Format

Unlike most other soap operas, Love of Life was originally not split up into segments dictated by commercial breaks. Because the show was owned by packaged-goods giant American Home Products and merely licensed to CBS, all commercials were for AH products, and occurred before or after the show. In the 1960s, one commercial break was allotted around the middle of the program, but this was mostly to allow affiliates to reconnect with the feed after airing local commercials. Love of Life adopted the "five segments per half-hour" standard in the 1970s.^[2]

1951–1960

The original story was a morality play of good versus evil, illustrated by the interactions between two sisters, Vanessa Dale (originally Peggy McCay) and Meg Dale (originally Jean McBride, from 1951 to 1958).^[3] Vanessa (often referred to as "Van" for short) was "the good girl". She stood up for what was right in life and in her community. Meg was the schemer and all-around "bad" girl, as well as the mother of "Beanie" (later "Ben") Harper, originally played by Dennis Parnell. While Van disapproved of Meg's actions, she still loved her and taught the audience the value of forgiveness which often involved Beanie, and his strained relationship with Meg, his mother. The show was painted black-and-white in this regard, which was evident in the tagline recited at the beginning of each of the earlier episodes: "Love of Life: The exciting story of Vanessa Dale and her courageous struggle for human dignity."

The show changed directions when the character of Meg was phased out and the show changed locales; first set in the fictional town of Barrowsville, it moved to Rosehill, where it remained for the rest of the show's run.

The actress who originated the role of Van (Peggy McCay) left the show in 1955, and was replaced by actress Bonnie Bartlett (1955–1959). Bartlett was subsequently replaced by Audrey Peters, who played Van for the rest of the run (1959–1980). Peters had an unusual debut – Bartlett had played the role of Vanessa up to Vanessa's wedding day. The next day, when Vanessa walked down the aisle, Bruce Sterling raised Vanessa's veil and revealed Audrey Peters. Peters admitted that, during the wedding reception scenes afterward, she did not know the names of all the characters who were interacting with Vanessa, so she called everyone "dear".

1960–1973

In the 1960s, most of the drama was focused on Van and her new marriage to Bruce Sterling (played by Ron Tomme). The late 1960s involved attempts to shake up the somewhat staid atmosphere through campus unrest and a return of Vanessa's first husband, who had been killed off in the mid-1950s. Her ex-husband was an amnesiac going by the name of Matt Corby.^[4] Vanessa divorced Bruce to reunite with her first husband, outraging many in the audience who could not accept their heroine getting a divorce.

The other major story of the late 1960s involved Tess Krakauer and Bill Prentiss, played by real-life couple Toni Bull Bua and Gene Bua. Tess and Bill had the perfunctory tortured love story, including separations, children, and murder trials, until Bill died of a "rare blood disease" in 1972 and Tess left town in 1973.

1973–1980

Sammy Davis, Jr., in a guest-starring role on the show, 1975

As ratings began to slide in the 1970s, Meg and her son Ben Harper were reintroduced. Meg was played by Tudi Wiggins from 1974 to 1980. Ben, now an adult, was most notably played by Christopher Reeve from 1974 to 1976 and later recast and played by Chandler Hill Harben from 1976 to 1980. Under the reins of Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer, the show returned to the original "good Vanessa, bad Meg" theme. In one episode, Meg called her son's newborn daughter Suzanne a "bastard", one of the first times the word was spoken on daytime television.

However, Labine and Mayer left, and the show lost the original intended focus. Emphasis was increased on gritty story lines (for example, Ben, now played by Chandler Hill Harben, was nearly raped while in prison serving time for bigamy), but these were not warmly received by the audience, and the ratings dropped. The show occupied a vulnerable timeslot. Since the beginning, Love of Life had aired in the late morning – and few soaps had been successful when airing before noon. The show's ratings had been respectable but middling in the 1950s and 1960s, but dropped sharply in the early 1970s. In 1976, Rick Latimer (Jerry Lacy) and his wife Cal (Roxanne Gregory) welcomed a young vet Michael Blake (Richard E. Council) into their garage apartment. Michael's secret "crush" on Cal led to a vacation rendezvous and a fatal boating accident resulting from Blake's failed attempt to save Cal's son (Hank) from a sudden lake squall. Their son survived, but Blake drowned. Rick, Cal, and their son left Rosehill for Montreal to start a new life.

On April 23, 1979, in a last-ditch effort to save Love of Life, CBS moved the show to 4:00 pm. Head writers Jean Holloway and Ann Marcus' stories did not catch on with the audience.

Love of Life ended its run with a cliffhanger on February 1, 1980. After testifying in a trial, Betsy Crawford (Margo McKenna) collapsed while leaving the stand. No other networks picked up the show, and the cliffhanger remained unresolved. The final shot of the series was of longtime director Larry Auerbach, portfolio in hand, walking through the empty sets and out the CBS Broadcast Center Studio 41 gate, as Tony Bennett's "We'll Be Together Again" played.