Beyond The Gates will be the first black daytime soap opera on TV in decades! Created by Michele Val Jean, formerly of the long-running daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful, she also serves as showrunner and writer for the series. Beyond the Gates is the first CBS Studios and NAACP joint partnership with Procter & Gamble Studios. They were responsible for producing the earliest known daytime soaps. Michele will executive produce along with Sheila Duckworth, Leon Russell, Derrick Johnson, Kimberly Doebereiner, Robert Guza Jr., Julie Hanan Carruthers, and Anna Saalfeld.
The series takes place in a Maryland suburb outside of Washington, DC. The Dupree’s are a wealthy black family living in a fictitious gated community in the neighborhood of Prince George County. Many on-screen veterans will star on the soap opera including Clifton Davis as Vernon Dupree, the family patriarch, and actress Tamara Tunie, formerly of As The World Turns, as Anita Dupree, Vernon’s wife. Daphnee Duplaix and Karla Mosley will star as Nicole and Dani Dupree, their daughters.
Beyond The Gates is the first hour-long black daytime soap opera, since Generations in 1989, to premiere on network television. Daytime soap operas began on the radio when television did not exist. They made their TV debut in the 1940s followed by a slew of daytime soaps in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Daytime soaps peaked in the 70s, 80s, and 90s with long-running storylines like Luke and Laura, and memorable theme songs. Who doesn’t know the opening music to “The Young and the Restless?” Long-running programs like Guiding Light. As The World Turns, General Hospital, Another World, Days of Our Lives, One Life to Live, and All My Children were household names.
There were very few black actors and actresses in those series and only a few are still on air today.
In 1962, the serial “A Brighter Day,” cast Rex Ingram as minister Victor Graham, the first black person on a daytime soap opera. The show was canceled two weeks later by CBS.
One Life To Live, a new show in 1968, starred Ellen Holly as Carla Benari (later Carla Gray). Ellen was the first black woman on a daytime soap. At first, the actress was thought of as just a lighter-skinned daughter of a character on the program but she later revealed she was indeed black. Shortly after a few affiliates dropped the series from their schedule. Ellen was also part of the first black wedding on TV a few years later to Ed Hall.
NBC’s Days of Our Lives introduced TV’s first interracial couple as Valerie Grant played by Tina Andrews had a relationship with a white man.
The first black super couple in the soap world was Angie and Jesse from ABC’s All My Children, played by Debbi Morgan and Darnell Williams.
The Young and the Restless on CBS introduced the Winters family in 1990. Kristoff St John, Victoria Rowell, and Shemar Moore are just a few of the Winters.
As a whole, Generations was the first black daytime soap. Only running half an hour, it premiered in 1989 and was off NBC by 1991. Passions, also on NBC, featured the Russell’s, a black family as one of the main families on the show.
Other black actors and actresses who had roles in soaps include Tichina Arnold in Ryan’s Hope, Phil Morris, and Stephanie E. Williams, in The Young and the Restless, and Joseph C. Phillips in General Hospital.
Will the addition of Beyond The Gates help the dying genre of soap operas that once ruled daytime television? As many as 19 daytime soaps were on the air in 1969. Only four daytime soaps remain and two of them are on CBS. The Young and the Restless premiered in 1973, and The Bold and the Beautiful in 1987. ABC has been carrying General Hospital since 1963 and NBC stopped showing Days of Our Lives on television. It’s currently the second longest running daytime soap, making its debut in 1965. It streams exclusively on Peacock as of 2020.
Before its official release, catch the weeklong Beyond the Gates: Welcome To The Neighborhood, to get acquainted with the cast. It will air on CBS Monday, February 17 through Friday, February 21 at 2:00pm-2:30pm EST. It is presented by Entertainment Tonight.
The soap opera premiers Monday, February 24th at 2:00 PM EST on CBS
