- From "Los Angeles Times" October 13, 1991 -
“Santa Barbara” one of the few daytime soap operas ever set in a real-life city, is about to take that sense of reality a giant leap further. For three consecutive episodes beginning Friday, the NBC serial will feature interviews taped in Moscow with Soviet citizens who resisted the failed August coup.
Though other entertainment shows have filmed in the Soviet Union - “Dallas” for instance, used Moscow locales during the 1988-89 season - “Santa Barbara” is the first United States daytime soap to shoot there.
The storyline calls for Warren Lockridge, the Ernest Hemingway-esque newspaper publisher played by Jack Wagner, to jump bail in Santa Barbara, where he is a murder suspect, and journey to the Soviet Union to be at the forefront of that country’s emerging democracy. His interviews will air on the show’s fictional local television station.
The idea for this blend of fact and fiction was conceived by Bridget Dobson, “Santa Barbara’s” co-creator, co-head writer and co-executive producer (with husband Jerome Dobson), after her initial plan to tape an elaborate multi-character remote in Moscow proved too costly. That shoot, in turn, was to have celebrated the sale of the show to Soviet television: In December, it will become the first American soap to air there.
Indeed, in August the Dobsons had been in Leningrad to publicize the sale--departing a mere three hours before the coup. With the dramatic turn of events, Bridget Dobson said, “it took me one day to come up with the idea (of doing interviews). I was so in admiration of the people who resisted the coup, I had to get over there.”
Accordingly, she, Wagner, “SB” supervising producer Steven Kent and coordinating producer Eric Preven spent a whirlwind four days last month in Moscow, operating on a shoestring $ 50,000 budget.
They devoted one day to scouting locations, choosing, among others, the exterior of the Parliament building, Red Square, the sites of the fallen statues and the still-guarded encampments, and McDonald’s. (“We didn't eat there, though” Dobson said. “We ate at Pizza Hut”.)
Dobson then interviewed English-speaking Soviets who had been at the barricades, pre-screened by the Russian Television and Radio Network for the most compelling tales. The finalists found themselves on camera answering loosely scripted questions from Wagner, taped by an all-Soviet crew.
“We got real stories, stories that I couldn't have fictionalized” Dobson said. “They don’t think of themselves as heroes. They said they couldn’t let the gangs—that’s what they called them--take over. The one story that stands out, that makes me cry, is when Jack asked a man, “Were you afraid for your lives?” And he said, “No. But my wife and I put in our pockets (a note with) our names and address (that said), “ Tell everything to my mother”.
Then there was the young man who told the crew how he phoned to tell his mother that he planned to resist the coup, only to have her hang up on him.
And some fishermen came up the river and told the resistance, “We’re with you” and people said, “Oh good, we have a Navy” Dobson said. “They stayed in position and used the strong lights on their boat to light the bridge leading to the White House (the Soviet Parliament building), so that they could see if tanks were crossing”.
In the interviews, Wagner had a great deal of latitude on the questions Dobson had charted. “Things sometimes came out in his interviews that didn't come out in mine” she said.
Wagner, who joined SB only in July after several years on General Hospital, agreed: “Everything was basically spontaneous. I really wanted them to feel I was asking questions unrehearsed. Once I got an answer, I could feed off of it and draw them out. I tried to make each interview its own. I asked one girl about her father and someone else about his family, which dated back to the czar”.
One of the most memorable accounts, Wagner said, came from a man who went home and told his wife that he was going to participate in the resistance. “They didn’t speak for half an hour. Then she said, “I’m going with you”. He said, “No. What about the future?”-- meaning their daughter. And she said, “That’s exactly why I’m going. For the future of our daughter”.
As of now, Dobson has no plans to repeat this ambitious undertaking in other parts of the world. “It would depend on the budget and the story” she said. “The show is not going to be a documentary”.
“I’m proud that we did this” she added. “It was important to me to celebrate these people, to celebrate their freedom. 'Entertainment Tonight' was there and said, “Isn't it lucky for them to be on American television?” I feel just the opposite. We’re the lucky ones”.
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