Millee Taggart

Class of 1957 Millee Taggart left Ottawa Township High School, after graduation, to embark on a successful career as an actress, writer, and producer in the entertainment industry. Beginning her career as an actress, she had success in both primetime and daytime television. In addition to stage work she starred in three soap operas, perhaps best known for her long-running role as Janet Bergman Collins in the television series Search for Tomorrow, portraying the character from 1971 to 1982. She also starred as Geri McGrath Pollock in The Edge of Night and as Millie Parks in One Life to Live. While still acting on Search for Tomorrow, series executives hired her as a writer, and later Garry Marshall, when she was performing in the film Young Doctors in Love, offered her the opportunity to learn to write comedy. Thereafter Millee Taggart distinguished herself as both a comedic and dramatic television series writer in such series as: Search for Tomorrow, Dynasty, The New Odd Couple, Joanie Loves Chachi, Nothing in Common, Teen Angel, Beaches, and Santa Barbara; and as head, or co-head writer in As the World Turns, Ryan’s Hope, Loving, All My Children, and Guiding Light. She also served as a story consultant and writer in Port Charles, The City, and Santa Barbara. As a producer, her credits included The Thorns and she developed and became executive producer of the groundbreaking reality television series, Starting Over, which has won three Emmys. Millee Taggart and best-selling British novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford collaborated in creating Saints and Sinners. She also created Angel Mountain, Hell House, Through the Window, King’s Ransom, and Next of Kin. For her work in television she was awarded two Emmys and three Writers Guild of America (WGA) awards for outstanding scriptwriter. She has twice taught the ABC Writer Development Program and traveled to Paris to teach French writers how to write soap opera. She worked with Jon Murray to create Oxygen’s hit show, The Bad Girls Club. She created, in the aftermath of the Bernie Madoff investment scandal, a show tracking the life changes of those affected.