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As the Borsht Belt turns~
Soap opera stars play the Catskills!
by Allan Sugarman
On the weekend of April 15,
1977, two nugor cultural and
social forces met for the first
time. It may not go down ia
history with the First Zionist
Congress or the Potsdam
Conference, but to some people
in this country it was more
significant than any of the
above.
On that weekend, ten major
soap opera stars came to the
Borscht Belt, to the Granit Hotel
in Kerhonkson, New York, to
meet their fans for a Soap Opera
Festival.
More than 40,000,000 people
watch soap operas every week*
day of the year. On any given
day, the viewing audience of a
single soap opera exceeds the
combined audiences of “Fiddler
of the Roof," “My Fair Lady"
and “Sound of Music” for their
entire Broadway runs. Watching
the “soaps” is more than an in
cidental pastime for one out of
five people in the United States;
it is a collective state of
"hookedness." Schedules are re
arranged, car-pools are re
shuffled, piano lessons are re
scheduled just so viewers won’t
have to miss their favorite
daytime drama.
Why would a Soap Opera
Festival decide to go to the
watering hole of the Catskills?
Because there are fans there,
hundreds of them who were so
thrilled to meet the stars who
have been entering their homes
on a daily basis for up to 26
years. It was as exciting for
these fans to meet
the stars as it would
be for others to meet ... i
the likes of Muham
mad Ali, Elisabeth
Taylor, or Ikavdil,
a great rebbe.
There is that fasci
nation, that curiosi
ty, that magic that
makes most people
want to see in the
flesh the personali
ties who appear either in the
movies or on television.
Item: Mr. and Mrs. Morris
Schwarts are in their mid-70’s.
They are both retired; they have
two sons, one living in Tucson,
the other in South Carolina.
They are alone. Their day con
sists of breakfast, lunch and
watching soap operas. Their only
family is the Hughes family on
“As the World Turns.” The
Schwarts’s came up to the
"L'Chaim — to Life" on air
Granit Hotel to meet Eileen
Fulton who plays Lisa Hughes
Coiman and to invite her to their
modest Brooklyn home. I was
there when the pair met the star.
They touched her hand, kissed
her and told her in an accent
that has not quite disappeared
that they loved her.
Item: Jeffrey
David Pomerants,
who portrays Dr.
Peter Jansenn on
“One Life to Live”
was an active
member of the
Jewish community
in Niles, Illinois. Jef
frey lifted his wine
cup high that Fri
day night and re
cited the Ktddush tor all those
hundreds in the dining room.
Many fans came up to him after
dinner and said that they did not
realise that he was even Jewish.
These fans were thrilled to know
that this top soap opera per
sonality, who is seen by over 10
million people a day, was one of
their own.
Item: Michael Levin, who por
trays Jack Fenelli on “Ryan’s
Hope” found himself deep in
conversation with a patron of
the hotel discussing, not the
show’s story-line, but which
Hagaddah he used for the Seder.
Item:The beautiful Jacquie
Courtney, who portrays Pat
Kendall on “One Life to Live,”
has chosen as her serious hobby,
when she is not on the studio set,
the study of Hebrew. Her dream
is to visit Israel, but she will not
go until she has mastered the
language that is truly foreign to
her. A torn copy of "Ha-Sefer” is
on her dressing room table. She
told a group of fans who were
standing with her near the
volley-ball court of her plans.
They walked away shaking their
heads in disbelief.
The hundreds of people who
were at the Granit Hotel and the
millions of others who read
about the Soap Opera Festival in
Newsweek or watched the CBS-
TV’s recent “Magazine” show
came away with one simple con
clusion: The soap opera stars
reflect the image of society.
They reflect the happiness, the
tragedy, the hopes and the
fulfillment of each one of us.
JffrbhDicMt
“L’Chaim — To Life,” a series
of broadcasts exploring various
aspects of Jewish life in America
and Israel, will be featured each
Sunday at 10:30 a.m. on WSB
Radio (750) as the summertime
replacement for the NBC “Eter
nal Light” series.
Presented by WSB Radio in
cooperation with the
Southeastern Office of the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai
B’rith, the Beries is hosted by
WSB’s Aubrey Morris and
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