Portia Faces Life, is an American

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio drama ...

first broadcast as a radio series from 1940 to 1953, and then on television for a single season in the mid-1950s. It began in syndication on April 1, 1940, and was broadcast on some stations that carried

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

programs, although it does not seem to have been an official part of that network's programming. The original title was ''Portia Blake Faces Life''. Stations airing the series, according to newspaper advertisements included WNAC in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, WLS in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, KRLD in

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

, KGW in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

and KFI in

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. The series became part of the

CBS Radio Network CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. ...

, on October 7, 1940 and its title was changed to ''Portia Faces Life''. It was sponsored by the company

General Foods General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, after several corporate ...

. ''Portia Faces Life'' continued on CBS until April 25, 1941. Three days later, it moved to NBC where it continued until March 31, 1944. It then returned to CBS as a summer series from April 3 to September 29, 1944. Heard on NBC from October 3, 1944 to June 29, 1951, the series continued until 1953, according to scriptwriter Mona Kent who wrote every episode. General Foods remained the sponsor through all 13 years of the radio series. The programme was launched to television as a series by CBS, airing from April 5, 1954 until July 1, 1955. the TV series version starred

Frances Reid Frances Reid (December 9, 1914 – February 3, 2010) was an American dramatic actress. Reid acted on television for nearly all of the second half of the 20th century. Her career continued into the early 2000s. Although she starred in ma ...

as Portia Blake Manning. Reid was replaced by Fran Carlon from July 5, 1954. The program was also retitled as ''The Inner Fame'' in March, 1955.

Characters and story

The title character Portia Blake (

Lucille Wall Lucille Loretta Wall (January 18, 1898 – July 11, 1986)Cox, Jim (2008). ''This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History''. McFarland & Company, Inc.; was an American ...

) is an attorney who faced hardships as she fought corruption in the small town of Parkersburg. She was a widow with a ten-year-old son named Dickie; her husband Richard had been murdered, by criminal elements he had fought to expose. The idea of a woman lawyer as a protagonist was unusual for the time, and newspaper advertisements described Blake as "a courageous woman attorney who battles forces of crime, injustice, and civic corruption" in a typical American city. Also part of the storyline was the character of crusading journalist Walter Manning (played by Myron McCormick), who was secretly in love with her. Manning was trying to expose the criminals responsible for the death of Portia's husband.

Australian version

A localized version of ''Portia Faces Life'' was launched in Australia in 1952 and began transmission from the radio station 3UZ in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

. It was introduced by American expatriate

Grace Gibson Grace Isabel Gibson AO, (17 June 1905 – 10 July 1989), also known as Grace Atchison and Grace Parr was an American Australian radio entrepreneur, executive and producer. She was best known for her long-running serials Dr. Paul and the local ...

. It starred Lyndall Barbour as the title character who was renamed "Portia Manning." It was broadcast for 3,544 quarter-hour episodes until 1970 and every episode started with the introduction, "A story taken from the heart of every woman who has ever dared to love." The series also was broadcast from the ZB radio network in New Zealand. Following the conclusion of ''Portia Faces Life'', Lyndall Barbour was cast as Portia again in four smaller shows: ''Partners in Jeopardy'', ''The Silent Witness'', ''The Haverlock Affair'' and ''The Seed of Evil''. Portia Manning also had cameo appearances in ''Violets are Blue'', ''Clayton Place'' and ''Thirty Days Hath September''.

References

*Dunning, John. Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. *Oliver, Wayne. "Offstage Troubles." Baltimore Sun, March 20, 1955, p. A8. *"Woman's Thrilling Battle With Crime in New Series," Seattle Times, April 14, 1940, p. 13.

External links

Script for Episode #1411 (September 3, 1945)
{{US radio soaps 1940s American radio programs 1950s American radio programs 1954 American television series debuts 1955 American television series endings American television soap operas American radio soap operas Australian radio dramas Black-and-white American television shows CBS original programming English-language television shows CBS Radio programs NBC radio programs

Characters and story

Australian version

See also

References

External links