Last Washington's Birthday, something unprecedented happened in daytime TV. Sara Karr, heroine of the dramatic serial The Edge of Night died in the arms of her grief-stricken husband Mike, in full view of an estimated audience of ten million.

Viewers stared at their sets with stark unbelief. Mike and Sara (played by John Larkin and Teal Ames) had been together since the drama began in April 1956. Audiences had followed their courtship, rejoiced when they were married on-air. . .rooted for Mike when he left the police to enter the District Attorney's office, and when he went into private law practice . . .worried as he paced the hospital corridor, waiting for Laurie Ann to be born. The little family became near and dear. Any major break was bound to weigh heavily on viewers' hearts.

Just how heavily, the show's top brass--producers and CBS network heads--had no idea. They soon found out. Results were immediate, stunning, and overwhelming. While the drama was still on, the huge CBS switchboard in New York was literally jammed with calls. Not only from individual viewers in the area, but from managers of affiliated stations across the nation, whose own switchboards were being tied up with inquiries: Had Sara really died? If so, why was it allowed to happen? Was Teal Ames ill. . .leaving to get married. . .taking another job? Most unthinkable of all--had they dared to fire her?

Telegrams piled up, some 260 of them while the program was in progress. TV editors and columnists from all over--many of them more familar with nighttime than daytime shows--phoned to ask: "Who is this Teal Ames who plays Sara? Why is everyone so excited about her? What happened today on The Edge of Night to start such an uproar?

Letters began to block normal mailroom procedures. Sackfuls from the New York area alone, snowballing day by day. Some local stations forwarded mail, some merely reported it was beyond belief. TV RADIO MIRROR itself got hundreds of letters sent directly to the editor, containing such comments as this: "Why did this wonderful story and this wonderful family have to be broken up? ... "My friends and I are wondering why Sara had to die and leave Mike alone." ... "Our whole neighborhood is waiting to hear why Teal Ames left the show. It's like losing a very dear friend." ... "Thousands of women must have wept for Sara and her family, as we did." ... "My husband hurried home to watch the show with me everyday. And now Sara is gone."

If the network and agency and the sponsors were astonished at the quick and violent reaction to Sara's demise, Teal Ames was even more so. When the CBS head of promotion asked her to come in and take some conference calls-- a round-robin of phone calls in which half a dozen or so editors were on the line and Teal answered their questions--she was still in a state of bewilderment.

"I must say it was ego-satisfying," she observes. "I had no idea that what happened to me would make that much impression. I knew people loved Sara, and I knew they would miss her very much. But I had to leave when I did."

Why didn't the show simply replace her, immediately or later?

Don Wallace, its producer, says: "Teal had told us she wanted to go. Her contract was expiring, and this was her right. Of course, we would have liked to keep her on the show, but she had made up her mind. TV is essentially an honest medium-- anything dishonest in a story shows up quickly. The Edge of Night has always been an honest program. To please our audience, we could have sent Sara away for a time. But she is not the kind of person who would ever leave her husband."

"We couldn't put another girl in the show and call her Sara. Teal was too closely identified with the part in everyone's mind. It was not illogical to have her pass on. Death comes to families, and mothers sometimes give their lives to save a child. This is what Sara Karr did. She ran into the street to save Laurie Ann from the wheels of an automobile, and was herself struck down."

Why did Teal herself want to leave the show?

"I left because I felt primarily that the time had come to expand, to do some things that would stretch me and my talents. I had been Sara during five wonderful years. I loved her. I loved my TV family. But when time came to sign a new contract, I found myself wanting to be in a position of greater freedom. To be able to try new parts, play other kinds of women. Maybe to work in something like the Shakespeare Festival or a Broadway or off-Broadway play. In the big nighttime dramatic productions on television. In roles completely new to me, presenting new challenges."

Indirectly, Teal left because there are certain things a she now wants from life. "A girl who is tied so closely with a job may neglect other aspects of her life. Getting out and meeting many kinds of people. Having time to get to know some of them well. Looking ahead to a home, and marriage. A husband's wishes might have to second place to the demands of a long-term job."

She has a house in a suburban area, which she shares with two other actresses, the first step toward the country living she would like for part of every year. She wants to live on a farm someday. "It is possible to have a life like this-- a life in the theater and in the country. I want some of both these worlds. I want to work intensively, and then be free for a period."

Some of that freedom she wants to use in travel. She has an invitation to visit friends in Japan. "East and West are beginning to meet, and I want to be a small part of that. Long trips are simply out when you work in a daytime serial. You can't be away that much."

How did she prepare to break away from the show? What were her feelings? "I thought about it a long time. These people had all become dear to me. They were like a family. And there was the audience, too. People all over the country who had bothered to write me. We had established lasting friendships through letters-- friendships I intend to continue."

What was the final break like?

"First, I must tell what happened a few weeks before my last day on the show. We had started our broadcasts, in 1956, from a CBS studio which we vacated after six months. Then, those last weeks, The Edge of Night was transferred back to its old studio. I hadn't let myself think too much about leaving, and what it might mean to me, up to that point."

"But when I walked in, a flood of memories came back. My happiness when I got the part of Sara. Working with John Larkin and the rest of the cast and crew. The way everyone had helped me from the first day, especially John, who knew so very much more than I did. It was like getting to page 100 in your life, suddenly flipping back to page 50, and remembering what you felt at that time. What have I set in motion? I asked myself. Will I ever again find such a wonderful group of people and work under such happy conditions? "

The very last day filled her with mixed emotions. She stood at the threshold of something new, but the old still called to her. "There are alternate directors on the show, Allan Fristoe and Dick Sandwick. Allan had directed the accident scene, and Dick was directing the scene in the hospital. He had some ideas which were very moving. John Larkin and I decided to go easy during rehearsals and try not to be too emotional. We were saving that, and ourselves, for the actual broadcast.

"But it didn't work. We were moved to tears each time we went through it. The scene was so well-written, so poignantly directed, that we had to play it to the hilt. I had never before played a death scene, and I was grateful that it wasn't long and drawn-out. That it had not been made harrowing and morbid."

"Actually, it was a beautiful scene, because John handled it so beautifully. When he softly sang, 'And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and die,' I could hardly keep the tears back. Sara had died for Laurie Ann, their daughter. Perhaps some people still didn't know that, in real life, Laurie Ann is John's daughter, Victoria Larkin. An adorable child who was just beautiful to work with. She's a natural-born actress.

Teal almost spoiled the surprise farewell party that was given for her, by planning one of her own in the studio immediately following the show. "Everyone who planned to be at the surprise party had to show up at mine to keep me from suspecting. I was so excited that I didn't change from the hospital gown I wore in the final scene. One of my friends saw me pouring champagne for my guests in this funny short nightgown and whispered, 'Don't you think you ought to take time out to get dressed?'"

By a pretext, they got her over to the hotel where their big party was waiting for her. By this time, she was practically in tears. The spray of red roses they gave her was presented with deeply touching words of appreciation and affection. So was the charm bracelet, to commemorate the five years ending.

"I had never worn a charm bracelet," says Teal. "I always wanted one, but felt it should have special significance. This has. The tiny basket of flowers which dangles from it is to remind me that I was working in a flower shop im my early scenes on the show. The little bride-and-groom is for the marriage of Mike and Sara. The baby carriage is for Laurie Ann. The poodle is for a poodle I owned who appeared with me a few times. The TV camera, the medal which gives the name of the show and the dates, and the wishing well with the little bucket that goes up and down-- these are self-explanatory. The wishing well belongs to the future-- my future. "

What will the future bring to Teal Ames?

At this writing it is filled with exciting promise. A Theater Guild offer to tour Europe with a repertory company had to be turned down because a part was pending in an off-Broadway show she may do this summer or fall. There are some nighttime dramatic roles. There are also some trips she wants to take-- short ones, and perhaps the long one to the Orient she has dreamed about so long.

"Everything in life has a beginning and an end," she says. "Many times you want to fight the end of something, especially of something you have loved. But you must move on."

Meantime, The Edge of Night has had an audience bonus. Little Laurie Ann, desperately ill at the time of Sara's death, has been restored to health, and to the arms of her adoring father Mike Karr and her grandparents. Even thos viewers who could not accept Sara's passing, at the time, have found new interest in the story's growing developments.

"Im glad they chose the way they did," Teal says now. "When I left the show, Sara did, too. It would have seemed strange to watch anyone else in my part."

She can see herself in it anytime she wants to run the kinescope of that final scene. The program presented it to her as one more rememberance of five good years on The Edge of Night . And of Sara Karr, the girl Teal Ames helped to create.