Marlena says: Back in the summer of 1983, when soaps were hot and the networks were trying to attract young viewers on school vacations, ABC devised a five-episode soap called The Hamptons, set on Long Island. Its executive producer was Gloria Monty. This was her reward for executive-producing General Hospital in the hot Luke and Laura days. Unfortunately, The Hamptons was a flop. This article is reprinted from Newsday, June 6, 2026, with permission. The author is Andy Edelstein, the paper’s entertainment editor. I wrote a soap column for Newsday for many years. Andy was my editor. Thanks, Andy, for quoting me!
By Andy Edelstein
In the summer of 1983, the hottest trend on network TV was the prime-time soap opera: Shows like Dynasty, Dallas, Falcon Crest and Knots Landing captivated viewers with their tales of treachery, romance and incest among the ultra-rich.
So, thought ABC, why not make room for one more, especially in the summer when these shows were airing reruns? That one more would be among TV’s biggest turkeys and we can proudly hail it as our own. We’re talking about The Hamptons, a misguided attempt to bring the daytime soap sensibility to primetime. Yes, Long Island was (nominally) the setting. But if you blinked, it was gone.
“Nighttime megahits like Dynasty and Dallas were usually over the top to the point of campiness,” explains Connie Passalacqua Hayman, a veteran soap opera journalist. “Everyone was mega-rich, the characters were bigger than life and wore outlandish costumes made by famous designers. In contrast, The Hamptons was more like a toned-down daytime soap opera. It had no big stars like John Forsythe or Larry Hagman. Instead, it featured mostly daytime soap retread actors. Even incest and murder storylines couldn’t spice it up.”
The show certainly had a good pedigree: It was created by Gloria Monty, who had turned General Hospital into a national phenomenon just two years earlier with its storyline about the romance and subsequent wedding of Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis).
The Hamptons focused on two feuding families, the Chadways and the Duncan-Mortimers, dynastic owners of a high-end Manhattan department store. A lot of the action thus had to take place in the city, but the characters did summer in East Hampton. The cast was populated mostly with daytime actors, the most well-known being Leigh Taylor Young (Peyton Place) and Bibi Besch (Somerset).
ABC gave The Hamptons a five-episode order, hoping that would be enough to stir viewers’ interest to turn it into a full-season series. (CBS had tried the same five-part formula with Dallas in 1978 with much success.) The show was shot on videotape to look like a daytime drama and was filmed partially on the East End, with some segments taped in other parts of Long Island and Westchester. The show premiered on July 27 at 9 p.m.
Gloria Monty
On opening night, Newsday sent two reporters to the East End to gauge local reaction. Max Blum of New York and Sagaponack, who was watching the show with ten others at J.G. Melon in Bridgehampton, didn’t mince words: “It was the worst thing I saw in my life. It wasn’t about the Hamptons, it was about hospitals.”
And the Newsday reporters couldn’t resist a little snark: “The viewers were impressed by the opening shots — the windmill at Water Mill, the beach at Southampton, the country club in … oops … Westchester that’s supposed to be Southampton.”
After viewing the first episode, Newsday’s longtime TV critic Marvin Kitman labeled the show a “festival of bad acting,” bemoaning that the show did not look like real Hamptons. Kitman described The Hamptons as “a third-generation rip-off of Dallas, moving the usual conflict from oil to merchandising. but it’s the same venal people wishing everyone else was dead. “The Washington Post’s critic made Kitman seem positively diplomatic: “Totally, irredeemably, amateurishly and idiotically worthless.”
Over the next five weeks, viewers saw the usual daytime tropes: Boardroom battles, bitter family feuds, secret affairs, and the contrast between old aristocratic wealth and aggressive new money. But viewers didn’t tune in and the show aired its final episode of Aug. 24. And not surprisingly, ABC nixed the plan to make it a full-time series.
Today it is virtually impossible to find a full episode of The Hamptons. The best you can do is a podcast discussion, a grainy video of the show’s introduction or two trailers on YouTube. In the latter’s 50 seconds, you’ll get a flavor of the show from the voice-of-God narrator (“From the bedrooms to the boardrooms”) to some choice snippets of overheated acting. Don’t forget to gape at those ’80s hairdos.
On the other hand, maybe deep in the basement or wine cellar of an East Hampton mansion, someone has stashed their collection of The Hamptons VHS tapes. If so, please share with the world immediately.
Great story about a little-known show produced by the fabulous Gloria Monty.
Thanks Mike. A rare miss for her!
And a young Martha Byrne!
Look for an interview with Martha coming up!
I remember watching it and being bored. I expected more from Ms. Monty.
I am a huge fan of Gloria Monty’s work. And sickened I didn’t record this at the time to keep. This is an extremely hard to find show to watch. I have looked high and low and even on bootleg private pages to find it and with no luck. On this show The Hamptons Gloria Monty cast John Reilly as Jay Mortimer. Gloria as so impressed with John that one year later she cast him specifically for the role of Sean Donely on GH in October 1984! Gloria had a tremendous eye for talent when she saw it.
Thanks as always Norman. Gloria did know talent!
Thanks. Again you hit me where I live. I am a collector (and trader) of digital video files, with an emphasis on soaps & THE HAMPTONS is on my list as one of the things I am always looking for. Most of my list is things I have. But this & half of THE MONROES is on my Wish List. The other thing that is “Glo” would be any of the episodes of THE SECRET STORM with Joan Crawford subbing for her very ill daughter Christina. I am a serious student of her & a critic of her in some ways. YouTube does have an episode but it’s Audio Only.
I wrote a column about Joan Crawford’s stint on “The Secret Storm.”