Martha Byrne remembers Lily finding out she was adopted on As the World Turns.
As the World Turns fans recall the era when Douglas Marland was the show’s head writer (1985-1993). One of his most memorable and dramatic ATWT tales was Lily’s (Martha Byrne) paternity. On the 30th anniversary of Marland’s untimely passing, Soap Hub chatted with Byrne about this storyline.
Before delving into Lily’s paternity, Marland first gave teenage Byrne a story beat to see how she could handle heavy, emotional material. “Dusty [Brian Bloom] had been hit by a car and then, Lily sat by his bedside,” Byrne recalls. After the actress delivered an emotional monologue in the hospital, the show realized that she could deliver the goods.
Marland wrote a story in which Lily had been adopted by Lucinda Walsh (Elizabeth Hubbard) after her birth mother, Iva Snyder (the late Lisa Brown), gave her up for adoption. Both mothers were determined to keep Lily from learning the truth, but the women were often at odds. When Iva mistakenly thought that ‘Rod Landry’ (AKA Josh Snyder, played by William Fichtner), Lily’s biological father, was attacking her, she blurted out, “She’s your daughter!”
“I remember we shot that at the end of the day,” Byrne recalls of Lily learning what nearly everyone else in Oakdale already knew — that she was Iva’s daughter. “Those scenes were hand-penned by Doug. I think you could tell when he did that. His writing staff was incredible, but he wrote those scenes. When they were special, he’d do that. I knew it was going to be a big day. Bill and Lisa, and I were all in it together. I watch the scenes now; Lisa Brown, may she rest in peace, what an actor! Her subtlety and her subtext was second to none. The fact that she never won an Emmy still shocks me.”
Byrne remembers championing Fichtner’s casting despite his being a tad young for the role of Lily’s father. She recalls his talent as well as Brown’s. “Bill was special,” the actress says. “Lisa was a very confident actor. She knew how to get performances out of the other actors across from her. She was an unselfish actor. When you see those scenes, they could have been all about her. But she made them about [Iva’s] daughter. She let it unfold.”
Rod/Josh started to put things together first. Then, Lily demanded to know what was going on and demanded Rod and Iva stop talking as if she wasn’t even there. When Iva told Lily she was her mother, this look came across Lily’s face as if she was acknowledging something she knew deep down all along. “There was a numbness,” Martha Byrne says. “[Lily] had had a connection with this woman all along.”
After Lily was faced with the truth about her shocking origins, she ran away from home and was off-screen for a bit, which worked out nicely as it allowed Byrne to take a well-deserved vacation. “Lily ran away, and Martha went on vacation,” she says. “I went to the Jersey Shore like I always do. I felt like a boxer at the end of the match. I left it all in the ring. I was very tired and drained. [But] it was the best feeling. I worked with the best sparring partners you could imagine.”
Douglas Marland climaxed this tale around the time fan favorite and Daytime Emmy nominee Scott Bryce exited the canvas as Craig (which ended up being for about a year). If anyone was tempted to stop programming their VCRs (ask your parents, kids) because Craig was not on the show, they couldn’t if they wanted to see the emotional fallout from Lily’s paternity being revealed.
“[Scott] and Liz together were dynamic, and he and Lisa were, too. I think anybody with Lisa was great, and Scotty is great with everybody,” Byrne offers. “Lisa knew exactly how to handle Liz in the best way. [Lisa] said, ‘You’ll never reach her. She lives on her own plane. You need to counter her energy.’ That’s why their dynamic was so good. They were so good on camera together.”
All of the great drama on ATWT during this time would not have been possible without Douglas Marland, who passed away on March 6, 1993. “Doug was the best,” Byrne recalls. “He was very loyal.”
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