Love Is a Many Splendored Thing is an American daytime soap opera that aired on CBS from September 18, 1967 to March 23, 1973. The series was created by Irna Phillips, who served as the first head writer. She was replaced by Jane Avery and Ira Avery in 1968, who were followed by Don Ettlinger, James Lipton and finally Ann Marcus. John Conboy served as producer for most of the show's run. Beginnings and controversy The serial was a spin-off from the original 1955 20th Century-Fox film, although its title omitted the hyphen found in the film's title. In turn, the film was based on the 1952 autobiographical novel A Many-Splendoured Thing by Han Suyin. The show was originally a coproduction of CBS and 20th Century-Fox's television division. Love Is a Many Splendored Thing focused on lives and loves in San Francisco, California. Its title sequence showed the title over a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, with a slightly reworked rendition of the film's signature hit theme. In a rare move for daytime serials of the era, live shots of junk boats from Hong Kong were interspersed with pictures of the real San Francisco. In 1968, when CBS became sole producer and distributor of the show, its more well-known sequence was introduced showing just the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. A revised version of the theme song was played by Eddie Layton, the long-time organist at Yankee Stadium and a popular recording artist. Layton played the Hammond X-66 (then owned by CBS) throughout most of his time on the program. Veteran serial writer and creator Irna Phillips was hired to adapt the film for television, picking up the story some years after the end of the film. In the beginning, the star of the show was Nancy Hsueh as Mia Elliott, daughter to the characters portrayed by William Holden and Jennifer Jones in the 1955 film. Mia left Hong Kong to study medicine in San Francisco, her late father's hometown, and there she became involved with two men: Vietnam War pilot Paul Bradley, and, later, Dr. Jim Abbott. However, CBS censors balked at an interracial love story between a white man and an Amerasian woman. The network was also uncomfortable with a developing subplot in which Jim Abbott was implicated in the death of a young patient, the result of a botched abortion. Unwilling to compromise her story