CONTACTStaffCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2024 Pride Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
All My Children's 82-year-old creator, Agnes Nixon, is known for penning pioneering story lines for daytime, and she told Entertainment Weekly it's the controversial story lines surrounding AIDS, abortion. and coming out she hopes will be her legacy.
"All the socially relevant stuff, like the story line about AIDS. The lesbian and gay story. Because of my having grown up in Nashville, Tenn., a very segregated city, being able to have integrated the show was to me the most important thing."
In 1983, All My Children made history by becoming the first daytime drama to have an openly gay main character. Four years later, the show became the first to have an HIV-positive character.
Actress Ellen Wheeler won an Emmy for playing Cindy Chandler, who contracted HIV from her drug-addicted husband. The show aired a number of education-based episodes on how to prevent infection.
Nixon's crowning achievement, she thinks, came in 2000 when she decided that Erica Kane's daughter Bianca would come out of the closet. The story line was met with controversy but went on to win Emmys for both Eden Riegel (Bianca) and for writing.
"When Erica's daughter, Bianca, came out as a lesbian, I got letters from gay women saying, 'If only I had seen this show when I was a teenager,'" Nixon says. "Eden Riegel became one of the most popular young actors on daytime. I had the sense to wait, to know that there'd be a lot of people who were prejudiced, homophobic, so we had to wait until we could make her Erica's daughter. You have to be sneaky sometimes, because viewers wanted to watch and see what Erica's reaction would be."
Read the full interview here.
Want more breaking equality news & trending entertainment stories?
Check out our NEW 24/7 streaming service: the Advocate Channel!
Download the Advocate Channel App for your mobile phone and your favorite streaming device!
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Meet all 37 of the queer women in this season's WNBA
April 17 2024 11:24 AM
Here are the 15 gayest travel destinations in the world: report
March 26 2024 9:23 AM
21+ steamy photos of Scotland’s finest gay men in Elska Glasgow
February 01 2024 10:07 PM
More Than 50 of Our Favorite LGBTQ+ Moms
May 12 2024 11:44 AM
Conjoined twins Lori Schappell and trans man George Schappell dead at 62
April 27 2024 6:13 PM
Latest Stories
Kamala Harris rides wave of Democratic energy at kickoff event in Wisconsin
July 23 2024 3:36 PM
'Devastated:' A six-week abortion ban will go into effect in Iowa next week
July 23 2024 2:28 PM
Four hours, 44,000 Black women, and one Zoom call
July 23 2024 2:17 PM
Record 1.2 million people show out for Cologne’s Pride parade
July 23 2024 10:51 AM
Here's how far-right activist Leonard Leo helped fund Bud Light boycott
July 23 2024 10:27 AM
Elon Musk’s comments about his trans daughter prove why she doesn’t speak to him
July 23 2024 9:16 AM
Nancy Pelosi endorses Kamala Harris for president
July 22 2024 4:07 PM
Charli XCX declares Kamala Harris IS brat & our next President's campaign agrees
July 22 2024 3:08 PM