The long-running ABC daytime drama “All My Children” is celebrating its 40th anniversary today. I’ve been only an occasional viewer, but I can appreciate how someone can get hooked on the show. My wife and her family, for instance. They’ve been totally into the lives of the residents of fictional Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, since 1970, the year the soap opera debuted. Lori’s grandmother, in fact, liked to plan her day so she’d never miss her “stories,” the word she used to refer to soap operas.
My interest in All My Children was always in cast members I’d recognize from other shows. David Canary, for instance, has played Adam Chandler for 25 years on AMC. But, for six years back in the ‘70s, I knew him as Candy on Bonanza. Lee Meriwether co-starred on Barnaby Jones and Mission Impossible long before she became Ruth Martin. Add to the list Marj Dusay, Vanessa Cortlandt, who guest starred in some of my favorite ‘60s and ‘70s shows (Mannix, Get Smart, Cannon and Hawaii Five-0, for instance) before signing on with AMC.
And then there was the involvement in the show of two Smooth Jazzers. Keyboardist Billy Barber, one of the founding members of the contemporary jazz band Flim and the BBs, wrote the first theme song to All My Children. In 1999, for AMC’s 30th anniversary, another musician familiar to Smooth Jazz fans, David Benoit was asked to compose a new theme. He came up with a typical Benoit composition, full of warmth and grace and featuring lead piano and strings. That theme lasted for two seasons before the producers went back to the original Barber piece, which can still be heard today whenever the show comes on here in Chicago at noon.
Soap operas are an endangered species these days. I just hope All My Children has a little more life left in it. For me and especially for my wife, it’s always been a cut above the rest of the daytime dramas.
