been clutched.
In soaps, gay characters were a super rarity. Oh, they had existed. Donna Pescow played Dr. Lynn Carson, who formed a friendship with Devon McFadden (Tricia Pursley) and then explained to Devon she was gay. Lynn wasn’t on very long, and for the life of me, I don’t think she had much of a storyline. It seemed like she outed herself, stayed in Pine Valley, then had to run.
That’s how it was in soaps for a long time with gay characters. All my Children had another gay character in the nineties then left after a year. Ryan Phillipe played gay teen Billy on One Life to Live who dealt with homophobia. The AIDS quilt came to Llanview. But then he was written out. had My friend Patrick Erwin describes it as Click Boom Bye. The audience has learned a special lesson, but let’s not go overboard.
When Brian Starcher (the actor who played Hank) found out about Hank’s sexuality, he admitted to reporter Alan Carter “a feeling of homophobia.” What were his parents going to say? Would people think Brian was gay? Executive Producer Robert Calhoun kept it a hundred with him: Go home and think really hard if he wanted to play this role. If he had any doubts or worries, he had to tell Calhoun right away so they could recast the role. Calhoun had been in a long-term relationship with actor Farley Granger (Earl Mitchell) so I’m betting he had no patience for hesitation.
So Starcher decided to play the role. Marland talked about the creation of Hank which was excerpted by the website column of life (Thanks to Patrick Erwin for the link)
Around the time that I came on AS THE WORLD TURNS, I decided that I wanted to write a gay storyline. I’ve always felt that homosexuality was an area of society that had been totally ignored or just kind of touched on and run away from. I actually wanted to introduce a gay character on THE DOCTORS in 1972.1 believed there was drama in such a story, there could be people’s reactions to the gay character, and inter-reactions — that’s what daytime is all about. NBC bought the idea but Colgate-Palmolive, the sponsor, said no way, so it was dropped…
Because Procter and Gamble and CBS had been so supportive of most anything I wanted to do on AS THE WORLD TURNS I brought it up with Cal [Robert Calhoun, then executive producer]. Cal said, ‘Yes, let’s talk about it. How would you go about doing it?’ I said the important thing to me in bringing the character on was to let the audience get to like him and know him before we knew anything about his homosexuality because immediately, I thought, minds would turn off unless they liked the guy first. That’s the way we did it. Then the writers’ strike happened just as the character was coming on the air and thank God Cal and I had discussed enough of the character and how he should intermingle before anything aired. It had been outlined how he would get to know Iva; how she would become his first friend. There’s a very real situation there: It’s not unusual for so-called ‘normal’ women to fall in love with gay men. I felt that was the way to first have Hank reveal his sexuality: once Iva was looking for more in a relationship than he was able to give her, it would be a very interesting and noble way for the revelation. Shortly after his revelation, the strike was over and we all came back to work.”
At first, Marland wanted Hank to have AIDS. He had Noreen on Loving be a nurse to AIDS patients, but this time it would be from a gay’s man point of view. “AIDS victims are not monsters. Have some compassion for him (Hank) because a lot of people are dealing with AIDS in their families.” But the show was overwhelmed with letters thanking Marland and the show for Hank’s character. Marland knew if Hank had AIDS, it would be sending a message to Middle America that “every gay man who comes into your midst is going to be a victim or carrier of AIDS.”
Marland compromised and had Charles, Hank’s long-term boyfriend have AIDS. Charles’ dad took his son away and told Hank to stay away. Hank didn’t have any legal recourse. They weren’t married. He didn’t have a choice.
That’s what I’m afraid of: that choices will be taken away from marginalized communities, including the LGBT community. People might think I’m overreacting, but I’m not. A group of protesters went to a Drag Queen Storytime at the San Lorenzo library yelling homophobic/transphobic slurs. In Idaho, a far-right group called Patriot Front were arrested because they were going to protest a Pride event in a park. One smoke grenade was found.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m a cis straight white woman who’s a spinster at fifty. But January 6th taught me a lesson: I’m done with bullies. Be it Karens at work making fun of people with disabilities (this happened at one of my jobs) or men randomly calling women then proceed to call them a “bleeping C-word.” (That happened to me Friday) I was bullied for years and I always stayed quiet, not wanting them to know they hurt me. Well no more.
Hank was written out after a year. Why such a short time? I don’t know. I’ve tried to find info about Starcher but except for a role on Babylon Five he’s disappeared. On Young and Restless they celebrated the wedding of Mariah (Camryn Grimes) and Tessa (Cait Fairbanks) Both women wore white and had flowers in their hair. They were beautiful.
I wish Marland and Robert Calhoun could’ve seen it. I wish they could’ve known not all gay characters now go through Click Boom Bye.
Tune in next week, everyone…
