Rich Lather

Suspecting that there might be a few million soap-opera fans with nothing to do of mornings, one sponsor has worked out a plan to fill the breach. Beginning next month, NBC will record Procter & Gamble's afternoon soapers, Young Doctor Malone and The Brighter Day, from CBS lines, then play them back on the NBC network a day later. Cost of the service to P. & G., which spends several million dollars a year on 13 such programs, will be relatively small, since all the expensive work on the show goes into the live CBS performance.

Top-rated soap operas reach audiences of 4,000,000, frequently rank in popularity with such audience-pullers as Groucho

Marx and The Great Gildersleeve. This week, as usual, the sudsy characters were wading through their customary tears, trials and triangles. Although NBC has its share of serials, the five most popular ones (according to the current Nielsen rating) are on CBS. The five:

The Romance of Helen Trent is complicated by mystery. Hollywood Lawyer Gil Whitney, who loves Helen, has been beaten up by hoodlums. Helen is being shadowed by a private eye, who is being shadowed by the police, who can't make the eye talk.

Our Gal Sunday poses the question: Can a girl from the little mining town of Silver Creek, Colo, find happiness married to England's richest, most handsome peer, Lord Henry Brinthrope? Answer, after about 15 years: no.

Ma Perkins is busying herself around her lumber yard when Gladys Pendleton calls to say that her mother Matilda fell, or was pushed, while arguing about a divorce with her husband, pompous Bank President Augustus Pendleton. Augustus goes off to spend the evening with his gentle lady friend, Widow Amy McKenzie, the woman Matilda wants to name in the divorce suit. The teaser: Will gentle Amy marry pompous Augustus?

The Guiding Light is the story of Meta and Joe Roberts, whose marriage is breaking up. Meta announces that she is going to New York to visit her sister Trudy, but Meta's real reason for the trip is to see Dr. Bruce Banning. Trudy's husband Clyde, who has Meta pegged, is heard to mutter: "No matter where she is or whose life she touches, it means trouble."

Big Sister is Ruth Wayne, who refuses to accept defeat, even though her world is crumbling around her. Old Friend Dr. Reed Bannister, visiting the Waynes with his wife Valerie, confesses to Valerie that he once loved Ruth, something Valerie had suspected all along. What Ruth doesn't know: Ruth's brother Neddie, who has his own marital troubles, is madly infatuated with Valerie. Ruth's husband John is an invalid. Is his illness caused by a guilt feeling? Would psychiatry help?

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