September 15, 1964—America’s first wildly successful primetime soap opera—the mother of Dallas, Knots Landing, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and their ilk—Peyton Place, premiered on ABC, giving the struggling network a jolt in the arm.
In the 1960s, it seemed like, whenever ABC had a monster hit, the network’s rule of thumb for replicating the success was: let’s put the show on more than once a week!
All this did was get people sick of the series. It happened to my favorite show as a kid, Batman, and to my mom’s favorite, Peyton Place. The latter started out on a twice-weekly schedule—itself a major departure for primetime—then, when its doings about the pious, hypocritical denizens of the series’ titular small town became all the national rage, three times weekly.
This short-circuited the synapses of viewers, who tuned out to such a point that, when the network tried to recover with its original schedule, it didn’t work. Departures of major cast members didn’t help.
In the 1960s, it seemed like, whenever ABC had a monster hit, the network’s rule of thumb for replicating the success was: let’s put the show on more than once a week!
All this did was get people sick of the series. It happened to my favorite show as a kid, Batman, and to my mom’s favorite, Peyton Place. The latter started out on a twice-weekly schedule—itself a major departure for primetime—then, when its doings about the pious, hypocritical denizens of the series’ titular small town became all the national rage, three times weekly.
This short-circuited the synapses of viewers, who tuned out to such a point that, when the network tried to recover with its original schedule, it didn’t work. Departures of major cast members didn’t help.
When Dr. Michael Rossi peered out in shock from behind a clanging jailhouse door on June 2, 1969, my mom was shocked. So was I.
What happened to him? Was he executed? Proven innocent? Escape and run for governor of South Carolina? We never found out—it was the last episode!
In one of the extraordinary feats of the show, it broadcast year-round—no repeats. Its 514 episodes place it second only to Gunsmoke among dramatic primetime series.
None of this could be enjoyed by the woman who started it all, Grace Metalious, whose 1956 novel got turned into a 1957 film. Not only had she died, at age 39, before the show aired, but, because she had signed away the rights, her estate didn’t earn a penny from the $62 million it made for ABC during its five-year run (the TV equivalent, of course, of forever).
The series was the biggest source of employment for actors of Irish descent outside of the Abbey Theatre or John Ford Westerns. Consider the surnames of major cast member: Mia Farrow, Ryan O’Neal, Christopher Connelly, Dorothy Malone, and Tim O’Connor.
(Though let me tell you: if any of the doings of Peyton Place began happening in the tiny farm community from which my dad hailed, you can bet the locals would be scratching their heads, wondering if something might have gotten into the cows’ milk with everyone acting so queer and all.)
O’Neal’s character, Rodney Harrington, was described onscreen as a “real, healthy, all-American, small-town” boy, the same way the figure Ronald Reagan played, Drake McHugh, in Kings Row (1942) could have been, or as Kyle Maclachlan’s Jeffrey Beaumont could have been in Blue Velvet (1986).
The moral of these stories—and any other you care to name that treated provincial America not satirically, like Sinclair Lewis, but trashily—would be this: If you ever have a hankering for the simple life, run for your life! There are nothing but wife-stealers, wife-beaters, drug addicts, sadists, perverts of every description, even murderers out there!
What happened to him? Was he executed? Proven innocent? Escape and run for governor of South Carolina? We never found out—it was the last episode!
In one of the extraordinary feats of the show, it broadcast year-round—no repeats. Its 514 episodes place it second only to Gunsmoke among dramatic primetime series.
None of this could be enjoyed by the woman who started it all, Grace Metalious, whose 1956 novel got turned into a 1957 film. Not only had she died, at age 39, before the show aired, but, because she had signed away the rights, her estate didn’t earn a penny from the $62 million it made for ABC during its five-year run (the TV equivalent, of course, of forever).
The series was the biggest source of employment for actors of Irish descent outside of the Abbey Theatre or John Ford Westerns. Consider the surnames of major cast member: Mia Farrow, Ryan O’Neal, Christopher Connelly, Dorothy Malone, and Tim O’Connor.
(Though let me tell you: if any of the doings of Peyton Place began happening in the tiny farm community from which my dad hailed, you can bet the locals would be scratching their heads, wondering if something might have gotten into the cows’ milk with everyone acting so queer and all.)
O’Neal’s character, Rodney Harrington, was described onscreen as a “real, healthy, all-American, small-town” boy, the same way the figure Ronald Reagan played, Drake McHugh, in Kings Row (1942) could have been, or as Kyle Maclachlan’s Jeffrey Beaumont could have been in Blue Velvet (1986).
The moral of these stories—and any other you care to name that treated provincial America not satirically, like Sinclair Lewis, but trashily—would be this: If you ever have a hankering for the simple life, run for your life! There are nothing but wife-stealers, wife-beaters, drug addicts, sadists, perverts of every description, even murderers out there!
(One area the show did not explore was the incest of one of the characters from the book and 1957 film. Evidently, in primetime in the Sixties, the theme was still taboo—or, as Phil Hartman’s Frank Sinatra told Dana Carvey’s Woody Allen in an immortal 1992 Saturday Night Live routine: “You gotta keep your mitts off the kinder!”)
(By the way, think of the passage of time that we baby boomers have experienced: O’Neal playing a teenager in Peyton Place, then, a couple of years ago, appearing as Lynette’s father in Desperate Housewives. In Peyton Place, his character ended up in a tree, metaphorically, episode after episode; in Desperate Housewives, he coaxed his grandsons—boys so rambunctious they defeated their corporate-shark mom time and time again—down from a tree, metaphorically--actually, the roof of their house--in one memorable scene.)
For the three young cast members in the love triangle at the heart of Peyton Place, the half-hour series served as intense preparation for the future course of their careers—or even lives:
* Ryan O’Neal won his only Oscar nomination for a film about another tragic love affair, Love Story, then starred in his own multi-year tempestuous off-screen romance with Farrar Fawcett (whom he stole from friend Lee Majors)—and, in a replay of Peyton Place’s theme of the generation gap (so Sixties!), tangled with children Tatum and Redmond.
(By the way, think of the passage of time that we baby boomers have experienced: O’Neal playing a teenager in Peyton Place, then, a couple of years ago, appearing as Lynette’s father in Desperate Housewives. In Peyton Place, his character ended up in a tree, metaphorically, episode after episode; in Desperate Housewives, he coaxed his grandsons—boys so rambunctious they defeated their corporate-shark mom time and time again—down from a tree, metaphorically--actually, the roof of their house--in one memorable scene.)
For the three young cast members in the love triangle at the heart of Peyton Place, the half-hour series served as intense preparation for the future course of their careers—or even lives:
* Ryan O’Neal won his only Oscar nomination for a film about another tragic love affair, Love Story, then starred in his own multi-year tempestuous off-screen romance with Farrar Fawcett (whom he stole from friend Lee Majors)—and, in a replay of Peyton Place’s theme of the generation gap (so Sixties!), tangled with children Tatum and Redmond.
* Mia Farrow divorced Frank Sinatra, stole musician Andre Previn from dear friend Dory, then saw longtime companion Woody Allen betray her in a bananas affair with adopted daughter Soon-Yi.
* By comparison with these two, Barbara Parkins’ off-screen life has been comparatively quiet. But the jealousy and cunning of the bad girl she played, Betty Anderson, must have rubbed off on her in some ways. Only three years after Farrow’s character had a close encounter with Satan in Rosemary’s Baby, Parkins employed the witchery she’d developed on Peyton Place to lure good-guy Alan Alda away from good-girl Jacqueline Bisset in her horror flick, The Mephisto Waltz.
I haven’t seen Peyton Place since its last episode, on June 2, 1969, when Dr. Rossi was tossed in jail on a murder charge, but I swear I can still hum its theme song. Don’t get me started if you want to save your ears!
After all this time, the powers that be have finally gotten around to releasing episodes from Season 1 of Peyton Place on DVD. I’m sure, despite the reunions and “Next Generation”-style spinoffs in the intervening years, that many fans of the series will regard the characters as the return of long-lost friends.
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