The Kingsington Journal: TV Series: One Life to Live

Friday, January 13, 2012

TV Series: One Life to Live – 1968-2012

One Life to Live (also abbreviated as OLTL) is an American soap opera which debuted on the ABC television network on July 15, 1968 Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social issues. One Life to Live was expanded from 30 minutes to 45 minutes on July 26, 1976, and then to a full hour on January 13, 1978.

Focused on the members and relationships of the Lord family since the show's inception, actress Erika Slezak has portrayed original and central heroine Victoria "Viki" Lord on One Life to Live since March 1971 and has won a record six Daytime Emmy Awards for the role. In 2002 the series won an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. Daily repeat broadcasts of the series appear weeknights on SOAPnet with a day-behind repeat airing the following weekday morning and a rebroadcast of all the previous week's episodes on Saturday nights. Taped in New York City, One Life to Live is the last American soap opera based outside the Los Angeles area.

On April 14, 2011, ABC announced that it had canceled One Life to Live, citing low ratings, high production costs and viewers' changing tastes. On July 7, 2011, production company Prospect Park announced that it would continue the show as a web series after its run on ABC, but later suspended the project due to numerous complications.[9] The final scenes of One Life to Live were taped on November 18, 2011. One Life to Live is scheduled to air its final episode on January 13, 2012

One Life to Live is set in the fictional city of Llanview, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show originally concentrated on the wealthy Lord family, the less wealthy Siegels (the first attempt to showcase a Jewish family on daytime television), the middle-class Rileys and Woleks, and the African-American Grays. One Life to Live has been called "the most peculiarly American of soap operas: the first serial to present a vast array of ethnic types, broad comic situations, a constant emphasis on social issues, and strong male characters."

Since its inception, One Life to Live has centered on the character of Victoria "Viki" Lord (originated by Gillian Spencer), who has been portrayed by six-time Emmy winner Erika Slezak since March 1971. Long-suffering heroine Viki has weathered love and loss, widowhood, rape, divorce, stroke, and breast cancer, and has been memorably plagued by dissociative identity disorder (or DID, once known as multiple personality disorder) on and off for decades. Viki has also had heart problems, leading up to having the heart of her dying husband transplanted into her, to save her life.

The apparent murder of Marco Dane by Viki Lord and ensuing Karen Wolek prostitution storyline in 1979 garnered widespread critical acclaim and several Daytime Emmy Awards. The 1980s brought great ratings success and rose to prominence Viki's sister, Tina, and the Buchanan family. Into the 1990s, the show introduced the first married interracial couple in soap operas, attorneys Hank and Nora Gannon, and the story of the involvement of Viki's estranged brother, Todd, with the rape of Marty Saybrooke, called "one of the show's most remembered and impactful."

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Tribute to One Life To Live 1968-2012 Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7KI1ZgL7jw