As a writer and someone eternally fascinated by stories, I am constantly looking for new methods and avenues to improve my craft and understanding of what makes stories, well, stories. Why do these fictional tales so affect us, change us, help inform our world view?
Two concepts that resonate with me about why certain stories hit so hard and stick with us long after they are concluded stick are 1) Theodora Taylor's "butter" - the delicious universal fantasy ingredient that triggers the reader's salivia glands and leads to us making "grabby hands" as soon as we hear the synopsis - and 2) Dr. Jennifer Barnes's research on fandom psychology and “id lists” - the items in a story that feed your "I want" subconscious that doesn't think, just feels.
So I decided to take a look at the fictional love stories upon which I imprinted upon as a child, teen and young writer, and the newer ones that continue to fascinate me as a consumer of media. I’m an omnivore devourer of media, so my influences include not only novels and films, but soap operas, comic books, intellectual property universes, games, what have you.
And for my first foundation couple in this series, I am reaching back back forty years, which sounds so incredibly ancient to me, but I remember the epsiodes vividly as it were yesterday when I sat before a squat 27” television set, VCR remote in hand to stop and start recording to avoid commericals. I watched daytime dramas only for a few of my formative years but while short in timespan my love affair with the format was intense. Soaps taught me what tropes were long before the word trope entered my vocabulary, and you see the influence of soapy trials and tribulations in my novels for Harlequin Desire.
During this time I fell hard for two love stories on two different soaps. And when I thought about which fictional characters serve as my foundational templates for romance, I realized this couple and how they relate to each other is pretty much my ur romance template.
Barbara Treutelaar as Didi O’Neill and Robert S. Woods as Bo Buchanan from ABC’s One Life to Live, circa 1986. Gotta love 80’s wedding dresses.
Presenting: Bo Buchanan and Didi O'Neill of the ABC-TV daytime drama One Life to Live, circa 1984-1986.
Bo and Didi might not have been the most popular couple on One Life to Live at the time - that was probably Vicki and Clint - and since actor Robert S. Woods, who portrayed Bo, continued on the soap until its demise in 2012, Didi was far from Bo's only or longest-lived relationship. Spoiler alert: in 1988 Didi was killed off pretty definitively via electrocution - while saving Bo's life - in a scene that still devastates me whenever I recall watching it for the first time.
But before Didi sacrificed herself to save her one true love, they had one of my all-time favorite relationships on television.
The back story for anyone not watching ABC Daytime in the mid-eighties: the Buchanans were a family of Texas oil millionaries who came to the city of Llanview, Pennsylvania in the early eighties (i.e. the Dallas influence) (and the worship of oil barons on eighties American television feels so icky now). Bo Buchanan was the younger son of Asa Buchanan, the larger than life patriarch who was not above underhanded schemes to get his way. Bo's older brother Clint was married to upper class Victoria Lord, a scion of one of Llanview's most prominent families.
Bo had one of those only on a soap opera fights with his father Asa that involved being told his love at the time, Delila, was his cousin so Delila married Asa while Bo impregnated country singer Becky Lee only to learn Asa was lying about Delila so Bo and Delila got married while Asa married Becky Lee so Bo's son would stay a Buchanan - head-spinning in the best 1980s daytime drama fashion. But then Bo learned Delila lied about something - about being pregnant, I think? I don't recall - and asked for a divorce.
After all that Bo needed a break from his family drama, and who could blame him?
Meanwhile, One Life to Live was created by Agnes Nixon in 1968 in part as a commentary on class in American communities and originally blue collar characters were as prominent as the wealthy characters, but most of that social consciousness had faded by the eighties. Enter the working class O'Neill family for a return to the show's roots: father Harry and his three daughters Didi, Connie and Joy. Harry worked at Lord Manning, a factory that made...something...along with Didi and Connie, while Joy was still in school.
Shenanigans were afoot at Lord Manning, so Bo decided to go undercover as "Bill Brady," an ordinary Joe blue collar guy, where he fell in love with the entire close-knit O'Neill clan. The feeling was mutual and Harry thought nothing of having "Bill" live with him and his three very attractive daughters, which for a morally conservative Irish Catholic father seems a bit incredulous but hey, Bo was a gentleman. And besides, after a flirtation with Connie that went nowhere, he and Didi were obviously meant for each other - if only she weren't engaged to the incredibly shady Mark Pemberton, who was only one of the many roadblocks to their relationship. However, the real obstacle to Bo and Didi's happiness was their difference in class status. Didi was certain she couldn't fit into the Buchanan world of money and scandal and one life-threatening crisis after another. Bo wanted nothing more than to marry Didi, but he also wasn't about to turn his back on helping his family or buddies when they were in trouble - and since this is a soap, there was a LOT of trouble. The couple would fall in love, become engaged, break up, and finally marry after eighteen months of soapy twists and turns.
Bo and Didi slot neatly into the Cinderella trope. The Cinderella butter is all over their love story, the kind and virtuous blue collar worker courted by the handsome wealthy prince, who wasn't going to let ill-meaning stepsisters (in Bo's case, his father and his ex-wife) interfere with true love. The fairy tale allusions were both implicit and explicit, from Bo whisking Didi off to a magical stay in New York City early in their courtship to a fairy tale wedding (marred by a hitman apparently killing Bo right after the vows, but hey, worse things have happened on soap weddings) to Didi telling Bo with her last breaths that he had always treated her like a fairy tale princess and made her life a storybook.
But aside from Cinderella, here's why the relationship hit my id so hard: Bo always, always believed in Didi. Believed in her more than she believed in herself at times. Didi was courageous and optimistic and served as her family's glue. She had ambition. She could put on a brave stiff upper lip better than anyone. But she also lacked self-confidence in her own capabilities.
Bo never doubted. Even when they were broken up - because of Didi's insecurities, which Bo did nothing to alleviate by always dropping whatever he was involved in to help others, including their first attempt at a wedding - Bo believed in her. When Didi finally called off their first engagement for what she thought was for good, she began a friends to lovers relationship with Rafe Garretson, Bo's police detective cousin. Rafe appeared to be everything Bo was not: a committed family man, someone with a proper respect for personal safety despite working in law enforcement while Bo threw himself into danger, a partner who would come home every night without fail. Meawhile, Bo was scampering to Arizona and Venice and into innumerable perilous situations, and communication was not his strong suit when performing feats of derring do (ah, the days before cell phones and texting!). But the real contrast between the two men could not be more apparent when Rafe demanded Didi stop running for president of Lord Manning so she could concentrate on their relationship, while Bo - still barely on speaking terms with her for some other soapy reasons - campaigned on her behalf as a former Lord Manning worker and threw her a campaign party because he knew she could make a difference.
Didi was later blinded in an accident, and when it looked like her blindness was permanent she fell into a depressed, pessimistic state. Bo never let her give up on herself and on them as a couple, even when she did her very best to push him away...and away...and away. This storyline could have gone badly off the rails as it could’ve been interpreted as Bo not listening to Didi, not taking no for an answer, and forcing his will on her. However, the story (and the actors, whose chemistry was perfection and their performances sold the scripts) made it clear Bo respected Didi's boundaries - but because he knew her so well, he knew how to help her push past her self-doubts. He never made fun of or belittled her fears, but acknowledged her feelings as valid while also pointing out where she was letting those fears and doubts hold her back.
As for Didi, she wasn't going to be a pushover just because Bo was a Buchanan. She gave as good as she took in their interactions. She wouldn't stand for being babied or condescended to by anyone. Despite the difference in Bo's and Didi's class status and wealth, they treated each other as equals when it came to the relationship, with Didi fiercely maintaining her independence.
The Bo and Didi story modeled respecting one's partner for who they are, and Didi's overarcing story was to learn to accept Bo in all his Buchanan glory - which came in handy for most of 1986. Robert S. Woods left the series in January but Barbara Treutelaar, who played Didi, was still under contract for another year. So, in the world of the show Bo and Didi interrupted their honeymoon so Bo could join an elite search party for a missing former military comrade. Didi returned to Llanview alone and popped up occasionally to give updates on Bo's infuriating inability to communicate and her need to keep the faith until finally, Didi was written out by joining Bo off screen after his mission was accomplished to restart their honeymoon. (Then Robert S. Woods rejoined the series in 1988 and Barbara Treutelaar was brought back for nine weeks for the tearjerking close to Didi's story, and I'm still not over it nearly forty years later. I stopped watching soaps shortly thereafter, mostly due to time constraints, but that did give me a good jumping off place.)
Looking back, the id components of this formative love story from my youth are:
Cinderella butter, complete with balls and gowns and fairy tale touches.
Fiesty, spirited, independent main female character
Determined, confident, so in love he can't think straight main male character
Banter and fun (the dialogue is not the most scintillating - it's soaps, so it can be exposition heavy - but the actors sparkle together and seem to be having the best time playing off each other)
Respect for one's partner and knowing how to best support them
Believing in one's partner even when they can't believe in themselves.
It's difficult to watch forty year old soaps today for all the obvious reasons. Cultural attitudes have shifted and while One Life to Live was ahead of its time in some ways, the show is very much a product of its times in others. Second, there isn’t a legal avenue to watch the episodes today and there probably won’t ever be one; I doubt the episodes will ever be made available for streaming due to rights and clearance issues. And One Life to Live was the middle child of ABC Daytime, the often skipped filling between the more popular All My Children and General Hospital, making it even more difficult to find vestiges of those years today. There are some clips and a handful of episodes on the internet (but also, y'know, in violation of copyright law); even photos from this era can be hard to find. But if you ever stumble across a collection of old One Life to Live VHS tapes from about May 1984-January 1986, assuming the tapes are still watchable and there's a functional machine to play them, it might be worth your time. Also, let me know, because I would love to see certain episodes again!