The End of the World as We Know It

15_19.jpg

Emmy Award–winning soap opera scribe Jean Passanante has served as head writer on a number of daytime dramas, from One Life to Live to All My Children, but she focuses here on her tenure at As the World Turns, which ended its 54-year run in September 2010. Passanante also shares a fascinating artifact from the production: a “continuity book” which offers myriad details (from criminal records to food allergies) about the show’s characters.

VIEW CLIP FROM FINAL EPISODE OF AS THE WORLD TURNS

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Jean Passanante acted in television and film and worked as a theater and literary agent in New York before she began writing for the daytime series One Life to Live in 1993. She was eventually promoted to Head Writer at the show before assuming that role at All My Children, Another World and As the World Turns. Passanante returned to One Life to Live in 2010. She has been honored with five Daytime Emmy Awards and six Writers Guild of America Awards. She is based in New York.