THE YOUNG AND RESTLESS LIFE OF WILLIAM J. BELL Creator of The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful by Michael Maloney with Lee Phillip Bell (2012) Sourcebooks Foreword by David Hasselhoff
As most of us were, Bill was introduced to soap operas by his mother. He listened with her to serial dramas including Our Gal Sunday, The Romance of Helen Trent and Life Can Be Beautiful, on the radio. "Mom would have soup and a sandwich and be waiting for me," he was quoted as saying in WORLDS WITHOUT END: THE ART AND HISTORY OF THE SOAP OPERA. Before long Bill was hooked. He was particularly taken with "The Guiding Light, created by Irna Phillips." Bill brought greater characterization and depth, for example, to Y&R's Victor Newman because the viewers learned that he had been left in an orphanage as a little boy. He created a financial empire so he could never be hurt again, becoming literally a "new man" in the process.
Bill's son Bradley, head writer and executive producer of B&B, followed in his father's footsteps by shedding light on the controlling Stephanie Forrester. Viewers understood the domineering matriarch more after learning that Steph had been physically abused by her father, while her mother Ann, looked the other way. "Bill himself would be poor material for a daytime character," entertainment writer Clifford Terry wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 1973. "After all, how tormented can someone be whose favorite word is 'nifty'"? Terry made this assessment about Bill noting that he didn't hold traditional positions like on-screen characters such as attorney Mickey Horton on Days or newspaper publisher Stuart Brooks on Y&R. "There's a little of me in most of the male characters I've created," Bill told veteran soap-opera journalist Dorothy Vine. "There's some of me in John Abbott, Jack Abbott, Eric Forrester and even in Victor Newman. I create characters to tell a story and when you do that you have to start with some of yourself so you can understand and motivate them." Bill's younger self can be found in two family-oriented and ambitious brothers whom he created for Y&R, Snapper and Greg Foster.
Bill Bell would have fit in perfectly on the TV series MAD MEN. He didn't have that dark edge that Don Draper has, but he always had that smile. -Thomas Phillips, Irna Phillips's son Bill Bell worked in the world of advertising before he became a soap-opera writer. Jerry Birn became Bill's lifelong friend but at first Jerry doubted that. They were at McCann Erickson, one of Chicago's top ad firms. Bill had something of a hot-shot reputation for writing comedy sketches and the ad copy he had written at WBBM-TV. Jerry didn't want to be "walking the plank to make room for Golden Boy Bill. And, believe me, there was always a Golden Boy "for a time". The boss had taken Jill had breakfast and in Venice get my parents seeing him fall. Bill revealed that he'd lied about his age to enlist in the Navy during WW2. Later, the conversation hit a bump in the road when they talked about salaries: Bill was making more. Jerry was too impressed. As impressed he flagged down. Jerry knew Bill was getting an episode. When Bill summoned and Margaret, delivered. Wild children. He had some of the occasions of the murdered. Writers' rooms he was diagnosing , their honey moon episodes.
Jill & Lee portrayed noble causes that they fought for. Standard Oil execs had suggestions that were sophomoric, amateurish and hopeless but Jerry thought they should go with them anyway. Bill did not agree. He told the Standard Oil folk that they could fire him but he wouldn't put their name on his work. Then he walked out. Bill would take a similar stance with NBC execs who tried to tamper with his storylines. Bill waited for CBS to fire him over the Standard Oil issues. Never happened. The head of the office got a letter from the ad director at Standard Oil applauding Bill and wanting him kept on the account. They were on for the kind of honesty and integrity that they go from Bill Bell. Bill was floored but he had one question, "Could he have a raise"?
When they weren't working, Bill & Jerry hung out at a local watering hole, the Bowl and the Bottle. Jerry got Bill started on martinis. They came up with the slogan, "The olive with the taillight," because they had pimentos in them. The agency passed. They pitched a food account to a female exec. When they finished she had one question, "How much experience did they have with food?" They got a laugh but not the account when they replied, "We eat." Television changed the ad world. Clients were able to promote their products in a whole new way. Standard Oil began running TV ads during Chicago Bears game broadcasts.
Bill was a traditionalist. He rejected the computer age, preferring to stick with his trusted typewriter. But, he did try to move from using traditional advertising storyboards to employing live models for presentations. Jack Tinker, a top-ranking writer at McCann Erickson, shot the idea down. Jerry and Bill were the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of the ad world. That changed when Bill met his own Etta Place, TV personality Lee Phillip. Bill was knocking on Irna Phillips's door with one hand and with Lee's door with the other. Bill got down on one knee and asked Lee to marry him. Soon Jerry was his best man & planning was underway. The Christmas card Jerry got said, "The Bells Are Ringing!" Bill and Lee wed on October 23, 1954. Three hundred family and friends gathered to celebrate the wedding of William Joseph Bell and Loreley (Lee) June Phillip. Lee was the celebrity in the family long before Bill became an icon in the soap opera world.
As most of us were, Bill was introduced to soap operas by his mother. He listened with her to serial dramas including Our Gal Sunday, The Romance of Helen Trent and Life Can Be Beautiful, on the radio. "Mom would have soup and a sandwich and be waiting for me," he was quoted as saying in WORLDS WITHOUT END: THE ART AND HISTORY OF THE SOAP OPERA. Before long Bill was hooked. He was particularly taken with "The Guiding Light, created by Irna Phillips." Bill brought greater characterization and depth, for example, to Y&R's Victor Newman because the viewers learned that he had been left in an orphanage as a little boy. He created a financial empire so he could never be hurt again, becoming literally a "new man" in the process.
Bill's son Bradley, head writer and executive producer of B&B, followed in his father's footsteps by shedding light on the controlling Stephanie Forrester. Viewers understood the domineering matriarch more after learning that Steph had been physically abused by her father, while her mother Ann, looked the other way. "Bill himself would be poor material for a daytime character," entertainment writer Clifford Terry wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 1973. "After all, how tormented can someone be whose favorite word is 'nifty'"? Terry made this assessment about Bill noting that he didn't hold traditional positions like on-screen characters such as attorney Mickey Horton on Days or newspaper publisher Stuart Brooks on Y&R. "There's a little of me in most of the male characters I've created," Bill told veteran soap-opera journalist Dorothy Vine. "There's some of me in John Abbott, Jack Abbott, Eric Forrester and even in Victor Newman. I create characters to tell a story and when you do that you have to start with some of yourself so you can understand and motivate them." Bill's younger self can be found in two family-oriented and ambitious brothers whom he created for Y&R, Snapper and Greg Foster.
Bill Bell would have fit in perfectly on the TV series MAD MEN. He didn't have that dark edge that Don Draper has, but he always had that smile. -Thomas Phillips, Irna Phillips's son Bill Bell worked in the world of advertising before he became a soap-opera writer. Jerry Birn became Bill's lifelong friend but at first Jerry doubted that. They were at McCann Erickson, one of Chicago's top ad firms. Bill had something of a hot-shot reputation for writing comedy sketches and the ad copy he had written at WBBM-TV. Jerry didn't want to be "walking the plank to make room for Golden Boy Bill. And, believe me, there was always a Golden Boy "for a time". The boss had taken Jill had breakfast and in Venice get my parents seeing him fall. Bill revealed that he'd lied about his age to enlist in the Navy during WW2. Later, the conversation hit a bump in the road when they talked about salaries: Bill was making more. Jerry was too impressed. As impressed he flagged down. Jerry knew Bill was getting an episode. When Bill summoned and Margaret, delivered. Wild children. He had some of the occasions of the murdered. Writers' rooms he was diagnosing , their honey moon episodes.
Jill & Lee portrayed noble causes that they fought for. Standard Oil execs had suggestions that were sophomoric, amateurish and hopeless but Jerry thought they should go with them anyway. Bill did not agree. He told the Standard Oil folk that they could fire him but he wouldn't put their name on his work. Then he walked out. Bill would take a similar stance with NBC execs who tried to tamper with his storylines. Bill waited for CBS to fire him over the Standard Oil issues. Never happened. The head of the office got a letter from the ad director at Standard Oil applauding Bill and wanting him kept on the account. They were on for the kind of honesty and integrity that they go from Bill Bell. Bill was floored but he had one question, "Could he have a raise"?
When they weren't working, Bill & Jerry hung out at a local watering hole, the Bowl and the Bottle. Jerry got Bill started on martinis. They came up with the slogan, "The olive with the taillight," because they had pimentos in them. The agency passed. They pitched a food account to a female exec. When they finished she had one question, "How much experience did they have with food?" They got a laugh but not the account when they replied, "We eat." Television changed the ad world. Clients were able to promote their products in a whole new way. Standard Oil began running TV ads during Chicago Bears game broadcasts.
Bill was a traditionalist. He rejected the computer age, preferring to stick with his trusted typewriter. But, he did try to move from using traditional advertising storyboards to employing live models for presentations. Jack Tinker, a top-ranking writer at McCann Erickson, shot the idea down. Jerry and Bill were the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of the ad world. That changed when Bill met his own Etta Place, TV personality Lee Phillip. Bill was knocking on Irna Phillips's door with one hand and with Lee's door with the other. Bill got down on one knee and asked Lee to marry him. Soon Jerry was his best man & planning was underway. The Christmas card Jerry got said, "The Bells Are Ringing!" Bill and Lee wed on October 23, 1954. Three hundred family and friends gathered to celebrate the wedding of William Joseph Bell and Loreley (Lee) June Phillip. Lee was the celebrity in the family long before Bill became an icon in the soap opera world.