David Canary Retiring from "All My Children" in April

Daytime Emmy-winner David Canary, who has played one of soap's most famous dual roles-- twin brothers Adam & Stuart Chandler on All My Children-- is retiring from the series after a 27-year run. Canary is also known for two primetime '60s TV classics: western Bonanza (playing ranch foreman Candy Canaday) and primetime soap Peyton Place (as Dr. Russ Gehring).

David Canary was interviewed by the Archive of American Television on July 19, 2004 and his interview is now available on EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG

Interview Description:
David Canary was interviewed for two hours plus in New York, NY. Canary spoke in great detail about the daytime soap opera All My Children and the dual role for which he is most well known, the twins “Stuart and Adam Chandler.” He described the challenges of playing the roles and how the show has changed over the years. Canary also talked about his significant work as a regular on primetime’s Peyton Place and Bonanza,, as well as the soap Another World. For Bonanza, he described the production, significant episodes featuring his character “Candy Canaday,” and working with the regular cast. He also detailed guest roles on such series as Gunsmoke. The interview was conducted by Connie Passalaqua.

"All My Children" Celebrates 40 Years in Pine Valley

All My Children debuted on January 5, 1970. Created by legendary Agnes Nixon (her other soaps include One Life to Live and Loving), AMC helped contemporize the daytime serial by incorporating social themes into the storylines, covering race, sex, and medical issues. The Vietnam War was featured in early storylines, and according to The Museum of Television & Radio's Worlds Without End: The Art and History of the Soap Opera, character Erica Kane had television's first legal abortion in 1973.



In her Archive of American Television interview, Agnes Nixon told a story regarding the longevity of the series:

"Once we were plotting an episode and I looked down and saw that it was the six thousandth episode of All My Children, and so I said to the group, hey let’s knock off and go to lunch, I’ll take you to lunch. And when we came back, for the first time in my life, I had forgotten that I was supposed to have a telephone interview. So I called the reporter, who happened to be a woman in the Midwest, and apologized profusely and explained that we had discovered that it was our six thousandth episode we were writing-- and she did some figuring and said, do you realize, that if you had been writing nighttime that you would have been working 240 years? So it did sort of put that in perspective."

On November 12, 2008, All My Children celebrated its 10,000th show with a special appearance by Nixon.

A solid ratings-winner, All My Children intially had less success with the Daytime Emmy Awards. First in the running for the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in the mid-70s, it took until the 1991-92 season before it won the top honor (another notorious example of AMC's Daytime Emmy battles, actress Susan Lucci-- the show's "Erica Kane" since it's inception-- was first nominated in 1978, and finally won in 1999).

In addition to Agnes Nixon, the Archive has interviewed several of the stars of All My Children, including: David Canary, Ruth Warrick, and Ellen Wheeler.