'Texas' went on air in August 4, 1980. Gail Kobe made the point, "The first 18 months is traditionally rough for a daytime drama. A serial like this becomes popular not only through exciting stories and characters, but also because viewers feel that they actually know the characters...Our audience needs a certain amount of time just to familiarize themselves with the men and women of 'Texas.'" On 'Texas', head writer Joyce Corrington emphasized, "The focus will be on the conflicts characters experience as they move to this new frontier, encounter the glamor of the big rich and adjust to sudden changes of fame and fortune. The tale will be as big as Texas, spanning America and the world, but always returning to the land and to that glittering city, Houston, which seems to embody the conflicts and contrasts that are contemporary Texas."
'Texas' ended its run in December 1982. Beverlee McKinsey believed, "I don't think it was good planning by the network to put 'Texas' opposite the No. 1 show 'General Hospital'. I wish they would change our time slot (3:00p.m. New York time), put us someplace else and see if the show takes off." 'Another World' provided "lead-in" audience to 'Texas'. Between March 1979 and August 1980, 'Another World' ran for 90 minutes each day. "('Texas') was the first show to start at an hour," Gail pointed out. "(At the beginning) they were doing 15 scenes a day and now, we sometimes do as many as 27."
Of production, Paul Rauch recounted, "We used to have everyone here from 5:00a.m. to 6:00 in the evening. I found the level of spontaneity and energy had flagged by the end of the day." Kevin Conroy shared, "I love doing the play (William Inge's 'Come Back, little Sheba') and the soap at the same time. I'm up at 6 o'clock and work on the soap until afternoon and then around 4:30, I think of going to the theater and my adrenalin starts flowing all over again. The role of Chase (on 'Search For Tomorrow') interested me because he's not one-dimensional. Producer Ellen Barrett outlined some wonderful plot lines for me and one of them will allow me to sing on the show, which is really exciting."
Beverlee maintained, "It's hard to play a villainess every day because of what you have to give to it...Joan Crawford played some terrific villainesses and she turned out to be the one of all time...Linda Gray will have to live another 50 years to do all the things I have done. I have bugged my husband's suite. I've had a nervous breakdown and cut off all my hair on the air. I spent 4 years trying to break up a marriage and then was responsible for the death of the couple's first child. My mother's neighbors take Iris so seriously my mother didn't know what to tell them. I told her to tell them, 'Turn off your sets.'"
