Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 110

Flame In The Wind, New ABC Soap Opera mf Y7 By DON ROYAL Flame In The Wind producer Joseph Hardy whose creative efforts helped to move "Love of Life" into one of the top-ranking daytime serials has definite ideas on how to make "Flame" a strong entry in ABC-TV's lineup of afternoon entertainment. "With most hew serials," says Hardy, "it takes months to build up audience awareness. The story usually doesn't begin unfolding until long after each of the characters has been introduced. "I deliberately shortened this traditional build-up period with new serials by concentrating on themes that move quickly from event to event. "Also, it seems more realistic to me that characters be introduced to the audience in the same way people in life meet one another slowly over a long period of time.

"But the success of any serial or any television production, for that matter, rests in the hands of the actors or actresses. "Here, again, when I began to audition, Tknew I wanted one of the strongest casts ever assembled for a daytime show in terms of acting experience names andor faces that would be familiar to our television audience. "AND I'VE got 'em. Maggie Hayes, Lenka Peterson, Kathleen. Maguire, Jacqueline Brookes, Roy Poole, Walter Coy, Richard Thomas, Frances Fuller, Morgan Sterne, PLUS a number of new and refreshing actors ideally suited to their roles Gordon Gray, Barbara Rodell and Margaret Ladd." Flame In The Wind is the story of a young widow, who, returning to her husband's boyhood home, finds that the town and its inhabitants reflect alarming frailties and distorted values.

Partly in devotion to the ideals of her husband and partly in her attempt at self -fulfillment, she writes a novel exposing the town for what it has become. Her townsmen, family, and friends, fearing its revelations, bring pressures to play on her in their attempt to prevent publication of the book. Kathleen Maguire, who plays the novelist, Kate Austen, sees the character as hard-hitting but nontheless a "conservative gal." "When I first began the role," she says, "I thought viewers might find Kate Austen rather dull. But that notion proved incorrect. Kate gets gossiped about a-plenty.

In fact, in the first week of the show I was accused of being a 'scarlet woman and was kissed by an unhappily married man." KATHLEEN admits she's curious to learn far in advance of airing what sort of tribulation are in store for her. But the directors and writers treat future story lines like top security information. "They deliberately keep me in the dark. When I ask questions, they just look at me mysteriously. Apparently, they want me to approximate life as it is, appear to be living it in the here-and-now, totally oblivious of what's coming.

1 "I like the woman I play. I find Kate to be a woman with a strong character. She is a person who has definite opinions and human feeling as opposed to most serial heroines, who are usually resigned to their everlasting miseries." "THAT'S WHERE I come in," interrupts Maggie Hayes, who plays Rox-anne Reynolds. "The story calls for me to play a wife unloved by her husband and dominated by her father. "My father, by the way, holds the string that moves all of us in the story he's the fabulously wealthy owner of the publishing company from which we in the town receive our living.

"I truly love my part in the show. Kathleen Maguire, as Kate Austen, author, who sets a town on its ear by her novel concerning its people, stars in ABC-TV's new daytime serial, Flame In -the Wind. i For the past few years, I've taken time out of my career to raise a family and am delighted to return to work in a show like "Flame." "It's the first serial I've appeared in, and it gives me a chance to put into practice a philosophy I've long professedan actor's work is acting." And work she does. Maggie arrives at the studios by 9 a.m. and rehearses through until air time, 2 p.m.

Then after an hour's break for lunch, she returns to the studio at 3:30 to rehearse the next day's episode until 6 p.m. "Then home to make dinner, after which I put in two or three hours of homework, memorizing the script for morning rehearsal." "Even though Maggie and I are quite different with regard to problems we face in the story," says Lenka Peterson, "our hectic real-life schedules are very much the same. "I play Martha Skerba, a mother with two daughters on the threshold of womanhood. "One daughter is lovely and is bent upon a theatrical career no what the price; the other is a sensitive girl whose plain looks evoke strong feelings of envy for her older sister. "MAGGIE AND I appear almost daily on the show, but I think I've learned from experience how to meet the demands of my career as a mother and star of a serial.

"As the0 saying goes: "I've been down that road before' this is my fourth serial. "Playing the role of Martha Is a natural for me. I have five youngsters at home, and have experienced in real life many of the problems my serial family' undergoes." Joining Kathleen, Maggie, and Lenka is a cast of performers whose stage, television, and screen credits are equally impressive. For example: Frances Fuller for the past 11 years president and director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, plays Alice Perkins. She has starred in several Broadway productions.

Handsome Morgan Sterne plays Tony Grey, much in love with Kate. He is well remembered for his brilliant performance in Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night," and other Broadway shows. Walter Coy is seen as the imperious publisher, Jason Farrel, a man who ruthlessly dominates the lives of the people of the town. Besides numerous western movies in which he alternated in the "heavy" or the "hero" roles, he has been featured in literally hundreds of prime television programs. Jacqueline Brookes might easily be called serial's "Shakespeare." In addition to playing the role of a woman spurned in "Flame," she has appeared in nearly every Shakesperian play in festivals here and abroad.

On Brodway she starred with Michael Redgrave in "Tiger At The Gate," and Katherine Cornell in "The Dark Is Light Enough." Roy Poole, cast as Lenka's husband, AI Skerba, has been featured in several outstanding Broadway productions and the movie-chiller, "Experiment In Terror." i THE YOUNGEST member of the cast, 13-year-old Richard Thomas, is seen as Kate Austen's son. Richard has been in showbusiness since he was 6 and had a principal part in the Broadway success, "Sunrise at Camp-obello." Early indications based on mail stars received seem to bear out that fans are responding enthusiastically to "Flame In The Wind." "Ail of us hope we'll continue to hear from our viewers," Hardy states. "It's the best way for us to learn that we're giving the kind of entertainment and performance in which our audience can participaU." 1 i i I ft Jason Farrel (Walter Coy) and daughter Roxanne (Maggie Hayes) loom large in ABC-TV's five-a-week serial presentation. Coy, as Farrel, is the domineering publisher whose business is the mainstay of the, aerial's setting a small town. TV-2 THE DAILY PBESS, Newport Newt-Hampton, Va Sunday, March 21, 196S.