It was my grandma's favorite radio soap opera. Does anyone know how they managed to continue the plot of the movie till 1955! I can't imagine!
shareWhile I never heard any of the radio shows of SD, I was happy that the story went on, that Laurel and Stella were reunited after all. The wedding scene nearly killed me!
shareI haven't heard any of the radio shows, but I've seen in books about old radio that the tagline was something about a mother's love, so Stella and Lollie remained central--probably had plenty of adventures and friends and neighbors pass through.
shareThe radio soap opera actress Mary Jane Higby wrote a memoir published in the 60s called Tune in Tomorrow which centers on her career as a radio actress. She devotes a chapter to the crazy plots of the radio soaps and she discusses the STella Dallas radio soap. The show tended to have episodic, drawn out plots. That is, a story would play out for a couple of months, get resolved, then on to the next adventure. Higby recounts one Stella Dallas storyline where Lolly is kidnapped by an evil Arab sheikh and Stella gets ahold of a submarine to rescue Lolly before her virtue is taken. Needless to say it sounds like the Stella Dallas radio soap specialized in wild storylines.
shareI thought those kookie plots came around in the 1980's on TV. Interesting!
shareThat's hilarious!!! How could Lolly's virtue be taken when she was already a married woman? I heard that Stella spent most of the radio series helping poor, silly Laurel out of one jam after another, her husband was hardly ever mentioned, Stephen Dallas had emigrated to South America, etc. Sounds a bit on a silly side, yes indeed.
shareIf you think the Stella Dallas radio series sounds nutty, consider this: there was a radio series about the continuing adventures of Harry Lime, the black marketeer of "The Third Man" played by Orson Welles. But Lime had been killed at the end of the movie!
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