ET timeslot which was a half hour that CBS gave to local affiliates (a break between The Guiding Light and top-rated As the World Turns). Steve Hardy) and Emily McLaughlin (Nurse Jessie Brewer) remained with the show for decades. Read a flashback article recapping the first 12 years of stories here. Repeats from 1971 are currently airing on Retro TV.ġ963: General Hospital, created by Frank and Doris Hursley, premiered on ABC.

The Doctors would remain on the air until December 31, 1982. Matt Powers when the serial was still was still a one-story-a-week show. 'I played a corporation president running away and having a broken back that brought me to the hospital.' He returned to The Doctors on Jas Dr. Pritchett did a single performance during The Doctors' one-story-a-week phase, on June 20, 1963. Althea Davis, chief of the Outpatient Clinic. Matt Powers, chief of staff at Hope Hospital, and Elizabeth Hubbard was playing Dr. After nine months, The Doctors shifted to a continuing story line, and by 1965, James Pritchett was portraying Dr. Later in the first season, Herb Kenwith and Paul Lammers became the directors. Samuel Shafer, a hospital chaplain (played by Fred J. Elizabeth Hayes (played by Margot Moser) and Rev.

Jerry Chandler (portrayed by Richard Roat), Dr. William Scott (played by Jock Gaynor), Dr. The Doctors did not start as a serial it began as a 'half-hour anthology series of medical dramas, set in the large metropolitan Hope Memorial Hospital, and with the four principals alternating daily in the lead role, according to NBC's original announcement. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.ġ963: NBC premiered a new daytime drama, The Doctors, created by the Orin Tovrov. 'Today in Soap Opera History' is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into d ifferent and unexpected images.' 1963: The Doctors premiered on NBC, while General Hospital

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