‘All My Children,’ ‘One Life to Live’ cancelled by ABC

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

After 40 years and 10 husbands for Erica Kane, the beloved “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” have been sentenced to death — and not the kind that can be remedied with a brain transplant or recasting.

ABC said it was “evolving” daytime TV by replacing the soaps, but to fans it feels more like an evisceration.

“I grew up with ‘All My Children,’ ” says Liz SanFilippo of West Lake View. “My mom would record it — on VHS — and we’d watch it together. It’s sad.”

SanFilippo’s mom still watches — on VHS — but Liz is more typical of the dwindling audience that seems to have outgrown the genre.

“When I moved to New York in the ’80s, I think there were 14 soaps,” says Walt Willey, who grew up in Downstate Ottawa and has starred on “All My Children” as Jackson Montgomery since 1987.

After these cancellations, there will be just four soaps left.

ABC’s “General Hospital” has survived the cuts, and is the third-most popular soap in daytime. “It’s in good creative shape, it’s in good financial shape,” ABC daytime chief Brian Frons told the Associated Press, urging its fans to “ask as many of their friends to watch the show as possible.”

“GH” ranks behind “The Young and the Restless” (which averages 4.7 million viewers) and “The Bold and the Beautiful” (2.9 million). Only “Days of Our Lives” rated below “AMC” and “OLTL,” which recently hit a new low in popularity with just with 2.2 million viewers.

“If you have a show in severe decline, you’re trying to catch a falling knife,” Frons said.

“As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light” ended their runs last year.

“I’m not the least bit shocked,” says Willey, who has been taping 260 shows a year. The show moved to Los Angeles in January 2010 to cut back on costs. In anticipation of the end, Willey cut costs too.

“I think they did everything they possibly could,” he says. “To be an actor who has had a 25-year gig is pretty unusual. Two years ago I sold the beach house. I’ve been kind of trying to circle the wagons a bit.”

Susan Lucci, whose Erica Kane is the best-known character on daytime TV, is the only original cast member still on “All My Children.”

“It’s been a fantastic journey,” Lucci said in a statement.

Producers are planning to end the soaps “in a manner that respects their legacies,” ABC said.

Both shows were created by Agnes Nixon, a Chicago native and Northwestern grad. “One Life to Live” debuted in 1968; “All My Children” in 1970. In 1976, Time magazine described the soap as “TV’s richest market.”

Nixon was a protege of Chi­cago’s Irna Phillips, who invented the soap. Willey says that Nixon is back on staff, working with the head writer.

With more women in the work force, there are fewer at-home viewers to watch soaps in real time. Talk shows and reality shows are cheaper to produce. But the demise of daytime soaps also endangers their cherished conventions: evil twins, reversible deaths and commercials signaled by actors with frozen expressions.

They’re also boot camp for stars such as Kim Delaney, Kelly Ripa, Josh Duhamel, Sarah Michelle Gellar and recent Oscar winner Melissa Leo (all seen on “All My Children”), and Dixie Carter, Laurence Fishburne, Tommy Lee Jones and Mario Van Peebles (“One Life to Live”).

Soon remaining fans will have to say goodbye to characters as familiar as family members. It was inevitable, says Willey.

“There was a time a few years ago when we were at a crossroads, and the decision was made to bring in a head writer who wanted to reinvent the wheel,” he says, “when what we needed was a set of all-terrain tires for the road ahead. I think it drove a lot of longtime viewers away.”