Before the Invention of Videos, and All TV Was Live or Film---Soap Operas Were Daily and NO Forgetting Your Lines!

Soap Operas in the Early 1950s -

In the early 1950s Soap Operas had just been invented. The idea? Put out daily serial programs, let advertising for homemakers pay for the programming (read "Soap" a term for products in the home). Bing Crosby, with his investment dollars, and his Research and Development people were aggressively working on the VIDEO, but it had not yet been invented. It wouldn't really be useful and practical until the early 1960s.

In the 50's these daily programs were 15 minutes long and they were LIVE. My father, Burt French was the original "Matt" on "Love of Life". He was a national idol in 1954. Mail was coming in with unprecedented volume. Of course, at the time, they did not know what was unprecedented, since it was all totally new. Put yourself back there. Oh, you can't? Imagine that this was all in its moment of commencement!

"Kinescope" - A Word You Have Never Heard Of Before -

Go back in your mind, if you can, before the time when EVERYBODY had a recording instrument in their hands. On the set, there were only the LIVE TV Cameras. The live programs were broadcast across the NATION, right then, right now, in that moment. But never again. The only thing that preserved that moment was a guy taking a film of the live broadcast with what they called a KINESCOPE. It was a movie of the live broadcast.

DEEP in the Vaults of Some Manhattan Basement -

Not that anyone, except historians would care, but somewhere these years are stored up and sitting in a gray basement with cooled atmosphere and probably not humidified. Burt Frenches performances and thousands of other actors performances are preserved in Kinescope.

When Burt Went Up -

My father told me that he "went up" (forgot his ines) one time, and because there was not video, which allowed for stopping dialogue and beginning again, he kept on talking. The entire production crew was frozen.

They kept shooting and waited for Burt's dialogue to pick up again. THERE WAS NO STOPPING IN LIVE TV. Burt kept on. He "ad libed" through the entire relationship that he and his lover had. 6 minutes later, he hit on a piece of dialogue 3 pages later. When he hit those lines, all the cameras kicked in again. The crew began clicking through their blocking, and the actors relaxed their anxious shoulders.

Burt got on a line that worked. Burt relaxed. Only the Kinescope, which is now locked in a subterranean vault, knew that that particular 15 minute program was "fraught with LIVE NERVES."

"Chris, as a 5 Year Old Staring at the Giant TV Set" -

I had fought with the Italian kids and the Irish kids. It was NOON. We lived under the Triborough Bridge in Astoria, Queens. My Mom would call out with her magnificent alto voice. "Chris, stop playing, its time to come in and see your Father on TV".

I would run in from my Astoria Gang's Hood. My buddies would wonder why my Mother was calling me in to watch TV. How weird! I would stand in front of the TV and touch my father's image. I would "palm" the TV and stare at him. Then, in 15 minutes, it was over.

A 15 Minute Program. It was actually NOTHING at the time. It's just that NOW. I know it was history. He would come back over the Triborough Bridge and go to our apartment in Astoria, study late into the night, and then do the live performance all over again, jumping on the Triborough again and repeating the LIVE challenge.

Not "go up" Again -

"Soap Operas Smoach Operas" - Now, 60 years later, it all seems "so what". But at the time, as a 5 year old, it seemed so strange to watch my Father on TV, take in his fan mail, and have my Mom read it, and then have him come home that night and begin MEMORIZING his lines for the next day's performance. Every night, he would vow to himself, that he would not "go up again".

Before Video

In today's world of TV Commercials, an actor is standing trying to deliver monologue into the camera for an insurance company, and the ENTIRE COMMERCIAL is based upon his inability to deliver the commercial cleanly before a statue. After several attempts, he finally succeeds and the commercial is over.

Pressure? You bet. Nobody has pressure like that now at all. Because this was before VIDEO, this was the most pressure ever on TV people. Those who, in that moment of history, had to play LIVE, were uniquely pressured in that moment. Still wonderful, though, ain't it? Incredible times.

And the big lesson is, no matter what decade it is --- Eventually, you still have to remember your lines!