Sep 152008
I found a fan site for As the World Turns that’s just loaded with information. The site went dark in 2001 but that doesn’t matter for our purposes. Here are the major plotlines of 1962.
There’s nothing about a return from the dead or a coma. Looks like that part is fictional.
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Joan also asked about acquiring an accent when you come out of the coma with amnesia. It may or may not be the Penny storyline; there's nothing about a coma at all.
I was intrigued so decided to do a little research. I found this website that says that Penny was indeed in a coma in 1962:
http://www.sonypictures.com/atwt/history/atwt_47_…
Nice work Stulley!
I had a laugh reading those old synopses, not because the stories are absurd (later soaps got much loonier), but because of one detail: the character of Tom Hughes was born during 1961. By the time I was watching the show in 1988, Tom was surprised to discover an illegitimate teenage daughter, supposedly conceived when he was a soldier in Vietnam. Which means he conceived her and served his tour of duty when he was about 10 years old. LOL I always loved how soaps stretched and contracted time, and re-invented their own histories.
BTW, the daughter was played by Ming Na Wen, later of ER and The Joy Luck Club. There were a lot of wonderful young actresses on ATWT in the 80's who went on to bigger things: Meg Ryan, Julianne Moore, Marisa Tomei, Parker Posey, Lauryn Hill.
It suddenly occurs to me that another was Robert Morse's daughter Robin. Maybe the ATWT reference was an inside joke for his benefit.
“However, on August 23, tragedy strikes in the form of a crash. Penny survives, but suffers from amnesia for a time; Jeff, however, is killed instantly.”
Didn’t Joan ask about amnesia when she was quizzing the Dr. about comas? Maybe this is the storyline.
Well, you know, Jeff Baker had run away from his wife, Penny, and apparently her family had told everyone in Oakdale that he had died (although he was living in a nearby town under an assumed name)… That could account for the storyline of someone everyone thought was dead coming back. Of course, Jeff DID die in a car accident that August and Penny went through a bout of amnesia for several months…
Wow, who knew?
I was an All My Children girl myself. Same awesomeness with timing… children would age six years over a summer.
And Erica Kane… she's like, almost 40 by now, right?
Peyton List, who portrays Don the Magic Wand's secretary Jane, was also on ATWT. Can't recall the character's name at the moment….