It's hard to watch daytime soaps chip away piece by piece, and of course, no one actor isdaytime TV. But watching Martha Byrne leave As the World Turns (because of a contract disagreement with Procter & Gamble) is really painful. If ATWT can be looked at as a truly American heartland soap (as my friend Sam Ford and his students do in his soap class at MIT), than Byrne is indeed as American as Mom and Apple Pie.
Elaine Liner
Elaine Liner currently writes arts and media criticism for the Dallas Observer and other publications. A graduate of Trinity University, with a master's from SMU, Liner teaches writing and criticism on the college level. For a decade she wrote for daily news… read more