The Secret Storm
The Secret Storm is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from February 1, 1954, to February 8, 1974. It was created by Roy Winsor, who also created the long-running soap operas Search for Tomorrow and Love of Life. Gloria Monty, of General Hospital fame, was a longtime director of the series.
Like most CBS soap operas of the time, such as Guiding Light and As the World Turns, The Secret Storm was broadcast live, and later taped, in New York at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street. At some point in the 1970s up until cancellation, it was taped at CBS Studio 54 at 221 West 26th Street in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.
Plot
The story follows the Ames family, a prominent clan in the fictional Northeastern United States town of Woodbridge. The Ames family initially consisted of Peter, his wife Ellen, and their three children: Susan, Jerry, and Amy. However, Ellen was killed in the first episode and subsequent stories focused on Peter raising his three children. Lending a hand, however dubiously, was Peter's sister-in-law, as well as his former fiancée Pauline Rysdale.Despite Susan's and Pauline's efforts to derail any new romances in Peter's life, he eventually remarried twice. His first remarriage was to Myra Lake, one of Amy's teachers, but that ended in divorce. His second and more successful remarriage was to divorcee Valerie Hill, to whom he was married until his death.
Later, the villainous Belle Clemens was the main source of trouble for Woodbridge, taking over from Aunt Pauline, the show's original villain. When Belle's daughter Robin drowned in an accident, Belle blamed Amy for the death.
Development
Amy was allowed to age in real time rather than suddenly aging as many younger soap characters did. Jada Rowland played the character with a few breaks for the duration of the program. Other actresses in the role included Beverly Lunsford, June Carter and Lynne Adams.Actress/writer Stephanie Braxton and actor Dan Hamilton met while performing on the show, and later married. Lori March, who played Valerie Hill Ames for many years, later played the wife of her real-life husband Alexander Scourby. Actress Diana Muldaur also married co-star James Vickery.
Some performers who appeared on The Secret Storm and later achieved greater fame include Warren Berlinger, James Broderick, John Colicos, Christina Crawford, Jennifer Darling, Cliff DeYoung, Joan Hotchkis, Barnard Hughes, Don Galloway, Audrey Landers, Ken Kercheval, Ed Kemmer, Terry Kiser, Diane Ladd, Laurence Luckinbill, Biff McGuire, Kim Milford, Donna Mills, Robert Morse, George Reinholt, Jane Rose, Gary Sandy, Roy Scheider, Robin Strasser, Frank Sutton and Edward Winter.
Other well-known performers who appeared on the show include Joan Crawford, Troy Donahue, Marjorie Gateson, Margaret Hamilton, Jeffrey Lynn, Alexander Scourby, Madeleine Sherwood and Frances Sternhagen.
Actress Bethel Leslie was at one time co-head writer. Other noted head writers include Jane and Ira Avery, and its final head writer Gabrielle Upton.
Joan Crawford
In 1968, Oscar-winning actress Joan Crawford, at the time over 60 years old, filled in for her ailing daughter, Christina, who portrayed Joan Borman Kane, a character aged just 24. The episodes were broadcast on October 25, 28, 29 and 30. Although no full shows with Crawford are known to exist, clips have appeared on YouTube. The 1981 film Mommie Dearest portrayed Crawford's appearance without specifying the name of the series.Broadcast history
CBS first placed The Secret Storm at 4:15 pm as a 15-minute program, sandwiched between The Brighter Day and On Your Account. Beginning in 1957, it competed against ABC's American Bandstand, then a weekday show.On June 18, 1962, CBS extended The Secret Storm to 30 minutes, and The Brighter Day was moved to an early-morning time slot. The Secret Storm took over the 4:00 pm time slot, where it ran for six years and mainly competed against NBC's Match Game. However, in 1966, the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows premiered on ABC, and that prompted CBS to move The Secret Storm back an hour to 3:00 pm Eastern on September 9, 1968, facing NBC's fast-rising Another World & ABC's General Hospital.
The Secret Storm moved from black and white to color broadcasts on September 11, 1967.
After four years of mediocre ratings, CBS changed the show's timeslot to 3:30 Eastern on September 11, 1972, as part of a major overhaul of its daytime line-up. The Secret Storm followed Love is a Many Splendored Thing; That show was cancelled in 1973. CBS eventually returned The Secret Storm to its previous 4:00 pm time on March 26, 1973. However, its audience share, and ratings failed to keep it afloat in an increasingly cost-competitive network daytime scene.
Finally, as a result of pre-emptions mounting from key affiliates such as KPIX in San Francisco, and an economic recession causing a decline in ad revenues, CBS decided to cancel the serial in 1974 and replace it with a less-expensive game show, Tattletales. This had also been the reason for the cancellations of Where the Heart Is and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing the previous year.
In all the turmoil of its later years, the main reason for the show's demise may have been CBS's choice to buy the show from the original sponsor/packager, American Home Products, in 1969. After CBS purchased the show, it suffered from numerous head writer and producer changes. AHP's primary task after reacquiring the rights to the show in 1974, the year CBS cancelled the show, was to continue the series by syndicating it elsewhere. However, NBC executive Lin Bolen rejected the show in favor of her own project, How to Survive a Marriage, and ABC chose to use its daytime budget to buy out Agnes Nixon's soaps. Thus, American Home Products decided not to continue the show even in syndication, due to the lack of clearances among affiliates in the largest markets to justify continued production. The 5,195th and final episode was shown one week after the show's 20th anniversary.
Title sequences
The series had two distinctive opening visuals. The first was an illustration of a tree with windblown branches, used from the first episode until around 1960. The second was a live-action film clip of an ocean surf at high tide, crashing against the rocks.For a brief period in 1967, The Secret Storm, in its first color days, featured shots of a town meant to represent the community Woodbridge. The opening was similar to that of the primetime drama Peyton Place.
For the last few years of the show, the theme song was the theme from the second movement of the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms. The in-house organist was Charles Paul, later replaced by Eddie Layton. Carey Gold provided a more contemporary sound with synthesizer and piano during the show's later years. Paul returned as Love of Life's final musical director.
Characters
Amy Ames
Amy Kincaid was the main heroine on The Secret Storm and was mostly played by Jada Rowland, who grew up in the role, a rarity for any soap opera character. During a break, Beverly Lunsford replaced Rowland in the part.Amy was the youngest child of Peter and Ellen Ames of the fictional community of Woodbridge, New York. On the first episode, her mother was injured in an automobile accident and died. This sent her father and her older brother and sister, Jerry Ames and Susan Ames Dunbar into grief. The oldest daughter, Susan, became the mother figure, and tended to be very bossy; Jerry went after the driver who caused his mother's death and tried to kill him, but was sent to reform school for this. Amy became worried and everyone was working overtime to make sure her needs were met, because of her young age. During her father's short-lived marriage to Myra Lake, she considered her a mother figure.
Her first marriage was to Kip Rysdale, the son of Arthur Rysdale who had married her aunt Pauline Rysdale. Kip had been with a girl named Nina DeFrancisco, the daughter of his Spanish instructor. When she died, the road opened for them to marry. Then she discovered that she was pregnant by her college professor, Paul Britton. She divorced Kip and married Paul, and from this union, they had a daughter, Lisa. Kip eventually went out with a nasty woman named Janet Hill, who had become Amy's stepsister, due to her mother, Valerie marrying Peter, Amy's father. In a classic episode from the mid-sixties, Amy and Janet squared off over Kip.
Meanwhile, Amy had been on a boat with Belle Clemmens' illegitimate daughter, Robin, when there was an accident. Robin drowned, and Belle, totally furious, intended to make Amy's life miserable, which she did with great glee.
Belle stole Paul Britton from Amy, which sent her into a nervous breakdown. She had been helped by a Dr. Ian Northcote, who had married her stepmother, Valerie Hill Ames. She met a man named Kevin Kincaid, and later on, married him. Conniving Belle had married his father, Dan, after using Paul and throwing him away.
After Kevin was paralyzed from the waist down from a fight with a mobster, Amy was artificially inseminated by a Dr. Brian Neeves. A nurse named Martha Ann Ashley, who was a cohort of Belle's told her what was going on, and Belle used this as a blackmailing tactic against Amy to keep her lover stocked in racing cars. However, this backfired in Belle's face when her lover, Robert Landers, began to see her former ward, Joanna Morrison.
Amy gave birth to Danielle and found out that Kevin had returned to Woodbridge. He had gone to London for surgery, which was successful, and was in the middle of the living room in Valerie's house. He attempted to walk to Amy, but missed the mark by a few inches, he fell to the floor. Amy fell to the floor as well, joined by her daughters Lisa and Danielle. Valerie came into the room and saw the love that her stepdaughter had for her husband, and they never parted again.