Sunday, February 19, 2012

Picture of the Week: Life After Soap

This week, it's a 1976 shot of Anthony George (the second Burke Devlin) appearing in the Country Dinner Play House production of Any Wednesday. Anthony played a heart-hearted millionaire alongside Barbara Sammeth as his mistress. The actor had recently finished a successful five-year run on daytime drama Search For Tomorrow and, having relocated to the west coast, was trying to distance himself from soap opera roles.

"I never thought that working in the soaps was a step down," he told the Chicago Daily News later that year. "I believe an actor has to act, and I've always worked steadily. Daytime drama was new for me, a challenge I had to conquer." Glossing over his 1967 Dark Shadows stint, he explained: "I never realised before what hard work it is... On daytime dramas, actors take half an hour to drink a cup of coffee, which takes three minutes in real life. You have to be a good actor to pull that off – so most of the people working in soaps are very good."

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