Who's idea was it to turn Curtis' dream into a soap?

[David]

Who's idea was it to turn Dan Curtis' dream about the girl on the train into a soap?

Curtis had an extensive career in prime time TV, made two theatrical films outside of the DS universe, and produced sports programming for CBS.
But he had no history in soaps before or after DS--so when he pitched his dream about the girl on the train was he pitching a soap or a nighttime mystery series?

Who's idea was it to turn the show into a soap?

[retzev]

I think I heard somewhere his wife suggested it.

[dom]

Yes, I remember reading that also. I wonder if it's true?

[Claude North]

As far as I understand it, Curtis was friends with Leonard Goldberg, who was Vice President of Daytime Programming at ABC at the time, to whom the idea was pitched to. So it's probably just serendipity that Dark Shadows happened to be a soap. I'm sure if Curtis' contact had been in prime-time it would have been made as a prime-time show.

There's an interview with Goldberg on one of the DVD sets, comes across as a real nice person. I love how he refers to Barnabas as 'Uncle Barnabas'. Something tells me he's thinking on the lines of Uncle Fester.