In Memory
Mary Stuart
1926 - 2002
Jennifer Gibbons
Mary, Mary, We Loved You So
Actress Mary Stuart died of a stroke at age 75 in 2002. There are some of you who are scratching your heads, wondering: "Who is Mary Stuart?" If you ask anyone who has been watching the soaps, it's simple: She's Jo, the fearless heroine that for thirty-five years was on one of the first soaps to come on television, Search for Tomorrow. Recently she was Aunt Meta Bauer on Guiding Light. I can't help but be sad about this passing, because Ms. Stuart was such a grand dame, and it's the end of an era in the land of the soaps, the daytime dramas.
People are always stunned that I know so much about soaps. My friend Stacy once said: "But Jen, you're an intelligent person!" There was a time that the soaps were my life, from my obsession with Beth and Lujack on Guiding Light. What I wanted to do was write for the soaps. Go to New York City on a bus with a little bit of money and a lot of dreams. I would live in a loft in SoHo like Princess Daisy; have a Cat like Holly Golightly. I would hobnob with the soap stars. Kim Zimmer, who's Reva on GL, Kathryn Hays on ATWT, they would become my best friends, they would ask me how to play a line I had just written for them. So to get more info about the shows, I checked out a book from the library called Soap World, written by Robert LaGuardia.
Soap World had detailed summaries of all the soaps I loved, plus ones I never heard of. The summer of 1986, it became my bible. I knew all about the dysfunctional Quartermaines on General Hospital, the Ryans on Ryan's Hope. But most of all, I read about Search for Tomorrow.
Search was one of the first soap operas to debut on television, not getting its start on radio first. It centered on the life of Jo Barron, who lived in the small town of Henderson with her daughter Patti and her husband. She was widowed shortly after the series debut. For thirty five years, she was widowed three times, divorced once (which prompted angry fan letters that said: "Jo would never get divorced!") survived the death of her son Duncan Eric, was kidnapped so many times that even Stuart admitted she lost track (one of the kidnappers was a young Susan Sarandon, who played a drugged-out hippie), was blinded, in a wheelchair, survived a flash flood, all the while she still looked good, all the while relying on her best friend Stu. They didn't have a love relationship, it was platonic always, though she probably would've had better luck if she married him than the guys she did marry.
Whew! I get tired just writing all that. But that's not all: Her daughter was kidnapped, her sister murdered. Yet, Jo kept on going, as the old song said, quietly making television history as she did. She was the first single mother on daytime television. When Stuart became pregnant in the late fifties, Jo became pregnant with the doomed Duncan Eric as well, becoming the first woman to be pregnant on daytime television. She recorded two albums: Forever Mary and Forever Jo, where she sang folk songs. As my friend Christian said, "What I would give to hear Mary Stuart's 'Where have all the flowers gone.'"
My grandmother would watch all the CBS soaps, and Search was one of them. She would start her day watching both of them at noon, with her cigarette in her hand. I would come over there at one after school, and we would watch As the World Turns and Guiding Light together. By then she went through a pack of cigarettes, and it was time for my nap. Grandma had watched the soaps since they were on radio and the early days of television, when the shows were taped lived and they sold Duz soap commercial time. I know she wasn't alone; how many of our mothers, our grandmothers, or even by now great grandmothers watched those shows, feeling bad for Jo and the latest drama she went through, hated Lisa on As The World Turns for what she did to poor Bob Hughes? It was their escape, the break during the day. Husbands wouldn't ever get the attraction, but the wives did. They wanted some adventure in their life like Jo, or were channeling their inner bitch through Lisa.
But even then, soaps could change lives. On GL, the head writer Agnes Nixon (who would later create Erica Kane on All My Children) had an idea to bring the subject of cancer on the show. She created a storyline that had Bert Bauer (played by Charita Bauer, another grand dame of soaps) going to the doctor when she wasn't feeling well, then was diagnosed with uterine cancer. It was caught in time, and it was specified that regular doctor's visits could catch this possible deadly disease in time. For years, Agnes Nixon got letters from women who hadn't been to the doctor since their children were born, yet found out they had uterine cancer, thanks to Bert Bauer. I think of the women that lived, the kids that still had mothers, grandmothers, daughters, and I think what a quiet revolution the soaps created, at a time when cancer or uterine couldn't even be said on TV.
Search was a hit for years until the late 70's, and then CBS canceled both Search and the popular mystery soap Edge of Night. ABC picked up EON, and Search was picked up by NBC. But by then my grandmother was dead from all the cigarettes she smoked, and my NBC station didn't broadcast the show. Finally in 1986, they pulled the plug. It ended with Jo and Stu talking about their friendship, their lives together. She looked up at the sky. "What is it, Jo? What are you searching for?"
She looked at the camera, and said: "Tomorrow, and I can't wait!" As she said those faithful words, no doubt many people cried at home.
Stuart recently returned to soaps as Aunt Meta in Guiding Light. Personally, I don't think she was used to her full potential; they dragged her out for holidays and births, but not having much to do. It was great to see her though, still acting, still plugging along in the medium where she was one of the shining stars.
But now Mary Stuart is gone, and it is more than a death of a great woman, it is a death of an era. More and more the women who first watched Jo are dying, or don't want to admit they watched soaps in the first place. Soaps are now known as "daytime dramas" and have way-out there storylines like devil possessions, time travel, talking dolls. But the old legend still lives on: A thirteen year old girl I know loves Search For Tomorrow so much that she knows all of Jo's husbands and even the exact day SFT premiered, and was one of the first people to tell me that Stuart was dead. And who knows? In all the kooky storylines, there has to be one that touches people, helps them escape. And that's what art should do. Hail thee, Dame Mary Stuart, aka Joanne Gardner Barron Tate Vincente Tourneur. We loved you so.
©2003 by Jennifer Gibbons
