Claire Labine, a nine-time Daytime Emmy Award winner whose dramatic plots and cliffhanger climaxes kept millions of television viewers returning day after day to “Ryan’s Hope,” “General Hospital,” “Love of Life” and other soap operas, died on Friday at her home in Somers, Conn. She was 82.
Her death was confirmed by her son Matthew, who said a cause had not yet been determined.
Ms. Labine, with Paul Avila Mayer, created “Ryan’s Hope” in 1975. The show, seen on ABC for 13 years, centered on the Ryans, an Irish-American couple who own a bar in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan and who struggle with the generational divide between them and their white-collar children, including a doctor, a lawyer and an aspiring journalist.
Ms. Labine (pronounced la-BINE) and Mr. Mayer were the show’s executive producers from 1975 to 1982. She was subsequently fired twice as head writer in a stormy relationship with the network over casting and plotlines, but was rehired both times.
The show won two Daytime Emmys for outstanding drama series and eight Emmys for writing. It also won numerous Writers Guild of America Awards.
On “General Hospital,” Ms. Labine was credited with story lines that heightened public awareness about breast cancer, cardiac transplants and AIDS.
“Claire was an imaginative storyteller who inspired hope and sparked conversations through her stories and characters, paving the way for a new generation of writers who would follow in her footsteps,” ABC said in a statement.
Claire Vaughn Wood was born on June 28, 1934, in Jacksonville, Fla., the daughter of Newton Wood, a salesman, and the former Madeleine Beaulac.
She majored in journalism at the University of Kentucky but left to enroll at what is now Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where she focused on playwriting.
Her marriage to Roland A. Labine Jr. ended in divorce. In addition to her son Matthew, she is survived by a daughter, Lenore Labine; another son, John; and six grandchildren.
Early in her career, Ms. Labine wrote for the children’s show “Captain Kangaroo” but was fired after two years. She found her way into soap operas serendipitously, knowing about them only as a onetime viewer.
“I was a great fan of ‘Love of Life,’ ” she told the website welovesoaps.net in 2009, only because “when I was nursing my babies, they were too big to nurse and hold a book at the same time.”
Through her agent, she auditioned to write for “Love of Life” and got the job. In 1971 she became one of the head writers of the CBS soap opera “Where the Heart Is,” and in late 1974 she was approached by ABC to create what became “Ryan’s Hope.”
After that show ran its course, she became head writer on another ABC soap opera, “General Hospital,” in 1993 and collaborated on scripts with her son Matthew and her daughter.
“I love the audience, I respect the audience,” Ms. Labine once said. “But I’m not writing for the audience, I’m writing for me. I’m writing what I want to see those characters do. And if the audience loves it, that’s great.”
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