If it hadn't been for a part-time job writing comedy sketches, William J. Bell would be practicing madicine today. He was a premed student at DePaul University when he accepted a gig penning scripts for a Chicago radio station to earn money. But Bill discovered he enjoyed writing so much that he set aside his plans to become an actor.

Soon After, Bill's writing talent caught the attention of McCann-Erickson, a high-pofile advertising agency, and he accepted a copywriter position. Three years later Cunningham and Walsh, a competing agency, lured him over with a lucrative offer. Bill's first assignment in his new job was creating a national ad campaign for Sara Lee.

While Bill was working in advertising, he met Lee Philip, a prominent Chicago TV talk show host. Bill's clients appeared as guests on Lee's show and Bill often accompanied them to the studio. Bill and Lee went on a date, and afterward, Bill immediately knew he found the woman he wanted to marry.

At twenty-nine, Bill realized that working at an ad agency was not how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Now married to Lee, he decided to return to the field that brought him the most satisfaction, writing. In 1957 he submitted a sample televison script to Irna Phillips, a fellow Chicagoan who had practically created the form we know as television soap opera. Irna hired him to write dialogue for The Guiding Light. A year later Bill began writing for As the World Turns, another Irna Phillips creation, and in 1964 he co-created Another World with Irna. A year later, Bill co-created with Irna Phillips the primetime serial Our Private World. In 1966 he assumed head-writing chores for Days of Our Lives, which premiered on NBC to lackluster ratings. "It was a real challenge," says Bill. "All the numbers were at CBS, which carried As the World Turns and Guiding Light. NBC had no numbers at all." Thanks to Bill's efforts, however, Days of Our Lives soon skyrocketed to the number one position.

In 1973, he co-created The Young and The Restless with his wife, Lee, which premiered on CBS. Variety praised the new serial, which sought to present a broad base of wholesome, identifiable young characters in situations that reflected contemporary life, for itssophistication. In 1987 The Bold and the Beautiful, which Bill also co-created with Lee, premiered.

Bill has received seven Emmy Awards, two as a writer, one each for The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives, and five as a producer The Young and the Restless, most recently on 1993. Other awards for excellence in writing and subject matter include multiple Media Access Awards, The Nancy Susan Reynolds Award from the Center for Population Options, and numerous other awards and citations from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Hollywood Entertainment Council, and the Men's Fashion Association of America, to name a few.

Bill has also been the subject of retrospectis at the Museum of Broadcasting and the Museum of Broadcast Communications, and the recipient of the Governor's Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Silver Circle from the Chicago chapter of NATAS. He has received the Editor's Award from Soap Opera Digest and is one of the inaugural inductees into Soap Opera Weekly's Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of awards for Most Popular Drama Series from networks in Itally, Holland, and Switzerland.

More recently, Bill's two current daytime drama serieses have popularized the soap format with audiences in over ninety foreign countries, opening up a vast new and appreciative international audience to the phenomenon of American daytime drama.

For nearly four decades Bill has remained the medium's fiercest advocate and its most enthusiastic champion, preffering the daytime drama format to all other writing and producing venues and opprotunities. His sories, plots, and characters epitomize the rich diversity and complex ingenuity that AMerican daytime dramas represent.