Irna Phillips (July 1, 1901 – December 23, 1973) was an American scriptwriter, screenwriter, casting agent, and actress who pioneered a style of daytime soap opera in the United States geared specifically toward women.
[citation needed] After working as a staff writer on a daytime talk show, Phillips created the serial Painted Dreams, which aired daily except Sundays on local Chicago station WGN.
Phillips wrote every episode of the series in addition being a starring cast member as the characters Mother Moynihan and Sue Morton.
[1] After creating, producing and starring in Painted Dreams, Phillips became credited with innovating a daytime serial format for radio geared toward women.
Later known as “Queen of the Soaps”, she introduced techniques such as the organ bridge to give a smooth flow between scenes and the cliff-hanger ending to each episode.
The radio business during the 1930s was heavily male-dominated, and as result, it was claimed the audience for Phillips' serials were childlike, unrealistic, vulgar, and distasteful.
Disputes of ownership over the innovative serial ended Phillips' association with WGN and she was picked up by opponent station WMAQ.
[citation needed] In 1937, Phillips collaborated with Emmons Carlson on her third radio serial, The Guiding Light (shortened to simply Guiding Light after 1975), basing it on personal experiences; after giving birth to a stillborn child at age 19, she found spiritual comfort listening to sermons by a preacher of a church centered on the brotherhood of man.
The book traced the backstory of the radio series, told from the point of view of the "keeper of the guiding light", Reverend John Ruthledge.
In 1956, she created As the World Turns, one of the first two daytime serials to run a half-hour in length (the other being The Edge of Night, which premiered on CBS the same day).
[citation needed] Within six months of the series' debut, Phillips fired lead actress Helen Wagner because she reportedly did not like the way she poured coffee.
Although Procter & Gamble owned both series, CBS had no room for the program and rival network NBC acquired broadcast rights.
[8] Actress Kay Campbell stated, "I'll never forget once on As the World Turns, Rosemary Prinz did a scene, and when we were only off the air five minutes, Irna was on the phone and tore her to pieces.
"[9] Phillips and Bell would cede the head writing role at Another World to James Lipton; Agnes Nixon would succeed him.
Her new story, and the show's new heroine, Kimberly Sullivan (Kathryn Hays), became involved with longtime hero, Bob Hughes (Don Hastings).
On January 25, 2007, in an episode celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Guiding Light, the current cast portrayed actors and behind-the-scenes personnel from the early years of the series (both radio and TV).
Phillips was a fiercely independent entrepreneur who retained ownership rights to all her series, producing through Carl Wester and Company and allowing agencies, sponsors, and networks little control over her soap opera empire.