Nixon, Agnes (1927—)

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Nixon, Agnes (1927—)

American creator and writer of soap operas. Born Agnes Eckhardt in Chicago, Illinois, in 1927; graduated from Father Ryan High School, Nashville, Tennessee; attended St. Mary's College, South Bend, Indiana; transferred to Northwestern University; married Robert Nixon (died 1997); children: four.

The undisputed "Queen of the Soaps" since the death of her former employer Irna Phillips , Agnes Nixon has been writing soap operas for four decades, and is the creator of two of the longest-running afternoon dramas on television: "One Life to Live" and "All My Children."

Nixon was born in 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, during the Depression, but was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, where she moved with her mother when she was three months old. While her mother worked outside the home, Agnes was brought up by her grandmother and aunts in a strict Catholic environment. At an early age, she became hooked on the "funny papers" which she not only read faithfully, but acted out. When she was old enough, she took dramatic lessons from the woman who also served as the organist at the church her family attended. After high school, Nixon attended St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana, then transferred to Northwestern, where she majored in drama but slowly gravitated to classes in creative writing. "I began to love writing," she recalled. "Not just the story—I had always loved the story—but I began to love the words, the rhythm, the sound, the speech."

In 1946, fresh out of college, Nixon began scouting out writing jobs, although her father wanted her to join him in his burial-garment business. To show his daughter the impracticality of her career choice, he arranged an interview for her with Irna Phillips, a friend of his who also happened to be the queen of radio soap operas at the time. Nixon took along a script she had written and read it aloud to Phillips, who hired her on the spot. Though Nixon's father was incredulous, he mentally reconciled the matter by assuming that his daughter had been hired due to his influence. Nixon worked for Phillips for six months, then moved to New York, where she eked out a living doing freelance work. After a slow start, she began selling original scripts to some of the many popular television dramas, among them "Studio One," "Robert Montgomery Presents," "Philco Theater," and "Hallmark Theater." "You had to write an hour show and they didn't have tape in those days," she recalled. "It was all live—it was exciting, wild." Around this time, Agnes met Robert Nixon, then an executive for the Chrysler Corporation. They were married four months after their first date, and Nixon settled in as a housewife and mother. But it was not long before she went back to work for her old boss Irna Phillips, writing dialogue for Phillips' show "The Guiding Light."

Living in Philadelphia, where Bob had been transferred, Nixon kept house and raised four children, all the while writing the daily daytime soap opera. When Phillips became busy with other shows, Nixon took over as head writer of "The Guiding Light." Eventually she was asked to take over the serial "Another World," which had slipped badly in the ratings. After that show became #2 in the ratings, the network asked Nixon to create her own show. Thus, on July 15, 1968, "One Life to Live" premiered and went on to become one of the most popular shows on the network. It was also groundbreaking with its inclusion

of story lines about African-Americans and a lower-income Polish family. "I got a lot of recognition from that show," Nixon later recalled. "And I gained a lot of confidence from its success."

Meanwhile, she had been working for several years on another TV serial, "All My Children," which would turn out to be another blockbuster, although she had a difficult time with it in the developmental stage. Nixon had taken it along on a family vacation to St. Croix in 1965 and, on the return home, the suitcase containing the manuscript was lost. It was miraculously recovered a few months later, only to be turned down by the sponsors, after which she put it away for awhile. When "One Life to Live" became popular, the network asked her to create another soap, and her husband, who had since given up his job to form a production company with his wife, suggested that she dig up the "All My Children" script. The soap premiered on January 4, 1970, and in January 2000 celebrated 30 years on the air. Some of its actors have spent their entire careers inhabiting Pine Valley, the show's fictitious locale, among them Susan Lucci , who in 1999 finally won an Emmy for her role as Erica Kane, after 18 nominations and 17 no wins. (Nixon says that Lucci knows her character about as well as anyone. "So if she says, 'I don't think Erica would do that,' I listen.")

Nixon has pretty much always worked at home in suburban Philadelphia, employing a housekeeper and cook and an assistant, and communicating by phone with writers, production staffs, and even actors. (Visits to the set are limited to special occasions, like a "wedding" in the story or the yearly Christmas party for the cast and crew.) For many years, she produced the story line for "All My Children" in her garret-like studio, roughing out the day's outline on a legal pad, then dictating it into a tape recorder. A draft was then typed up by an assistant and sent to the dialogists. Her ingredients for soap opera success: "Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait." In addition to keeping in contact with all the writers of the show by telephone, Nixon also attends story conferences four times a year. "These are real 'lemon sessions,'" she says. "By that I mean everyone lays it on the line. Everyone says what they think hasn't worked, what was a lemon." Through the years, Nixon has sandwiched lecture dates and other personal appearances into her busy writing schedule.

In 1983, Nixon created another daytime drama, "Loving," which also ran for a number of years, but did not enjoy the longevity of her other shows. She also wrote the story for the mini-series "The Mansions of America," which aired in 1981. "All My Children," however, remains Nixon's favorite. "All my characters are my children," she said. "I care about them."