Monday, April 03, 2006
Obit: Gloria Monty, 84; Producer Reinvented 'General Hospital'
The ANNOTICO Report
Gloria Monty was born Gloria Montemuro on Aug. 12, 1921, in New Jersey to Joseph, a builder, and his wife, Concetta.
Monty, was a producer whose reinvention of the ABC daytime drama "General Hospital" in the late 1970s turned it into a pop phenomenon that helped modernize television soap operas.
When Monty took the reigns of "General Hospital" in 1978, the show hovered on
the brink of cancellation, and Monty was given 13 weeks to save it. With Monty
at the helm, the show won two Emmy Awards as outstanding daytime drama series.
By the 1979-80 season, "General Hospital" had moved to the top of the
ratings and stayed at No. 1 for five years. At the height of "General Hospital" mania, the show earned upwards of $50 million a year
— about one-fourth of ABC-TV's annual profits.
General Hospital revolved around the lives, loves, and deaths
associated with the hospital's seventh floor, the internal medicine department.
The provocative yet always platonic friendship between doctor Steve Hardy and
nurse Jessie Brewer has been a mainstay of the serial. Steve Hardy's personal
concerns stemmed from the chronic ups and downs with love interest Audrey
March, a stewardess turned nurse. Jessie's persistent woes were due mainly to
the indiscretions of h! er wayward husband, cardiologist Dr. Phil Brewer. The
head of student nurses, Lucille March (sister of Audrey), provided comic relief
with her bossy but affectionate banter. Additional intrigue was supplied by Dr.
Tom Baldwin; his brother Lee, an attorney; Lee's wife, Meg-, and her son,
Scotty.
Dr. Steve Hardy, the lead character was played by John Berardino, born Giovanni Berardino in Los Angeles, California (May 1, 1917-May 19,1996, Cancer).
Beradino is often mentioned as having appeared in the silent "Our Gang" comedies produced by Hal Roach as a child actor. After attending the University of Southern California, where he played baseball, he was a major league player from 1939 to 1953, save for three years of military service during WWII (1942-1945). He played second base and shortstop for the St Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Pittsburgh Pirates. The 1948 Indians won the World Series. After injuring his leg in 1953 he retired from baseball and returned to acting, having appeared in his first film in 1948.
After appearing in more than a dozen B-movies, and a number of TV series he was offered the role of Dr. Steve Hardy on the soap opera "General Hospital". He played the role from the show's inception in1963 until his death in 1996 (33 years!!).
For his contribution to the television industry, Beradino has a star on the Holywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. He has also been inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame.
Known as Johnny Berardino during his baseball career, he was also credited during his acting career as John Baradino, John Barardino or John Barradino.
OBITUARIES
Los Angeles Times
By Valerie
J. Nelson
Times Staff Writer
April 3, 2006
Gloria Monty, a producer whose reinvention of the ABC daytime drama
"General Hospital" in the late 1970s turned it into a pop phenomenon
that helped modernize television soap operas, has died. She was 84.
Monty, who was the model for the motherly soap opera producer in the 1982
Dustin Hoffman film "Tootsie," died of cancer Thursday at her home in
Rancho Mirage, ABC announced.
When she took the reigns of "General Hospital" in 1978, the show hovered on
the brink of cancellation, and Monty was given 13 weeks to save it.
With more women joining the work force, the traditional audience for soap
operas was eroding, and Monty needed to hook the teenage and college crowd.
She broke new ground in storytelling by introducing action-adventure and
science fiction to the tried-and-true daytime staples of romance and
infidelity. She cast younger ac! tors, quickened the pacing, upped the glamour
and brought in a Broadway designer to modernize the set.
One of her boldest moves was a shocking and oddly disconcerting story line:
After the troubled Luke raped Laura, the sweetheart of the show, the pair began
a romance.
Outraged rape victims and counselors accused Monty of glorifying violence
against women.
Monty recast the controversial plot turn in a 1987 interview with Us Weekly.
"Some people call it a rape. We call it a seduction,"
she said.
When Luke and Laura, portrayed by Anthony Geary and Genie Francis,
respectively, got married, it was considered the television event of 1981.
Elizabeth Taylor, a fan, was cast as a wedding guest. Newsweek put the bride
and groom on the cover along with the headline, "TV's Hottest Show."
An estimated 30 million viewers tuned in, a record for a daytime drama.
Geary had almost finished his 13-week stint in 1978 as a cha! racter's
ne'er-do-well brother when Monty came to him and said, "I have an idea for
this character."
"I told her, 'I don't really like soaps.' She said to me, 'Honey, neither
do I. We're going to change all that,' " Geary told the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution in 2003.
"Gloria gave us the kind of freedom that no longer exists in the
genre," Geary recalled. "It was a time when decisions were not made
by committee."
With Monty at the helm, the show won two Emmy Awards as outstanding daytime
drama series. By the 1979-80 season, "General Hospital" had moved to the top of the
ratings and stayed at No. 1 for five years.
Nearly three-quarters of its audience was said to be made up of 18- to
34-year-olds prized by advertisers.
"During Gloria's early reign, I had the great good fortune to watch her
genius at work. She was tough and fearless and brilliant," Jill Farren
Phelps, the show's executive producer, said in a statement.
At the height of ! "General Hospital" mania, the show earned upwards of $50 million a year
— about one-fourth of ABC-TV's annual profits.
Monty, who did not publicly disclose her salary, reportedly made more than $2
million a year.
Saying "nine years was more than enough," Monty took a respite from
the show in 1987 to develop prime-time series and films for television.
One short-lived 1983 series, "The Hamptons," featured characters who
were all rich and miserable.
Monty returned to "General Hospital" in 1990 to try to restore the
slumping soap to its No. 1 spot, which had been assumed by CBS' "The Young
and the Restless."
The 5-foot, 2-inch producer was known for being authoritative, but the second
time around her ideas to revive "General Hospital" seemed out of step with the
fictional world of Port Charles.
She phased out longtime characters, such as the moneyed Quartermaine family and
introduced new working-class characters to give the show an "Upst! airs,
Downstairs" flavor.
"GH," as aficionados call it, had become "one long
non-sequitur," the Chicago Tribune said in 1993.
When Monty left the series in 1992, ABC cited "personal reasons" as
the cause of her departure.
She was born Gloria Montemuro on Aug. 12, 1921, in New
Jersey to Joseph, a
builder, and his wife, Concetta.
Soon after earning her master's degree in drama from Columbia University, Monty married Robert O'Byrne, a theater producer and
writer.
At improvisational workshops in New York, she worked with Bea Arthur, Marlon Brando and Walter Matthau.
With her husband, she also directed summer stock for five years at their
theater and workshop on Long
Island.
In 1954, CBS hired her to direct the pilot for the daytime drama "Secret
Storm," which she produced and directed for 14 years.
She produced another soap, "Bright Promise," before joining ABC in
1972 to produce entertainment specials.
When Monty ! hired a woman as her assistant director on "Secret Storm," she was told it wouldn't work.
She was asked: How were those wearing earphones supposed to distinguish between
two female voices?
Monty agreed that was a problem until she stopped to think and said,
"Nobody has any trouble telling the difference between two male
voices."
O'Byrne, Monty's husband of 39 years, died in 1991. Monty is survived by her
sister, Norma, who was a head writer on "General Hospital."
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