Triton College - Chicago Celebrities with Mel Novit - "Lee Phillip" (1982)

Here's another edition of Chicago Celebrities with Mel Novit from Triton College, this time with longtime Chicago TV personality - and soap opera creator - Lee Phillip. At the time of this interview, she had the co-creation of The Young and the Restless to her credit; a few years from this she would co-create (with husband William Bell) its sister show, The Bold and the Beautiful; both of which are still on the air today.

(Theme music: "From East to West" by Voyage.

Mel starts out by mentioning how Lee predated the likes of Marlo Thomas and Gloria Steinem as a "liberated woman," juggling a television career with being a wife and mother. She speaks of how her time as a flower arranger in her younger days and her mother's "professional volunteerism" prepared her for the (at the time she started out) burgeoning medium of television; other topics include all organizations she's still involved in (25, including her alma mater Northwestern University where she'd graduated as a bacteriologist; the Red Cross; and the Salvation Army), her concern for children and about child abuse, her taking courses to be a social worker, how her experience as a florist (her father had a business, Phillip's Flowers, in Cicero) led to the start of her broadcast career, how her religious background emphasizes service, how her initial demonstrations led to first a guest spot on Bill Evans' WBKB show (then on Channel 4) and other gigs at all times of the day including anchorwoman, weather girl and commercial spots on the movie show with Frank Reynolds, how she was part of CBS's takeover of the dial position of WBKB (along with Reynolds and Bruce Roberts), showing of pictures of various personalities including Mayor Daley, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Stewart, Jerry Lewis, Ronald Reagan (in GE Theater days), Cary Grant and the cast of The Young and the Restless (and their doings - but she emphasizes what goes on in the plots have no relation to her own family's life), how an actress' real-life pregnancy led to the story line of the character she played being changed, her role as head of the show's production company Bell-Phillip Productions, her working with her husband on story lines and how her interest in social work led to many of its plot lines, her being the first on TV to deal with rape and mastectomies and her interest in those issues, how daytime dramas reflect life, how someone who lives the life she lives can understand the various social issues of the day (by necessity, as she put it), her interviewing both rape victims and rapists (whom she compares to child molesters), her explanation of rape as professionals see it, how family dysfunction leads to violent criminals growing up, her degree of empathy, her family and three children (including future soap star Lauralee Bell who, at this point, had aspired to be an actress), her juggling five shows a day with raising a family, how she was also the first pregnant woman on the air, the controversy over Sandi Freeman's appearing on air pregnant vs. her, the occasional confusion between her husband and Bob "Bozo" Bell, his (Bill's) role in raising their kids (as a "housefather") and how it aided in her career, his family history, their oldest son working at the Board of Trade, how all her kids do time in the flower shops, how working in sales can aid in approaching people in certain situations, her career trajectory two years into the future, the process of writing each show, offers for her to do celebrity interviews for European TV and a travel show, her views on women in the business as they get older (an oblique reference to Miami anchor Ann Bishop and Dinah Shore), and her puzzlement over Walter Cronkite's retirement from the evening news.

Ending credits:

Lighting - Chip Kopp, Jim Mikalsen
Camera - Jim Mikalsen, Darryl Krall, Eric Mueller [Mancow?]
Production Assistants - Alex Diaz, Tim Harris, Denice Shuty
(the last title card is shown very briefly before the recording cuts out)

"[Daytime drama is] a great way to communicate. It's a wonderful learning facility."

This aired on local Chicago TV (via cable) some time in 1982.

About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:

The Museum of Classic Chicago Television's primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s and early 80s, primarily) recorded off of any and all Chicago TV channels (or other cities occasionally); footage which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to DVD, and to view more of the 4,700+ (and counting) video clips available for viewing in our online archive, please visit us at:
http://www.fuzzymemories.tv/index.php...