Bridget and Jerome Dobson were writers for American soap operas, best
known as creators of the NBC soap opera Santa Barbara.Bridget Dobson
is the daughter of General Hospital creators Frank and Doris Hursley.
Bridget and Jerome married in 1961. Bridget began writing for General
Hospital in the early 1970s and Jerome joined her soon after.Bridget
Dobson is the daughter of General Hospital creators Frank and Doris
Hursley. Bridget and Jerome married in 1961. Bridget began writing for
General Hospital in the early 1970s and Jerome joined her soon
after.In 1975 the Dobsons were hired as the head writers for the
long-running CBS Daytime soap opera Guiding Light. They spent the rest
of the 1970s at Guiding Light where they created alluring nurse Rita
Stapleton (who became the show's heroine for the remainder of the
1970s), the rich, upper class Spaulding family in 1977 (who would
remain one of the show's core families until the show's cancellation
in 2009), and wrote the infamous storyline of Holly Norris Bauer's
rape by her own husband Roger Thorpe in 1979. The Dobsons would later
go on to become the head writers of another Procter and Gamble soap
opera, As the World Turns where they created the infamous character of
James Stenbeck and also paired the characters of Tom and Margo.In
1984, NBC debuted Santa Barbara where Bridget and Jerome Dobson had
creative control of the show's storylines until they were locked out
of Santa Barbara's NBC offices in 1988 after the Dobson's repeated
attempts to fire then head writer, Anne Howard Bailey. The Dobson's
filed a $53 million lawsuit against NBC and New World Television (the
company that owned SB). That same year, when claiming Santa Barbara's
Outstanding Daytime Drama Emmy, a bittersweet Bridget Dobson taunted,
"Though New World Television locked me out of the studio, they
couldn't lock me out of the Emmys" By 1991 the case was settled out of
court and the Dobsons returned to the show they created. Andrea Howard Top Movies & Young Movies