Road of Life

Irna Phillips, originator of the showThis popular Radio Soap is another creation from "the Mother of Daytime Drama", Irna Phillips. The program was a great success for sponsor Proctor and Gamble, with an 18 year run on the radio, beginning 1937. CBS attempted to bring the series to television from Dec 13, 1954 to Jul 1, 1955, in the 1:15-1:30 time slot. Because many CBS affiliates choose to run local news and talk shows during this time slot, the program never achieved the popularity it was due. However the radio version of Road of Life continued into the 1959 season when the golden age of Radio Soap Opera began to wind down.

The story centered on handsome doctor Jim Brent and his wife Jocelyn in the small town of Merrimac. As the heroine of a medical drama, Jocelyn would suffer from almost every dread disease known to medicine. Also a large factor in the story was the relationships between three generations of Brent's and Jocelyn's well to do but highly dysfunctional family, the Overtons.

Don MacLaughlin starred as Dr Brent, and Virginia Dwyer played Jocelyn on both radio and TV. Both would go on in Soaps, McLaughlin Chris Hughes on CBS's As the World Turns, while Dwyer would become the matriarch Mary Matthews on Another World.