Best of Everything, The

1 9 7 0 (USA)
114 x 30 minute episodes

April Morrison (originally played by Julie Mannix and then by Susan Sullivan), a dewy-eyed innocent from Maine, arrived in New York to work at the Key Publishing Company where she made friends with fellow stenographers Linda Warren (Patty McCormack) and Kim Jordan (Katherine Glass), and with Kim’s parents, Violet (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and Joshua (John Rust initially and then Peter Harris), who were both teachers.

April found that life in the Big Apple could be brutal, such as when Kim was left for dead after someone mixed LSD using her chemistry lab equipment and stabbed her seven times.

Training April in the ways of the world was her boss, the once-cordial but now hard-bitten Amanda Key (Gale Sondergaard).

Among the other characters seen were Gwen Mitchell (Ginnie Curtis), another stenographer, and Anne (Diane Kagan) and Mike (Jean-Pierre Stewart) Carter, a troubled couple.

The ABC series was based on a novel by Rona Jaffe that was also adapted into a movie in 1959 starring Joan Crawford.

The Best of Everything debuted on 20 March 1970, the same day as Somerset and A World Apart, bringing the total number of daytime soaps on the air in the US to 19. The show generated a minuscule 1.8 rating, guaranteeing its cancellation after only six months.

April Morrison
Julie Mannix (1)
Susan Sullivan (2)
Anne Carter
Diane Kagan
Mike Carter
Jean-Pierre Stewart
Kate Farrow
M’El Dowd
Kim Jordan
Katherine Glass
Violet Jordan
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Joshua Jordan 
John Rust (1)
Peter Harris (2)
Amanda Key
Gale Sondergaard
Dexter Key
James Davidson
Joanna Key
Bonnie Bee Buzzard
Ken Lamont
Barry Ford
Barbara Lamont
Rochelle Oliver
Johnny Lamont
Stephen Grover
Ginnie Curtis
Gwen Mitchell
Dr Ed Perrone
Victor Arnold
Linda Warren
Patty McCormack
Randy Wilson
Ted LePlat
Squirrel
Gregory Rozakis

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