Irna Phillips
| Irna Phillips | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
July 1, 1901 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | December 23, 1973 (aged 72) |
Irna Phillips (July 1, 1901 – December 23, 1973) was an American actress and writer who created and scripted many of the first American soap operas.
Phillips created (and co-created) radio and TV soap operas including:
Phillips also was a creative consultant on Peyton Place (1964–1969), and was an unofficial consultant on A World Apart, which was created by her adopted daughter Katherine. Irna Phillips was also a story editor on Days of Our Lives.
She was also the mentor to Agnes Nixon, the creator of All My Children and One Life to Live, William J. Bell, the creator of The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, and James Lipton who acted for over ten years on Guiding Light and was head writer for Another World, The Edge of Night, Guiding Light, Return to Peyton Place and the creator of The Best of Everything and Capitol.
Phillips was one of 10 children born to a German Jewish family in Chicago. Her father died when she was 8, leaving her mother alone to raise the children. She claimed to be a lonely child always given hand-me-down clothes and making up long and involved stories for her dolls to live out. At 19 she was pregnant, abandoned by her boyfriend, and then gave birth to a still-born baby. She studied drama at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (where she became a member of Phi Sigma Sigma sorority), receiving a Master of Arts degree before going on to earn a master's degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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