Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer
Afternoon TV Magazine, September 1978
Article Provided By WandaSpeaking of successful ventures; for the third year in a row Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer have won the Writer’s Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Writing of a Daytime Serial. The two writers have been working together since 1971 when they met as dialogue writers on the now defunct soap, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing.
Claire, who started out as an actress, turned to writing when she found that there weren't many jobs for a 6’ tall ingenue. Paul, a Harvard grad, had always dreamed of being a writer; his father was a very successful writer of screenplays. After working together on Love of Life and City Hospital, the pair was approached to devise their own serial and they came up with Ryan's Hope - a show which proved to be a winner right away. Did you know that Ryan's Hope has just been picked up for syndication in Australia and Canada?
Claire and Paul do most of the writing of the show in Claire’s Brooklyn brownstone, which she shares with her husband, their three children and her mother. Paul drives in daily from his apartment in Manhattan. Paul's wife, actress Sasha Von Scherter, is only minimally jealous of the huge amounts of time her husband spends with Mrs Labine.
When Paul was asked how she was coping, he answered, "it's hard on her; it's hard on my kids. But, at the same time, I keep saying, "But Claire's taller than I am".........
Paul and Claire shared this year’s award with Mary Munisteri, who writes much of the additional dialogue in the serial. Congratulations to all!
[FYI: This article contains several misprints: Labine and Mayer first met working as dialogue writers on Where the Heart Is; they never wrote for Love is a Many Splendored Thing. Also, City Hospital was the working title for Ryan's Hope, not an actual show.]