Lora Lawton

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Lora Lawton

Postby Lou » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:34 pm

On the Air: May 31, 1943-1945, NBC, 10 a.m. ET; 1945-Jan. 10, 1947, NBC, 10:15 a.m.; Jan. 13, 1947-Jan. 6, 1950, NBC, 11:45 a.m.

Lora Lawton: Joan Tompkins (1943-46), Jan Miner (1946-50) ... Peter Carver: James Meighan, Ned Wever

Announcer: Ford Bond

Theme Song: "Just a Little Love" (originally a vocal, later played on the organ)

Premise: Let it be inscribed in marble that when soap opera creators found a theme they liked, they often beat it to death. All serial originators were guilty of this to some extent, but the Hummerts took special delight in bringing to audiences the same time-worn hypotheses. Each serial approached a given premise in just a little different vein from that of the others. To wit, one of their favorite notions was to take a young, single woman from Podunk and marry her to a man who was much higher on the social register and then watch them both squirm. The twist in Lora Lawton was that the heroine initially became the housekeeper for a shipping magnate. Wealthy, devilishly handsome and oh-so-single Peter Carver was the object of every ambitious duchess, debutante and just plain damsel on the East Coast. Sometimes it wasn't clear whether they were after his money or his body, but these vixens would stop at nothing to gain both. Even when Peter and Lora fell in love and were married -- as in every other Hummert drama with this theme -- it made no difference to those temptresses who were determined to get their claws into him. Such obsessive attitudes prevailed on Backstage Wife, Our Gal Sunday and several other serials of this stripe. Things got a little crazy at times, and Lora was occasionally the intended object of violence. The serial was one of three on which the sponsor, B. T. Babbitt, trotted out numerous premium offers, unceremoniously weaving them into plot lines as if they were part of the action.

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