A Q&A with Soap Opera Expert John K. Read

Marlena says: Welcome to Marlena’s Soap Opera Hall of Fame, our new occasional series of profiles and Q&A interviews with celebrated soap opera professionals. Our first honoree is veteran soap reporter/critic John K. Read, a.k.a. John Kelly Genovese.

In the glory years of soap opera magazines, his weekly insider reports and thoughtful critiques earned him huge followings in Afternoon TV (I was the editor who hired him) and Soap Opera Digest. Circa 1980, he and I were both students of the great pioneer soap critic Jon-Michael Reed. Jon was John’s hero, so much so that he changed his own name from Genovese to Read. Even though John was very young, he seemed to know everything about soaps, including those that existed before he was born. I learned much about soap history from him and visited him often in his home in Cos Cob, Connecticut. He shared with me his extensive collection of soap kinescopes, going back to the age of Irna Phillips. He explained how story lines worked and made keen observations about the performances of the earliest soap actors and actresses. He’s retired now and living on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I’m absolutely delighted that my esteemed colleague Mike Poirier has conducted a Q&A with John for Marlena De Lacroix, Soaps for the Thinking Fan. And so here’s John! Enjoy!

 By Michael Poirier

What I always loved about John Read’s columns in Afternoon TV was that they made you think. He knew his shows inside and out. Not just the histories of the programs, but the writers, the producers, and the actors, so people understood the dynamics of what was going on and why. My personal favorite was John’s “Critic’s Corner.” He always laid out what was right with a soap opera, and what was wrong with it. You may not have agreed with every point, but his opinions were always based on the facts. Nowadays, as the magazines have mostly faded away, much of the online soap reporting (with a few notable exceptions) is clickbait. Here, in his own words, is a look back on John’s career and his insights into the industry.

Q: Please give us an overview of your background.

A: I was born in October of 1958 and was adopted two months later. My mother had previously worked and knew nothing about soaps. However, my paternal grandmother was slowly dying of cancer, so my parents moved to the second floor of the family homestead to be closer to her. Grandma Genovese watched “Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns,” and she introduced my mother to them. This was at that pivotal time on “As the World Turns” when unwed Ellen Lowell gave in to pressure from her family to surrender her baby boy for adoption. “What if John’s real mother comes back and wants to claim him?” my grandmother feared. My mother said, “That only happens in the stories, Ma.” Shortly thereafter my grandmother died. A few years later, on the show, David and Betty Stewart arrived in Oakdale with the son Ellen had given up. The ensuing custody battle was wrenching. Thank God my grandmother was not around to see that.

Q: What was the first soap that caught your attention and that you couldn’t miss? And what was it that drew you in?

A: I went through so many “can’t miss” stages with various shows, but the first to catch my attention as a toddler was “Guiding Light.” It aired from 12:45 to 1 PM ET between lunchtime and nap time! It was usually preceded by the Mr. Clean commercial that aired between “Search for Tomorrow” and “Guiding Light,” and I was singing that jingle word-for-word when I was 3! On “Guiding Light,” I learned to recognize Bert, Meta, and Paul Fletcher, among other key characters. Gradually, I became interested in more and more soaps, to the point of keeping track of casts and credits as far back as elementary school.

Q: Do you think the organ music or the orchestral score heightened the scenes? And which soap do you think had the best background music?

A: The organ music was far more personal and spontaneous. As a musician, I was greatly inspired by soap organists, as they each had their own style and gave each soap its own special ethos. The magnificent Charles Paul usually had two or three soaps going at one time, but he varied his styles according to whichever show he was accompanying. Of course, George Wright was in a league of his own when he did “General Hospital” with a variety of keyboards. When he turned on the electronic rhythm unit to a martial tempo and played “On the Road to Mandalay” as Lucille was on the warpath about some seventh-floor doings, it was spectacular.

Q: Which format do you personally prefer, the half hour or the hour format? And do you feel that the hour format burned out writers and producers more quickly? Do you think it ultimately hurt the genre?

A: The hour has its own strong points, but personally I prefer the half hour. It allows for less wiggle room in terms of keeping a solid, dependable core of characters. Henry Slesar once told me that he found headwriting the hour-long “One Life to Live” far more exhausting than his previous half-hour assignments. He included the times he did “Somerset” and then “Search for Tomorrow” while still writing “Edge of Night.” Burnout? Definitely.

Q: How did your career in soap journalism come about? What was a typical day in the office like?

A: As a teenager, I started writing letters to editors Paul Denis of Daytime TV and Jon-Michael Reed of Daily TV Serials. The latter gave me a shot at writing articles, and soon I was also ghostwriting his weekly syndicated plot summaries! From there, I wrote for both Jon-Michael Reed and Connie Passalacqua at Afternoon TV, then Soap Opera Digest where I compiled the fun Soap Opera Digest Scrapbook. As a freelancer, there was no “typical day in the office,” and I liked it that way.

Q: What was your favorite soap studio to visit and why? Which had the best sets?

 A: I didn’t have a favorite soap studio to visit, as I enjoyed every one I went to. Nor does one show stand out as having the best sets, as they evolved with tastes (and budgets) over the years.

Q: When doing a critical review of a show, what was your best reaction? And what was your most contentious reaction? Did you ever have a producer or network exec admit that you were spot-on in a review and that they needed to retool the soap?

A: I received many supportive reactions from producers, writers, directors, and performers. While no producers went so far as to “retool” a show as a result of my reviews, I was honored when Joe Stuart told me that I was correct in saying that they had played too much of the Buchanans at the expense of other characters on “One Life to Live.” He assured me, “It’s not going to happen again.” And it didn’t. As for contentious reactions, my negative comments about “The Doctors” were not well received either by viewers or by one particular performer on the show. Then again, that show died one of the longest, most excruciating deaths in soap history.

Q: Do you feel like your bosses gave you full support when there was pushback?

A: Absolutely. No question.

Q: You’ve seen the births and deaths of numerous daytime dramas. Which soaps do you feel had the best start and worst start? And which shows do you feel had the most satisfying or disastrous last episode?

A: Having seen plenty of soap episodes that were before my time, I have to say both “Search for Tomorrow” and “Ryan’s Hope” had the strongest premiere and final episodes. The first episodes established the values and conflicts of the central families, while the last episodes were especially heartfelt. By contrast, I thought the premiere of “Santa Barbara” was a joke. Channing Capwell Jr. was such a preppy snot I didn’t care who had done him in. Both the Perkins and Andrade families had obnoxious fathers. I was actually hoping the show would be restructured around Breeze, the Lockridge family Doberman, who I thought was a more effective matriarch than Dame Judith Anderson. Co-creator Bridget Dobson’s father, Frank Hursley of “General Hospital,” unreservedly wondered aloud how the thing ever got on the air. And for the worst finales, both “Love of Life” and “Capitol” failed their viewers with unresolved cliffhangers.

Q: Was there ever a soap that you just could not get into?

A: “The Best of Everything.” For one, it premiered in 1970 when we were glutted with half-hour soaps, and it was aired opposite one of my favorites, “Where the Heart Is.” (That show was one guilty pleasure.) And it was about “four career girls” in New York City with one family headed by Geraldine Fitzgerald, but there were just too many singular characters to latch onto. It had a beautiful musical score by Laurence Rosenthal and sets by the outstanding Sy Tomashoff, but basically it was like one of those Broadway shows where one walked out of the theater “humming the scenery.”

Q: What was the first sign that you felt daytime dramas were in trouble?

A: As far as I am concerned, the Luke and Laura story on “General Hospital” did irreparable damage to daytime. It was a romance born out of rape and perpetuated by an outlandish story about a madman freezing Port Charles from a faraway control center. After a while, the show went back to basics, but it was already too late. Most other soaps tried to outdo one another with wacky stories built around “supercouples.” No wonder primetime television in the ’80s was so successful with the likes of “Dallas” as well as made-for-TV movies about alcoholics, midlife crisis, dysfunctional families and the like. These were character-driven dramas that typical soap viewers found more satisfying than the pure camp going on in the daytime.

Q: As soaps slowly lost viewers and ratings, do you feel certain network exec interference or execs that weren’t knowledgeable about soaps played a major role in soaps’ downfall? 

A: No question. Writers told me some horror stories about the clueless buffoons they had to deal with. And some of the most experienced producers were not above pulling some fast ones out of desperation or self-preservation.

Q:  When do you feel the point of no return happened? 

A: I honestly can’t say that it happened. Admittedly, I don’t watch the shows anymore, but I read great things about “Beyond the Gates” and am happy that “General Hospital” is finally regaining momentum. There’s still hope.

Q: What adjustments have the current soaps made that have them keeping up with the times? 

A: Soaps have kept up with the times from as far back as the 1960s in many ways. I cannot say the same for the current soap climate — especially the two Bell soaps, “Y&R” and “B&B.” What young viewer could possibly relate to the constant corporate gamesmanship or the neurotic need to please a shameless tyrant like Victor Newman? (And as an aside, there is a case of one of soaps’ most multifaceted characters reduced to a tiresome caricature.)

Q: What mistakes do you feel the five soaps are making right now?

A: The biggest mistake is that practically everyone is filthy rich. Where is the contrast? Here millions of Americans are struggling to keep food on the table, yet we don’t see the everyday challenges of the workers at the Chancellor Mills! They are mere unseen, unheralded pawns in the unending cycle of corporate takeovers.

Q: Looking back, which producers and head writers were most beneficial to the genre? And which were not?

 A: Roy Winsor was a genius of a producer. He created “Search for Tomorrow,” “Love of Life” and “The Secret Storm” with a firm handle on character development and central story themes. He groomed and empowered directors Larry Auerbach and Gloria Monty and hired sophisticated writers such as John Hess, Don Ettlinger, and Jane and Ira Avery. Of course, we can all name influential writers — Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, Bill Bell, Henry Slesar, Harding (Pete) Lemay, Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer, Doug Marland — all of whom greatly influenced and enhanced this medium. I would add creators Irving Vendig of “Edge of Night” and Frank and Doris Hursley of “General Hospital,” as well as Gordon Russell of “One Life to Live.” There were plenty of writers I did not like, although given some of the current state of affairs, they don’t look so bad to me after all!

Q: What is your opinion of online soap sites and reporting?

A: Varied. There is so much clickbait that amounts to little more than a writer imagining what could possibly happen in a story line.

Q: Are you surprised how soap nostalgia has become an industry? Did you ever expect there would be people who would preserve daytime history by finding and digitizing old episodes and scripts?

  A: I knew it had to happen. I have collected and traded such items for decades and am not a bit surprised that so many others — predominantly men, by the way — are engaging in these welcome nostalgic pursuits.