Joyce Becker Sugarman: The Passing of a Beloved Soap World Innovator

Thursday came word that Joyce Becker, an early soap journalist and event impresario, passed away from a stroke at 84. She and her husband Allan Sugarman founded and organized the hugely popular Soap Opera Festivals, a series of mall shows built around soap star appearances. The charismatic Joyce was loved by her journalism colleagues, and the many soap opera stars her productions showcased.

“Joyce has never met a person she didn’t befriend,” said Mimi Torchin, the founding editor of Soap Opera Weekly. Joyce’s great sense of humor, empathy and charm became well known in the soap world when, in 1974, she and Allan premiered their first mall shows in suburban New Jersey and productions that ran continuously until halted by the pandemic in 2020.

Joyce grew up in the South Bronx wanting to be an actress. For her high school newspaper she interviewed Bobby Darin, who turned out to be the first of many celebrities she befriended in her long career. Among them was Elvis Presley. She met him on a trip to the Academy Awards in California, and they grew quite close. Elvis always called her “Ma’am” and, according to her husband, gave her birthday gifts of jewelry she always treasured.

In New York, Joyce worked in the early days of fan magazines with such notables as Paul Denis, who founded DaytimeTV, the first soap magazine, and Milburn Smith, who edited Afternoon TV. Just to see what it was like to act on a soap, she landed a three-day role on “The Doctors” as the nurse of the formidable Dr. Nick Bellini (Gerald Gordon), the husband of Dr. Althea Davis (Elizabeth Hubbard).

Soap journalist Pat Palmer, who worked with her on All Day TV, noted how much Joyce loved the people she worked with and covered. “She always had us all over to her house for wonderful dinners and evenings,” Palmer recounted. It was a time when the soap world — especially the soaps produced in New York — was a remarkably close and friendly community. Later Joyce also did special issues for the new Soap Opera Digest.

She met her loving husband Allan, a public relations executive, in 1974. They were married a year later. Says Allan: “We both invented the Soap Opera Festivals together. But the mall personal appearances and everything we did was really a Joyce Becker production.” Joyce was always the MC.Each show featured four or more soap stars with big names, like Jacqueline Courtney (Alice Matthews, “Another World”) and Ruth Warrick (Phoebe Tyler, “All My Children.”)

The sold-out shows became so popular nationwide that in 1991 one very much like Joyce and Allan’s was portrayed in the movie “Soap Dish,” which was all about a top soap star named Celeste Talbert (Sally Field) rumored to be based on Susan Lucci’s Erica on “All My Children.”  Joyce had many such famous guests at her joyous mall meet-and-greets.Allan fondly remembers the squeals at one of their most popular productions, introducing Stephen Nichols his early days playing Patch Johnson on “Days of Our Lives.”

Allan and Joyce have two children, Elizabeth and David, and two grandchildren. Allan lovingly remembers that Joyce’s strong, amiable personality could even be felt at her funeral service.“At the very end,” he says, “we played Frank Sinatra’s song ‘My Way.’  That was all Joyce.”