LIFE'S VALENTINE

In 1994, One Life to Live did a special Valentine's Day episode, framed by a radio show hosted by Luna and Max.

Linda Gottleib was the Executive Producer then, and, having come from the world of feature films - most notably Dirty Dancing - she understood the power of cross-marketing her product, putting out a CD of OLTL love songs, as well.



The episode itself focused on couples like Tina and Cain, Blair and Cord (we all know what the end game was there, don't we?), Hank and Sheila, Rachel and Ben, and Bo and Nora.



When I interviewed Hillary B. Smith, who played Nora, for my book, Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama's Greatest Moments, she told me, "They were friends first. I think the key to a couple working is you’re just having a good time, and you’re not thinking about the results. We just were having a good time and having a lot of fun, and the writers were having a good time writing for us because there was no big agenda on the scene for these two. The writers were allowed to write whatever they wanted to. And the network kind of stayed out of it. It happened and it was perfect. The audience was rooting for them. The audience wanted them to be a couple before they were a couple, before Bo and Nora knew they were destined to be a couple. Hillary and Woodsy knew where we were going, but Bo and Nora didn’t. Fans watched Bo and Nora date and fall in love."

Read more from Hillary, as well as dozens of other actors, writers and producers who created the scenes fans voted their favorite of all time at Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama's Greatest Moments on Amazon and BN.com.