Billie Lou Watt

Yes, Billie Lou Watt was also the English-dubbed voices of "Kimba The White Lion" and "Astro Boy," two early,Japanese anime cartoons which appeared on U.S. television in the 1960s & '70's and were distributed in the United States by NBC Films. Watt also provided other character voice-overs on both these series', as well for another Jap anime series, "Gigantor." Watt was also the voice of Elsie, the Borden Company 's trademark cow, in its television advertisements.

Watt's character of "Ellie Harper Bergman" (not a hyphen, as she was not a Yuppie professional) on "Search For Tomorrow" was first introduced as the aunt of "Scott Phillips," a young Vietnam veteran returned to "Henderson" and who discovered that his father was attorney "Douglas Martin," the latter who was also married to "Eunice Gardner Webster Twining Martin Wyatt," sister of main character "Joanne Gardner Barron Tate Reynolds Vincente Tourneur" (played for the soap's entire 35 years by Mary Stuart).

"Scott" eventually became a lawyer, married beautiful "Laurie Leshinksky," who then died, leaving him with her young son "Eric" to be raised by "Scott," "Ellie," and grandmother "Ida Weston"("Scott's" maternal grandmother). Eventually "Scott" fell in love with & married young, female attorney "Cathy Parker," the couple first working in the practice of "Scott's" father, "Doug Martin," later ended up working for attorney "John Wyatt" (whom "Eunice" also eventually married) after "Doug's" sudden death. At one point "Phillips" was also married to "Jennifer Pace Phillips Wyatt" (played by Morgan Fairchild, in her first major acting role), but her scheming ways resulted in the couple's divorce, "Scott" reconciling with second wife "Cathy."

Incidentally, Peter Simon, who played "Scott," and Courtney Sherman, who played "Cathy," married in real life. Simon left "Search" and also played the role of "Dr. William 'Ed' Bauer,Jr." on CBS' & TV's now longest-running soap, "(The) Guiding Light." In fact, Simon may be second only to Mart Hulswit in having played "Dr. Ed" the longest. Courtney Sherman-Simon continued to act on soaps as well, also writing for several of them over the years. She even resurrected her role of "Cathy Parker Phillips" in the late '70's/early '80's on "Search,' with a different actor playing "Scott."

Anyway, Watt's character of "Ellie" was also secretary to "Stu Bergman" (played by veteran radio & TV character actor Larry Haines, who originated the role in the soap's sixth month) at his auto dealership, eventually married "Bergman" after a long courtship (of a few years), following the death of his first wife, "Marge." "Marge" had been played for all 21 years by actress Melba Rae, who died suddenly after "Search" celebrated its 20th anniversary in 1971. Out of respect for Rae, the show's writers also wrote "Marge" as having passed away, rendering "Stu" a widower. Rae's death also marked the first time an actor or actress playing a major soap character had died in real life. Since then, it has become rather a soap tradition (though not always) to also "kill off" a character when the person playing the role dies in real life. Such were the cases with Theo Goetz, who played "Papa Bauer," and Charita Bauer, who played "Bertha 'Bert' Bauer" (both on "The Guiding Light," and since its radio days), and with Santos Ortega, who played "Grandpa Hughes" on "As The World Turns."

Though I had stopped watching "Search" by the time of "Stu" and "Ellie" divorced, I had heard from a friend that the storyline had her character of "Ellie" preposterously run off with the town butcher. For long-time fans of the soap who had watched "Stu" & "Ellie's" long courtship and knew their beloved, old-fashioned characters, this must have seemed ridiculous.

In fact, I recall the soap treating their marriage as if a real-life matrimonial ceremony, showing a screen shot of a wedding invitation on camera, inviting fans the broadcast before the ceremony to "join us for the wedding of 'Stu' & 'Ellie'." Haines and Watt received thousands of congratulatory letters following their fictional nuptials, but that's how seriously soap fans took things in those days. It was a very different, more innocent, some might say even "gullible" era. Soaps' main viewer base was comprised of middle-aged to older housewives, some young persons (such as myself, then) who watched with their mothers and grandmothers after school, on school vacations or when home sick from school.

It wasn't until the late '70's that more college students and young adults began watching soaps in larger numbers, a fact exploited by the development of soaps such as "The Young & The Restless" and the "Luke & Laura" storylines on "General Hospital," emphasizing more sex, glamorous location shooting & sets, action-based plots, etc. That in turn led to the resurrection (not since "Peyton Place" in the mid-1960's) of prime-time soaps such as "Dallas" and "Dynasty" which took the genre to an extreme. Soaps were so popular by then that prime time even developed situation comedies which satirized the genre--"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" (from controversial producer Norman Lear) and "SOAP," from the team of Witt-Thomas-Harris, who later developed "Benson" (a "SOAP" spin-off), "The Golden Girls" and "Empty Nest."

I have several old soap magazines and books with pictures of "Search For Tomorrow," including several of Billie Lou Watt and some devoted to the marriage of "Stu" and "Ellie."

Send me a private message, stopthemachine, including your email address and perhaps I can send you some photos as attachments. Although I have only older video (from kinescopes, which are filmed live episodes) of "Search For Tomorrow," because the years Miss Watt was on the program are mostly the years when videotape was just starting to be used and were erased and re-used to tape more episodes of network programming, I may acquire some video of "Search" with Miss Watt on them at some point in the near future. If I do, I will then send you a disc.