Since I am now doing the second half of a two-part Substack, I am going to kick off this section with a fine old soap-opera hack that was known in the trade as recap. Recap — or recapitulation — scenes showed up regularly on soaps because someone somewhere had done some testing and discovered that most of our audience didn’t watch the show every day. And even though our stories moved at a pace that could be described as leisurely, the powers that be wanted to make it easy for every viewer to follow the action. Which wasn’t very active, but it could get incredibly complicated. So about three times a week, a couple of characters would sit down, usually in one of their kitchens, and discuss what was going on in town over beverages which were usually coffee. It was a less obvious way to get the information out than having someone look directly into the camera and deliver a synopsis of the story so far. To be honest, it was only barely less obvious, but sometimes subtlety isn’t an option. These were deadly scenes that the actors hated to play, although one actress I knew made a kind of specialty of them by coming up with household chores to do while spouting the lines — a contribution upon which grateful directors always seized. Her most creative effort was the time when she polished the andirons in the fireplace. But I’m digressing again.
For the purposes of my recap for this Substack, I am not going to screw around with subtlety. This is what you need to remember from “Baby Libby and Me, Part One” — or, if you haven’t read “Baby Libby and Me, Part One,” this is what you need to know. In the early ’60s, I landed a job playing the character Emily Rogers Hunter on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow. Emily had a husband named Nick, a lover named Cal who was an English professor and a daughter named Libby. Emily was claiming that Baby Libby was Nick’s child, but the tyke was really Cal’s. That was the basic set-up. One more bit of info that you need to have for the purposes of this Substack: Baby Libby was played by the grandson of one of the contract players on the show. When I started as Emily, Stevie was no longer enjoying his TV career. Our first workday did not go well, and by the end of it, the kid had declared war. Pretty much exclusively on me. Now you’re updated.
Actually, I can’t remember how many scenes Stevie and I had together after that first day. Or how we both survived them. Like many actors, I have a well-honed ability to forget the bad stuff. That’s how we stay in the profession. But I do recall some highlights. In his role as Baby Libby, Stevie wore those dear little shoes with the tiny straps and buckles that regularly adorned the feet of upscale tots who went to pricey nursery schools. My little tot developed a slicing sideways kick that turned the buckles into weapons which he aimed at my thighs when he wanted to get out of my lap — and he wanted that all of the time. Before he drew blood, someone took pity on me and Baby Libby began going barefoot. So Stevie found new and painful ways to use his elbows. Every once in a while, he bit me. And then, he discovered my hair. Which wasn’t all mine, because like a lot of actresses in the early ’60s, I wore a hairpiece known as a fall.
Okay, this requires some explanation. A long thick mane of hair billowing over your shoulders and down your back was a popular look back then. One way to achieve it was with a fall, which was a mesh cap — sort of like the base of a toupee — with a ton of hair that matched your color sprouting out of it. To wear the thing, you bundled your hair in a wad on the top of your head, pulled the cap over the wad, and attached the cap to it. Then you put on a headband to cover the spot where the hair that was yours met the hair that wasn’t, and just like that, you had the desired mane. Why I was using a fall, I have no idea. I had my own ton of hair. In fact, I had too much; if my wad wasn’t pinned down tightly, the cap didn’t fit over it. There were days when my fall wobbled. Stevie had been intrigued by my hair — my fall — for a while and had given it a few tugs, but because he was always in my lap, I’d been able to get a hand free to prevent him from doing any damage. Until the Christmas show. That was when, every year, the script called for the main characters to gather around a Christmas tree, or something equally seasonally festive, to reminisce about Christmases past and sing carols. On the year in question, we were all standing around a punch bowl.
Little Libby was the only baby in the cast at that time, so of course she had to be decked out in red and green and positioned prominently in front of the camera. And of course, I was the one who was holding her. So when Stevie started pulling on my hair/fall, both of my arms were occupied and there was no way I could stop him. To make matters worse, I was having a wobbly hair day. Since most of the cast was working the show, the hairdresser had been slammed and hadn’t had enough time to make sure my hair wad was secure. All Stevie had to do was yank a couple of times, and the fall, plus the wad, began a slow but steady descent down the side of my head. By the time we were singing “Silent Night,” I had what looked like a large growth above my left ear, and the hair on my left side was four inches longer than the hair on my right. Thrilled by his success, Stevie let out a triumphant whoop and kept on yanking. The adult actors who had been doing their best to ignore the trainwreck taking place on our side of the punch bowl started losing it. “Silent Night” threatened to become a shambles. Fortunately, the scene ended before the fall actually landed in the punch bowl.
The holiday season ended, and eventually so did winter. And while I would never say that Stevie and I developed a great working partnership, things got better. I learned that I could handle anything he threw at me — sometimes literally — and I think he finally understood that I was going to keep him on my lap no matter what he did. And there was something else going on with Stevie. He was learning to speak. Not in full sentences, but he was accumulating a vocabulary. A lot of it came from the crew; the guys loved teaching him the names of the equipment that surrounded him, and he picked up most of their names as well. Stevie was bright, and it seemed to me that having stuff to learn was mellowing him a little. During our scenes, he’d still give me a punch or two in the ribs, but his heart wasn’t in it the way it had been. I chose to see his new language skills as a good thing.
It was at this point that the writers decided to add a new element to our mother/daughter duo. Cal, Baby Libby’s biological daddy, started showing up in our scenes. I don’t know where he’d been before; I think he and Emily had been estranged for some reason, but that was over. As the flowers started blooming and the earth was warming, Cal was back working his magic and sex appeal on guilt- stricken Emily. And he worked this sexual magic on her by reciting poetry. Yeah, a few stanzas of Whitman or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily was in spasms of reluctant ecstasy. Fortunately for me, the actor playing Cal had a gorgeous speaking voice and had spent a couple of years at a prestigious Shakespeare festival in the Northwest so he knew his way around a sonnet. But there were still times when the willing suspension of disbelief was tough. Especially since someone on the writing staff was devoted to Emily Dickinson. On the days when Cal was treating me to the joys of her work, it was hard to whip up sexual tension.
Because of the warm weather, our trysts — with Baby Libby acting as third party — took place outdoors on a charming little bridge that spanned a brook and was framed by a lacy trellis festooned with roses. The bridge was a platform built about five feet above the studio floor; the trellis was made of plywood, and we never touched it because it was attached to the platform with spit and Scotch tape. The roses were plastic and had been on special at Woolworth, and the brook was a triumph of old-school special effects. A kiddie wading pool full of water was placed in front of the platform and surrounded by lights. A stagehand squatted at the side of the pool and stirred the water with a stick. Somehow this produced shadows that played on our faces while we acted and suggested the water flowing under our feet.
The setting was bucolic and romantic, and when Cal and I stood on the bridge facing each other with Baby Libby in my arms between us, it was also poignant as hell. At least, that was what we were going for — poignant. And according to the fan mail, we were succeeding. Until the day when Stevie decided that it was time for Baby Libby to speak. I don’t remember how the scene started, and my memory of the exact words that were spoken may not be totally accurate. But I do know it was a day when Cal was quoting Dickinson. That I will never forget. No matter how hard I try. Here then is my best recollection of what took place after Cal launched into what he declared was his favorite poem by the Belle of Amherst while I gazed soulfully at him over the head of our child.
“Hope is the thing with feathers,” Cal began, “that perches… ”
A sweet little voice broke in. “Bye-bye,” Stevie chirped.
Cal — the actor who played him — wasn’t battle-hardened the way I was. First he was startled. Then his upper lip twitched dangerously. He stopped reciting. Stevie filled in the gap. “Coca-Cola, cookie,” he said loudly.
Cal took a second to pull himself together and started again, “Hope is… ”
“Coca-Cola, cookie,” Stevie said again in case we hadn’t heard him the first time.
“… is the thing with feathers,” Cal said desperately.
“Bye-bye, cookie, Coca-Cola, microphone,” Stevie countered.
Both of Cal’s lips were now past twitching and, to my horror, mine started trembling. But we were disciplined people. I continued my adoring gaze and Cal managed a strangled, “Feathers… that perches in the soul… ”
And that was the moment when Stevie realized that his favorite stagehand had pulled pool-stirring duty, “Joe, “he called and reached out to his buddy, “Joe, hi! Hi, Joe!” In his eagerness he hit the trellis which bent precariously. The hapless stagehand waved at Stevie. Stevie blew him a kiss. To this day, I am not sure if I was the one who snorted with suppressed laughter or it was my beloved. But as the trellis swayed around us, the sound rang out loud and clear, and someone in the control booth realized that two well-trained actors were beyond help. The camera light went off.
I don’t remember doing any more scenes on the bridge, and soon after that, the actor who played Cal and I were informed that we would be leaving Search for Tomorrow. It wasn’t because of our disgraceful performance —although, because of us, the show was short by two minutes that day — it was a classic case of contracts. As in, the actor playing my husband Nick had decided not to renew his. Rather than recast him, the ad agency which produced the show chose to pull the plug on our storyline. So Nick went to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune, I think I heard that Cal went back to the rep company where he’d been working, and I went to the unemployment line. And Baby Libby? I don’t know. I never saw his name on any cast list so maybe he left the biz. But for a while, I used to have this fantasy in which he was an adult on a therapist’s couch saying, “I have this dream, Doctor. There’s a woman who is holding me, and I am fighting to get away from her, but she won’t let me go. She has long blonde hair, and when I pull it, it comes off… ”
And that brings me to one last thing about Stevie. That wasn’t his real name. I called him that in this Substack because I figured today he’s probably out there somewhere living his life, and why bring up the dark times? So here’s to you Stevie, wherever you are. I hope you are happy and healthy and well-adjusted — and I hope that you have no memory of me whatsoever.
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