Jerry Dobson along with other well-known names in the world of daytime drama, are being honored with either a Gold or Silver Circle Awards at the 51st Annual Daytime Emmys on Friday. Soap Hub sat down with the legendary writer, who not only co-created Santa Barbara with his late wife Bridget, but also had memorable head-writing tenures at As the World Turns and Guiding Light.
A Real-Life Soap Opera Supercouple
Dobson says he’s quite touched to be receiving a Gold Circle Award from NATAS (read about the other honorees here) — the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, honoring his 50 years of service to daytime drama. The accolade, alas, is bittersweet. “[My wife] should be here for this,” Dobson tells Soap Hub about Bridget, who passed away earlier this year. “This is for Bridgie. She was the genius behind it all.”
Bridget felt the same about her husband. She credited her husband for being the genius behind the Santa Barbara characters when she accepted the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 1988. “Well, she learned to lie a lot from soap opera writing,” quips Dobson.
Bridget’s late parents, and Jerry’s late in-laws, are two names known to General Hospital viewers as their names appear on the show’s credits daily — Frank and Doris Hursley. Dobson said that Bridget asked her parents to let her be a writer for GH. They eventually gave her a shot. “Bridgie didn’t want to just write one script — she wanted to write all of them,” Dobson proudly says.
Port Charles to Springfield
After a stint as GH’s head scribes, the Dobsons were approached by Procter & Gamble exec Bob Short, who wanted the duo to take on the NBC serial Somerset, a spinoff of Another World. One reason Bridget turned it down was because she wanted to write an hour-long serial. The Dobsons became top scribes at GL in 1975 and, a few years later, the CBS soap opera expanded to an hour in length.
While in Springfield, the couple created the Spaulding family and wrote the martial rape story involving Roger Thorpe (Michael Zaslow) and Holly Norris Thorpe (Maureen Garrett). The Dobsons won the 1980 Writers Guild Award for Daytime Serial writing for GL.
Springfield to Oakdale
The scribes next moved to ATWT where they created super-villain James Stenbeck (Anthony Herrera), an antagonist who had an impact in Oakdale for decades. Dobson quipped that he and Bridget were indirectly responsible for actors getting together romantically after they wrote love stories for their characters. Case in point Larry Bryggman (John Dixon) and Jacqueline Schutlz (Dee Stewart) wed in real-life after their characters were paired together. “Stuff like that happened all the time,” Dobson says.
Go West
After leaving GL, the two were approached by NBC to consider writing Days of our Lives or AW. The network then offered the couple their own soap opera. The Dobsons agreed and named their show after a city in California they lived in for years — Santa Barbara. The show’s chief families were the Capwells and the Lockridges; Santa Barbara had its share of supercouples including Cruz (A Martinez) and Eden (Marcy Walker), Julia (Nancy Lee Grahn) and Mason (Lane Davies) (read how they’re reunited on GH here), and CC (Jed Allan) and Sophia (Judith McConnell).
NBC built a studio for Santa Barbara, which remains today as part of the Burbank Studios. The Dobsons cast their pal Dame Judith Anderson (who played Mrs. Danvers in the film Rebecca) as feisty Minx Lockridge.
Santa Barbara was the only second serial to debut as an hour-long program (the first was Texas). Santa Barbara premiered to much fanfare, launching the career of The Princess Bride and House of Cards actress Robin Wright. The Dobsons came and went from the show over the years, winning the 1992 Writers Guild Award for Daytime Serial for Santa Barbara.
“We went through several actors as C.C. Capwell,” Dobson recalls. “NBC launched us during the Olympics, which were airing on ABC.”
Alas, the counterprogramming backfired as ABC had exceptionally strong numbers — including female viewers — watching the 1984 Summer Olympics. “We all figured we were very, very clever to start the show at the beginning of the Olympics because surely no women would be watching the Olympics,” Dobson recollects. “It turned out no women watched Santa Barbara.”
Despite facing tough competition during and after the Olympics — the show aired opposite top-rated General Hospital and Guiding Light — Santa Barbara ran for nine years and retains a loyal audience to this day.
Soap Hub congratulates Jerry Dobson and all the Gold and Silver Circle Award recipients. Don’t miss them being honored at the 51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday, June 7 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and on Paramount+.
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