NEW YORK -- Agnes Nixon, master of the cliffhanger behind some of TV's hotest soap operas, Thursday became the first woman ever to receive the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' 'Trustees Award.'
ABC news anchorwoman Barbara Walters presented the award to Mrs. Nixon at television's eighth annual Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
While ABC dominated the 150 daytime nominations with a total of 66, when the winners were announced, the ratio dwindled rapidly. ABC programs won seven, CBS took five, NBC collected three and PBC claimed two.
Four other awards went to syndicated talk shows -- Merv Griffin's and Phil Donahue's among them.
Mrs. Nixon explained her formula for a successful soap opera with a paraphrase of Charles Dickens.
'Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry and make 'em wait,' she said.
Mrs. Nixon has been creator or head writer at one time or another for 'One Life to Live,' 'Search for Tomorrow,' 'As the World Turns,' 'The Guiding Light,' 'Another World' and 'All My Children.'
She is to daytime television what Norman Lear is to prime time -- an introducer to the tube of such controversial subjects as wife beating, child prostitution, papp smears, divorce and abortion.
For 30 years she and her team of writers have turned out five shows a week, week after week, and not one of the soap operas with which she has been associated ever has gone off the air.
Nearly all of them were up for awards presented at the ceremony televised by ABC, and her present show, 'All My Children,' won two of the 21 coveted statuettes handed out for daytime television.
Outside the Grand Hyatt, a mob of fans more reminiscent of those generated by rock concerts proved the popularity of soap operas, game shows and talk shows by jamming 42nd Street traffic and irritating harrassed police given the job of keeping them at bay.
Hugh Downs, who also anchors ABC's '20-20' news magazine, upset Donahue, taking an Emmy for his PBS talk show 'Over Easy,' and nobody was more surprised than Downs.
'I was bowled over,' he said after the ceremony. 'With Donahue in that category ...? I'm very honored.'
ABC's 'General Hospital' took honors for best daytime drama series. Judith Light and Douglass Watson repeated last year's victories, winning again as best actress and actor -- Miss Light for ABC's 'One Life to Live' and Douglass for NBC's 'Another World.'
CBS's 'Captain Kangaroo' and the PBS 'Once Upon a Classic' production of 'A Tale of Two Cities' tied for best children's entertainment series, and two variety shows no longer on the air won posthumously. They were 'The David Letterman Show' and 'The $20,000 Pyramid.'
In earlier, untelevised, ceremonies an additional flock of awards for technical achievement, design and individual contributions to children's programing went a host of other daytime programs and to performers Julie Andrews, Bill Bixby, Bill Cosby, Ken Howard, Marlo Thomas, Danny Aiello, Scott Baio and Hal Linden.
But Thursday definitely was Mrs. Nixon's day.
Not only is she the first woman ever to receive the Trustees Award -- previous recipients have included David Sarnoff and Edward R. Murrow -- but it also marked the first time the award ever has gone to a writer or a practitioner of daytime scheduling.
After the ceremony, Mrs. Nixon was eager to talk about her pioneering of subject matter once considered taboo on television.
'That's what makes for a dialogue in this country,' she said. 'It's better than having people go off in a corner and snarl at each other.'
