Flamingo Road

Flamingo Road is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on NBC. It premiered as a television film on May 12, 1980, and as a series on January 6, 1981, after a rebroadcast of the pilot on December 30, 1980. The show was based on a 1942 Robert Wilder novel of the same name and the 1949 movie scripted by Wilder and starring Joan Crawford. The show was created by Lorimar Productions, who was producing CBS's Dallas and Knots Landing at the same time. Set in the present-day fictional town of Truro, Florida, Flamingo Road centered on the wealthy Weldon family, who made their fortune running the town paper mill. Television film (1980) The show's pilot introduces the Weldon family who reside on the ritzy Flamingo Road in Truro, Florida. Claude Weldon (Kevin McCarthy) is the patriarch, who owns the town's paper mill, who is turning the family business over to his son, Skipper (Woody Brown). Eudora (Barbara Rush) is his neglected wife, Constance Weldon (Morgan Fairchild) is his spoiled adopted daughter. Constance is engaged to Deputy Fielding "Field" Carlyle, whose every move is dominated by the corrupt Sheriff Titus Semple (Howard Duff), who virtually controls the small town. Field develops a relationship with Lane Ballou (Cristina Raines), a singer with Coyne's Traveling Circus, who is left behind when the circus is run out of town. Titus is dismayed by this, as he wants Field to someday become a Senator and marry into the Weldon family. After Lane takes a job at the Eagle Cafe, alongside Annabelle Troy (Dianne Kay), Skipper's girlfriend, Titus plots her demise, and at the end of the first hour, Lane is falsely picked up for solicitation. After completing her sentence, Lane defiantly returns to town, taking a job with Lute-Mae Sanders (Stella Stevens), the local bordello owner and Constance's secret mother with Claude, and forming a connection with Sam Curtis (John Beck), a construction magnate. Field and Constance eventually get married with much of the town in attendance, and Eudora finds comfort in Elmo Tyson (Mason Adams), publisher of the town's newspaper. Claude reveals his financial issues to Titus, who agrees to help him in an insurance fraud scheme. The mill is set aflame, with Annabelle (who is revealed to be Titus' daughter and planning on meeting Skipper there) accidentally perishing in the fire.