John Larkin (radio and Television Actor) - Daytime Television and The Edge of Night

Daytime Television and The Edge of Night

Although Larkin had done some television announcing and isolated acting appearances during the medium's early years, his first sustained work came in the final year of his Perry Mason radio run. Another Procter & Gamble radio soap, Road of Life, which had been on the air since 1937, had initiated a separate TV version, which premiered on CBS' daytime schedule December 13, 1954. Following the pattern set by radio, much of daytime programming, including all soaps, was structured as 15-minute productions during television's first eight years of full-schedule broadcasting (1948–56). The show's leading characters, Dr. Jim Brent, a surgeon, and his wife, were played by daytime veterans Don MacLaughlin and Virginia Dwyer who also voiced the roles in the radio version. Nine months after the show's cancellation on July 1, 1955, MacLaughlin and one of radio's earlier Perry Masons, Santos Ortega, would spend thirty and twenty years, respectively, on one of daytime's first two half-hour soaps, As the World Turns. John Larkin, as Dr. Brent's friend, Frank Dana, had a medium-sized role amidst the show's large supporting cast, including thirty-year-old Jack Lemmon who, later in the year, would be cast in his Oscar-winning role as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts. Larkin played Frank Dana for the first four months of the show's course, with another actor briefly playing the part in subsequent episodes. Road of Life lasted only six-and-a-half months on TV, but continued on radio for another four years, finally ending its twenty-two-year run in 1959.

Larkin remained with Perry Mason until its final episode at the end of the year and was almost immediately offered a continuation of the role on television. Procter & Gamble could not, however, come to terms with Erle Stanley Gardner regarding Perry Mason's position as a daytime TV character and the defense attorney, while remaining with CBS, returned in twenty-one months, on September 21, 1957, as a primetime show, starring Raymond Burr. Daytime's biggest advertiser, however, had another solution, which still permitted Larkin to portray afternoon TV's "Perry Mason" in all but name. Irving Vendig, having scripted the radio Perry Mason for the past nine years, proposed the creation of a late-afternoon daytime drama with basically the same Perry Mason-type scripts, except for the name of the lead criminal lawyer, who would be called Mike Karr. John Larkin thus had his first television leading role, and The Edge of Night, premiering, along with As the World Turns, on Monday, April 2, 1956, ushered in a new era of half-hour soaps to TV, with other daytime dramas eventually expanding to a 30 minutes, then an hour and, ultimately, in one unsuccessful experiment (Another World) to 90 minutes. The Edge of Night's title was derived from the fact that it aired at the end of the afternoon period, 4:30, a late time slot which had never previously been occupied by a soap.

A forceful and dynamic actor, the 44-year-old Larkin was the dramatic fulcrum of the live show, delivering vividly effective courtroom speeches and presenting human frailty tempered by stalwart determination in the face of the multiple vicissitudes which the plotlines devised for dedicated crime fighter Mike Karr and his eventual wife, Sara Lane, whom Mike married in 1958, at the start of the show's third year. As the storylines began, Mike was a police officer attending law school who, upon passing his bar exam, became an assistant district attorney and, in the course of time, a criminal attorney in private practice. The show was one of the most popular offerings in daytime television and made the middle-aged Larkin something of a sex symbol, receiving sackfuls of fan mail. Producers of prime-time shows had also taken notice, with Larkin receiving inquiries regarding his availability. The Edge of Night, however, which revolved almost entirely around him, required his full attention.

The show's place in its audience's affection was ultimately measured by a widely reported event of Friday, February 17, 1961 when, in the final scene of the live episode, Sara ran out of the house after the Karrs' two-year-old, Laurie (played by Victoria Larkin, daughter of John Larkin and his wife, Audrey Blum), had wandered into the street, followed by the sound of screeching tires and an impact. Unseen over the weekend, Sara Karr turned out to have saved Laurie at the cost of her own life, as she lingered in a coma during Monday and Tuesday episodes, finally dying on Wednesday, February 22 and engendering an avalanche of calls to CBS along with thousands of letters (over 2,500 in the first day alone). In a response, unprecedented in the annals of daytime drama, Larkin and the actress who had played Sara, Teal Ames, appeared on-screen following the last scene of the next day's episode, with Teal Ames explaining that she was fine and had simply decided to leave the show in order to pursue other career options. Later that year, John Larkin had also decided that the time had come for a new career direction which, in his case, meant Hollywood. Mike Karr's final installment, on October 10, had the intrepid lawyer departing for the state capital to organize a crime commission. For the next six months, the plotlines centered around supporting character Ed Gibson, another crime-fighting attorney, played by Larry Hagman, until Mike Karr, now portrayed by Laurence Hugo, returned in April 1962.