Peyton Place (TV series)
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Peyton Place was America's first long-running nighttime soap opera.
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[edit] Show History
It aired 514 half-hour episodes on ABC from September 15, 1964 to June 2, 1969 and was produced by 20th Century Fox Television. The show aired in black-and-white from 1964 to 1966 and in color from 1966 to 1969. It was the only nighttime series ever to run continuously without reruns.
Paul Monash, one of the people who adapted Peyton Place for television, hated the term soap opera and instead wished that the show be called a television novel.
[edit] The opening
Each episode would begin with shots of the town as well as shots of the leading players. When the show was in black-and-white, the announcer would intone to the sound of church bells, "This is the continuing story of Peyton Place." In 1966, the announcer altered his message to fit the new color standard, informing the audience to the change: "In color, the continuing story of Peyton Place."
[edit] Plot
The first stories were a blueprint from the 1956 book and 1957 movie of the same name. The premise was gossip spreading in a small New England town. In its first episode, Dr. Michael Rossi (Ed Nelson) came from New York to set up practice in town. The newspaper editor, Matthew Swain (Warner Anderson) told Rossi that people usually try to get away from towns like Peyton Place, not move to them. Matthew's niece Allison MacKenzie (Mia Farrow), a close friend of classmate Norman Harrington (Christopher Connelly), had begun to fall in love with his older brother Rodney (Ryan O'Neal); she was smitten as soon as she had been given her first kiss. At the end of the episode, Allison's mother, Constance (Dorothy Malone) made it very clear that she disapproved of her daughter's newfound relationship with Rodney.
Rodney was distracted when he found his father Leslie (Paul Langton) in a passionate embrace with his secretary Julie Anderson (Kasey Rogers), the mother of Rodney's girlfriend Betty (Barbara Parkins). Rodney started anew with Allison as soon as he made it clear to Betty that he couldn't date her anymore. Betty was confused and hurt as Rodney did not tell her why he was dumping her. He would take her back rather quickly, marrying her to spite his father in an October 1964 episode.
Meanwhile, another principal character entered Peyton Place midway through the first season - Elliot Carson (Tim O'Connor), Allison's birth father, who had been imprisoned for the murder of his wife Elizabeth, though the actual culprit was Catherine Peyton Harrington (Mary Anderson), Rodney's spoilt and manipulative mother. He eventually cleared his name and married Constance MacKenzie. They later had a baby son Matthew together, though Matthew had been transformed into a daughter called Kelly (Deborah Goodrich) by the time of the 1985 sequel to the series, 'Peyton Place: The Next Generation'.
In September 1965, Malone was rushed into emergency surgery, and producers were faced with a dilemma - what to do with Constance, who at that point was too deeply embroiled in the plot line to suddenly disappear? Lola Albright was hired to take over the role, and continued in the series until Malone returned in January 1966.
For two years, Rodney could not decide whether to be with Allison, the girl he loved, or Betty, the girl he married. In 1966, Mia Farrow left the series to focus on a movie career and her recent marriage to Frank Sinatra. With Allison's disappearance, Betty was more or less allowed to have Rodney, as her main competition had left town. Betty eventually divorced Rodney, married dark and handsome attorney Steven Cord (James Douglas), then divorced him and re-married Rodney, in keeping with the convoluted lifestyles of these small town inhabitants. The rivalry between Rodney Harrington and Steven Cord was intensified by the fact that they were actually half-brothers. Though raised by Hannah Cord, Steven was actually the illegitimate son of Catherine Peyton Harrington.
Allison's presence was still felt heavily in storylines as she continued to be mentioned in dialogue. First, a mysterious woman named Rachel Welles (Leigh Taylor-Young, who later married and divorced O'Neal), arrived with Allison's bracelet; then in 1968, Jill Smith (Joyce Jillson, whose later claim to fame was as an astrologer) came to town claiming she was raising Allison's baby, although in these pre-DNA times the child's parentage was never proven. (Jill later married Joe Rossi, Michael's younger brother). The plot device of Allison's disappearance, unresolved during the actual series, was concluded without Mia Farrow ever appearing again, and in two different ways, in a couple of sequels that contradicted each other: 'Murder in Peyton Place' (1978) and 'Peyton Place: The Next Generation' (1985).
Another major character added in later seasons was town patriarch Martin Peyton (George Macready), who was only referred to when the show began. (In an odd case of history repeating itself, Macready was sidelined by illness for a brief period and temporarily replaced by Wilfrid Hyde-White.) There was also a long run of excellent performances by Ruth Warrick as Peyton's long-standing and secretive housekeeper, Hannah Cord.
A number of big screen names joined the cast for extended intervals among them Gena Rowlands, Dan Duryea, Susan Oliver and Lee Grant, who won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama for her role of tough-as-nails Stella Chernak. The series also served as a springboard for the careers of Leslie Nielsen, Mariette Hartley and Lana Wood (Natalie's sister).
In 1968, in order to keep pace with the changing times, the writers introduced integration to Peyton Place in the form of African-American Dr. Harry Miles (Percy Rodriguez) and his wife Alma (Ruby Dee). Despite the noble effort, their inclusion rang a false note, and their story lines were never fully developed. An actor on the show, Glynn Turman, also worked as a script-writer on the show.
In the final year, with the departure of Dorothy Malone (Constance) and Tim O'Connor (Elliot), Ed Nelson became the lead actor on the series, and many of the stories revolved around him. His romantic interest during the final season was Marsha Russell (Barbara Rush). In the final episode his character Michael Rossi was put on trial for a murder he did not commit. The show ended with the audience unaware as to the outcome, though all must have turned out well as Rossi was back on duty at the hospital in the 1978 and 1985 film sequels to the series. Constance and Elliot Carson were back in town as well.
[edit] Ratings and schedules
When the show premiered in 1964, Peyton Place aired twice a week. Both installments of the show were Top 20 hits in the Nielsen ratings and this inspired ABC to air the show three times a week starting in the fall of 1965. Many television historians now consider this move to be overkill. The season ratings for Peyton Place never rose into the Top 30 shows again and the serial's production was dropped down to two episodes a week, accordingly. In 1969, with the show losing viewers with each episode, Peyton Place was only aired in one installment a week until the final episode was shown in June.
The show was one of the first seen on network television to talk about sex and infidelity in a frank manner. As such, ABC brass would only allow the show to be aired at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time, an hour in which many kids and teenagers were to be in bed. With the show in a ratings slump in 1968, the show was moved to 8:30 p.m. in order to get the viewers they had once shunned.
The series was revived as a daytime program from April 3, 1972 to January 4, 1974 as Return to Peyton Place. Three of the actors from the primetime series reprised their roles on the daytime series -- Frank Ferguson as Eli Carson, Patricia Morrow as Rita Harrington, and Evelyn Scott as Ada Jacks. However, the daytime series did not prove to be as successful as the primetime series had been.
[edit] Trivia
- The success of Peyton Place inspired rival network CBS to spin the character of Lisa Miller Hughes from As the World Turns off into her own prime time drama, Our Private World, in 1965, adopting the same twice-weekly format as Peyton Place had at the time. The show was neither a critical nor ratings success, however, and Lisa returned to As the World Turns the following year.
- Allison McKenzie was Mia Farrow's first major role. It was claimed the vulnerability she experienced as a polio patient in her childhood contributed greatly to her performance.
- Farrow was the daughter of acclaimed film director John Farrow and actress Maureen O'Sullivan, the original Jane in the Tarzan film series.
- Originally, Betty Anderson was scheduled to be killed in a car accident early in the first season, but viewer reaction to the character was so strongly positive that the writers decided to alter the plot, thus guaranteeing actress Parkins a long and lucrative run in the series.
