Agnes Nixon (born Agnes Eckhardt; December 10, 1927) is an American writer and producer. She is best known as the creator of soap operas such as One Life to Live, All My Children, and Loving. Having a key role in the production of these programs, she was either executive producer or consulting producer for all three shows for many years: on One Life to Live from 1968 to 1973, All My Children from 1970 to 1981, and Loving from 1993 to 1995.Nixon continued to write for All My Children with Wisner Washam until 1983, and again with him and Lorraine Broderick from 1988 to 1992, continuing on as a consultant in recurring capacities to date. From 1970 until 1989, every episode of All My Children was written by either Nixon or her protégés Washam and Broderick, although Nixon's role with One Life to Live was more limited once she surrendered the day-to-day aspects of the show in 1975. Because of her long career and the number of successful shows she created or was a part of, she is often referred to as the "Queen" of the modern soap opera. Her creations and her writing have had the most effect on modern audiences, second only to her mentor Irna Phillips.
September 28, 2016, Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States
Place Of Birth
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Profession
Writer, Actress, Producer
Education
Northwestern University
Nationality
American
Spouse
Robert Henry Adolphus Nixon
Children
Robert Nixon and 3 others
Parents
Harry Joseph Eckhardt, Agnes Patricia Eckhardt
Awards
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series Writing Team, Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Daytime Serials
Nominations
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Program Achievement - Daytime Drama
Movies
Ayatollah Khomeini: Holy Terror
TV Shows
All My Children, One Life to Live, The City, Loving, Search for Tomorrow, Biography
Star Sign
Sagittarius
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Quote
1
Once we were plotting an episode, and I looked down and saw that it was the 6,000th episode of 'All My Children.' So I said to the group, 'Hey, let's knock off and I'll take you to lunch.' When I had come back, for the first time in my life, I had forgotten that I was to have a telephone interview. So I called the reporter...and apologized profusely and explained that we discovered it was our 6,000th episode we were writing. She did some figuring and said: 'Do you realize that if you'd been writing nighttime, you would have been working for 240 years!'
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Fact
1
Elected as a Governor on the board of the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the Writing category. Her term is set to last 2 years. [2006]
During the 1960s she simultaneously wrote both Guiding Light (1952) & Another World (1964). This led to a few minor problems such as in the 445th episode of Another World (1964) she wrote in the script that the scene takes place "in the coffee shop of Cedar's Hospital" - Cedar's Hospital is the fictional hospital on Guiding Light (1952).
5
When she went into labor and had to go to the hospital to deliver one of her children she brought her Dictaphone along so that she could continue working.