At some point in the 1970s up until cancellation, it was taped at CBS Studio 54 at 221 West 26th Street in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

[citation needed] The story follows the Ames family, a prominent clan in the fictional Northeastern United States town of Woodbridge (eventually identified as being located in New York).

[4] The Ames family initially consisted of Peter, his wife Ellen, and their three children: Susan, Jerry, and Amy.

Some performers who appeared on The Secret Storm and later achieved greater fame include Warren Berlinger, James Broderick, John Colicos, Christina Crawford, Jennifer Darling, Cliff DeYoung, Joan Hotchkis, Barnard Hughes, Don Galloway, Audrey Landers, Ken Kercheval, Ed Kemmer, Terry Kiser, Diane Ladd, Laurence Luckinbill, Biff McGuire, Kim Milford, Donna Mills, Robert Morse, George Reinholt, Jane Rose, Gary Sandy, Roy Scheider, Robin Strasser, Frank Sutton and Edward Winter.

Other well-known performers who appeared on the show include Joan Crawford (substituting for her daughter), Troy Donahue, Marjorie Gateson, Margaret Hamilton, Jeffrey Lynn, Alexander Scourby, Madeleine Sherwood and Frances Sternhagen.

CBS first placed The Secret Storm at 4:15 pm (3:15 Central) as a 15-minute program, sandwiched between The Brighter Day and On Your Account (later The Edge of Night).

[6] On June 18, 1962, CBS extended The Secret Storm to 30 minutes, and The Brighter Day was moved to an early-morning time slot.

The Secret Storm took over the 4:00 pm time slot, where it ran for six years and mainly competed against NBC's Match Game.

However, in 1966, the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows premiered on ABC, and that (later the Dating Game) prompted CBS to move The Secret Storm back an hour to 3:00 pm Eastern (2:00 Central) on September 9, 1968, facing NBC's fast-rising Another World & ABC's General Hospital.

After four years of mediocre ratings, CBS changed the show's timeslot to 3:30 Eastern on September 11, 1972, as part of a major overhaul of its daytime line-up.

However, its audience share and ratings failed to keep it afloat in an increasingly cost-competitive network daytime scene.

Finally, as a result of pre-emptions mounting from key affiliates such as KPIX in San Francisco, and an economic recession causing a decline in ad revenues, CBS decided to cancel the serial in 1974 and replace it with a less-expensive game show, Tattletales.

However, NBC executive Lin Bolen rejected the show in favor of her own project, How to Survive a Marriage (which ran for one year and three months on that network), and ABC chose to use its daytime budget to buy out Agnes Nixon's soaps.

For a brief period in 1967, The Secret Storm, in its first color days, featured shots of a town meant to represent the community Woodbridge.

Amy Kincaid (née Ames, previously Rysdale and Britton) was the main heroine on The Secret Storm and was mostly played by Jada Rowland, who grew up in the role, a rarity for any soap opera character.

Robin drowned, and Belle, totally furious, intended to make Amy's life miserable, which she did with great glee.

Amy gave birth to Danielle (her child that was artificially inseminated) and found out that Kevin had returned to Woodbridge.

He had wanted to divorce Amy in London, (he had been shot and left paralyzed from the waist down) but he was in the middle of the living room in Valerie's house.

Although her daughter, Janet Hill Porter (Bibi Besch) disapproved of her mother remarrying, she eventually was forced to accept him.

Valerie grieved for a respectful amount of time, until she met a psychiatrist who was treating her stepdaughter, Amy Ames.

His name was Dr. Ian Northcote (who was first played by Gordon Rigsby, and then by Lori March's real-life husband, Alexander Scourby).

Despite her remarriage, she stayed in the Ames family's lives, notably Amy, who looked to Valerie as a mother figure, up until the show's end.

Beautiful but vindictive Belle had lost her illegitimate daughter Robin, in a boating accident and blamed Amy, her former friend, for it.

After using Paul and then throwing him away, she married a man named Dan Kincaid (played by Bernard Barrow) who she thought would become the state's next governor, but he lost.

In a forced kinship, Amy married Dan's son, Kevin, making them in-laws, but they still hated each other, and would do so until the end of the show.

When Amy was artificially inseminated by Dr. Brian Neeves, Belle found out about it from a nurse named Martha Ann Ashley (Audre Johnson), who was one of her cohorts.

At the show's end, she left her husband, Dan, and, keeping true to her selfish nature, and having made Amy's life completely miserable, went on to a glamorous singing career.

At some times, Susan had a lot of anger and animosity towards her father and his constant belief of principles, especially during his marriage to Myra.

She was married to a man named Alan Dunbar, (James Vickery) a former golf pro who was involved in a drug ring.

Jean Mowry originated the role in 1954 and departed in 1956, going on to play Pat Cunningham on As the World Turns from 1957-1959 until retiring from acting to marry.