Santa Barbara: A Legendary Chapter in Soap Opera History
‘Santa Barbara’ is an American Daytime Soap Opera which ran on NBC for 2137 episodes from July 30, 1984 to January 15, 1993.
‘Santa Barbara’ quickly set itself apart from other daytime soap operas. At its heart, it was a soap opera that dared to be different, mixing traditional melodrama with sharp wit, humor, and a faster-paced, riskier narrative style.
Created by Bridget and Jerome Dobson, the show centered around the wealthy and powerful Capwell family of Santa Barbara, California, and their many rivals, lovers, and enemies.
The series explored complex relationships, betrayals, secrets, and crimes, often with a sharper, more sophisticated edge than typical soaps of its era. It became known for its ambitious storytelling.
Early on, ‘Santa Barbara’ struggled in the ratings and even faced harsh criticism, with many doubting its longevity. However, the show’s bold writing, complex characters, and groundbreaking performances soon earned it widespread critical acclaim. It became known for its daring storylines, emotional depth, and memorable romances.
Over the course of its nearly 10-year run, it won 18 Soap Opera Digest Awards and 24 Daytime Emmy Awards.
The show developed a devoted international fan base, particularly strong in Europe and Russia.
Despite ending in 1993, ‘Santa Barbara’ remains a beloved classic, praised for having redefined what a daytime soap opera could be.
Robin Wright as Kelly Capwell: A Broken Angel in Santa Barbara
Robin Wright played the role of Kelly Capwell from July 30, 1984 (Episode 1) to June 23, 1988 (Episode 982).
After Robin Wright left ‘Santa Barbara’, Kelly Capwell was played by Kimberly McArthur, Carrington Garland and Eileen Davidson.
Kelly Capwell is a central character in the long-running soap opera. As the beloved daughter of the wealthy and powerful Capwell family, Kelly is both privileged and deeply compassionate, often torn between her family’s expectations and her own desires.
Unlike many who come from privilege, Kelly does not let her wealth define her. She longs for genuine love, meaningful connections, and a life filled with passion rather than material excess.
She is a romantic at heart, experiencing intense and dramatic love affairs throughout the series, many of which are marked by tragedy. Her relationships are often passionate but complicated, with heartbreak and loss shaping much of her emotional journey.
Although Kelly was inherently good-hearted and often driven by a desire to do the right thing, she could also be deeply flawed. She sometimes struggled with honesty, weaving lies to protect herself or those she loved.
In matters of love, Kelly was often unfaithful, torn between passion, fear, and the longing for stability she rarely found.
Her actions, while manipulative at times, always stemmed from her wounded heart rather than malice. Her vulnerability, impulsiveness, and inner battles made her relatable, showing that even the golden girl could be fragile, broken, and beautifully human.
At the beginning of the show, she seemed like the perfect embodiment of innocence, the golden daughter of a powerful family, a shining light untouched by darkness. But that illusion shattered early, and beneath the flawless smile lived a soul deeply scarred by loss, betrayal, and madness.
Kelly was a dreamer, once. She believed in eternal love, in happy endings. Her heart was tender, open, foolishly brave. But the world punished her for her hope. Kidnapped on her honeymoon by her twisted ex-boyfriend Peter Flint (The Carnation Killer), Kelly endured horrors that left her spirit shattered: a brutal rape and the murder of her great love, Joe Perkins. From that moment, Kelly Capwell would never be whole again.
Grief and trauma hollowed her out, leaving a girl who could no longer trust herself, let alone anyone else.
Love, once her religion, became a curse. She lied. She cheated. She betrayed. Not because she wanted to hurt others, but because something inside her was broken beyond repair.
The sweet girl who once dreamed of roses and weddings became a haunted woman who sought escape in fleeting passion, in beautiful lies, in anything that might make the pain stop, even for a moment.
Months after the death of her beloved Joe, Kelly found a fleeting peace through the mercy of amnesia. She forgot not only her sweetest memories with him, but above all, the unbearable traumas that had shattered her soul.
She left behind her beautiful angels and, more mercifully, her cursed demons. For weeks, she lived without a past, a blank canvas, as innocent as a child discovering the world anew.
In a lost Ghost Town, she wove a tender romance with photographer Nick Hartley. There, among ruins and silence, Kelly banished her ghosts and tasted happiness.
But the spell was brief: when memory returned, so did the broken woman who no longer believed in anything.
After The Ghost Town fantasy, Kelly was again restless, volatile, emotionally unmoored. She clung to love only to grow disillusioned when it inevitably turned stale. Routine suffocated her. Happiness, when she glimpsed it, slipped through her fingers like smoke.
Her mind, cracked under the weight of her trauma, spiraled until even sanity became a distant memory. She was institutionalized in a mental hospital; a princess locked not in a tower, but in her own shattered mind.
Yet even in her darkest moments, Kelly Capwell was never cruel.
She was a tragic heroine, a young woman whose goodness was clouded by heartbreak, whose mistakes were the cries of someone fighting not to drown. In every impulsive decision and every reckless romance, Kelly’s broken spirit bled through.
She became a creature of contradictions: tender yet deceptive, loyal yet unfaithful, desperate for love yet unable to trust it. Lies spilled from her lips not with malice, but as weapons of survival. Infidelity became a reckless attempt to feel something, anything, through the numbness that consumed her.
She was constantly battling her own demons, trying to reconcile the tender girl she once was with the woman she had become.
She was no longer the naive girl who once believed in happy endings; she had seen too much, lost too much.
Kelly Capwell was a haunted soul, forever chasing the ghost of a love she could never reclaim.
She stood as a chilling reminder that even the most beautiful hearts can be ravaged by darkness when grief becomes their only companion.
Kelly Capwell was a fallen angel, a girl who once had everything, and lost it all to the merciless hands of fate.
Robin Wright captured this heartbreak perfectly, crafting a portrait of a woman both fragile and dangerous, both victim and survivor. Through every look, every silence, she revealed a soul still fighting to hold onto hope, even as the world around her fell to pieces.
Robin Wright AWARDS & NOMINATIONS for her role of Kelly Capwell
- Daytime Emmy Awards 1988 | Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series | Nominated
- Daytime Emmy Awards 1987 | Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series | Nominated
- Daytime Emmy Awards 1986 | Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series | Nominated
- Soap Opera Digest Awards 1988 | Outstanding Heroine: Daytime | WINNER
- Soap Opera Digest Awards 1986 | Outstanding Young Leading Actress on a Daytime Serial | Nominated
Robin Wright absences during her 4 years as Kelly Capwell
➡ From episode 164 (March 19, 1985) to episode 186 (April 18, 1985), Kelly Capwell only appears one episode because Robin Wright was busy with the pre-production of ‘Hollywood Vice Squad’ her acting debut in cinemas.
➡ Robin Wright does not appear on the show from episode 523 (August 19, 1986) to episode 613 (December 25, 1986). That’s because she was filming ‘The Princess Bride’ in England.
➡ Kelly Capwell does not appear from episode 867 (January 13, 1988) to episode 885 (February 9, 1988) because Robin Wright is filming her third movie: ‘Denial’.
Santa Barbara RATINGS
Season 1984-1985 ➡ 3.4
Season 1985-1986 ➡ 4.2
Season 1986-1987 ➡ 4.2
Season 1987-1988 ➡ 4.9
Season 1988-1989 ➡ 4.8
Season 1989-1990 ➡ 3.7
Season 1990-1991 ➡ 3.2
Season 1991-1992 ➡ 3.1
Some ratings from Season 1992-1993:
May 18-22, 1992 ➡ 2.6
Sept 28-Oct 2, 1992 ➡ 2.5
Oct 12-16, 1992 ➡ 2.4
Dec 28- Jan 1, 1992 ➡ 2.9
Jan 4-8, 1993 ➡ 2.8
Jan 11-15, 1993 ➡ 2.9
CAST: A Martinez, Marcy Walker, Nancy Lee Grahn, Jed Allan, Judith McConnell, Robin Mattson, Lane Davies, Todd McKee, Nicolas Coster, Robin Wright, Louise Sorel, Frank Runyeon, Carrington Garland, Justin Deas, Gordon Thomson, Kristen Meadows, Roscoe Born, Richard Eden, John Callahan, Robert Thaler, Ross Kettle, Leigh McCloskey, Vincent Irizarry, Jack Wagner, Stacy Edwards, Nina Arvesen, John Allen Nelson, Christopher Mayer, Linda Gibboney, Harley Jane Kozak, Stephen Meadows, Jane Sibbett, Ally Walker, David Haskell, Page Mosely, Marj Dusay, Shirley Anne Field, Ava Lazar, Dane Witherspoon, Mark Arnold, Paula Kelly, Janis Paige, Dame Judith Anderson…
CREATORS: Bridget Dobson and Jerome Dobson
PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Dobson Productions, New World Television
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:
Bridget and Jerome Dobson | Jeffrey Hayden: July 30, 1984 to September 1984
Bridget and Jerome Dobson | Charles Pratt, Sr.: October to November 1984
Bridget and Jerome Dobson | Mary-Ellis Bunim: November 1984 to November 1986
Bridget and Jerome Dobson: December 1986 to October 1987
Jill Farren Phelps: December 1987 to March 1990
Jill Farren Phelps & John Conboy: March to August 1990
John Conboy: August 1990 to June 1991
Paul Rauch & Bridget and Jerome Dobson: June 1991 to January 15, 1993
THE HEAD WRITERS:
Bridget & Jerome Dobson | July 30, 1984 to December 1986
Anne Howard Bailey & Charles Pratt Jr. | December 1986 to January 1989
Charles Pratt, Jr. | January 1989 to May 1990
Sheri Anderson & Maralyn Thoma | May to June 1990
Sheri Anderson, Samuel D. Ratcliffe & Maralyn Thoma | June to July 1990
Samuel D. Ratcliffe & Maralyn Thoma | July 1990 to February 1991
Bridget and Jerome Dobson | February 1991 to February 1992
Pamela K. Long | February 1992 to January 15, 1993
WRITERS: Bridget Dobson, Jerome Dobson, Sheri Anderson, Anne Howard Bailey, Kim Beyer-Johnson, Bettina F. Bradbury, Richard Culliton, Charlotte M. Dobbs, Christopher Dunn, Josh Griffith, Robert Guza Jr., Hoyt Hilsman, C.L. Johnson, N. Gail Lawrence, Pamela K. Long, Joan McCall, Patrick Mulcahey, Lynda Myles, Charles Pratt Jr., Thom Racina, Pete T. Rich, Michael Russnow, Frank Salisbury, Courtney Sherman, Maralyn Thoma, Jack Turley, Michele Val Jean…
DIRECTORS: Rick Bennewitz, Gary Bowen, Peter Brinkerhoff, John J. Desmond, Ellen Falcon, Bill Glenn, Michael Gliona, Norman Hall, Grant A. Johnson, Bob LaHendro, Stephen Messer, Karl Messerschmidt, Gordon Rigsby, Robert Schiller, John Sedwick, Nicholas Stamos, George Thompson, Andrew D. Weyman, John C. Zak…
MUSIC: Joseph Harnell, Dominic Messinger, Rick Rhodes, Randy Padgett, Art Phillips, Anthony R. Jones…
Santa Barbara (1984-1988) | Videos & Clips
She was the one and only Kelly Capwell.
My Dear Robin:
It has been an exceptional career and I shall feel ashamed since watching some of your early films did not capture the script psychological intuition, which is most obvious aware your beauty in every character simply enhanced the ideal woman I dreamed about.
I felt in love with you moment I saw Message in a Bottle, then tempted to unfold the puzzle conscientious of the Chicago Tribune and surrounding, marvelous and touching for each time you have played it paramount Ms. Wright.
My affections,
Ramon
will they ever release on dvd ?
I loved Robin Wright as Kelly on Santa Barbara. She was so troubled, sweet and also a dark character.
Maybe now the series can be seen as old, cheesy and cheap, but in the eighties it was a very popular show, super entertaining, with many fans and it won many awards.
I’m rewatching the show on your YouTube channels. My favorites are Robin Wright, Marcy Walker and Judith McConnell. I adore them!
Been watching Santa Barbara on your YouTube channels the last 2 years. I’m now on episode 535.
At first Robin Wright is a little weak in her acting (I understand because she’s a newcomer).
But after a few months she learned so much. She became one of the best actors of the show. In 1985 and 1986 Robin Wright delivered some remarkable acting as Kelly Capwell. I love her.
My favorite Kelly storylines are the carnation killer and when she’s in the mental hospital. I love robin as kelly.
During season 1988-1989 we lost Robin Wright, Lane Davies, Justin Deas and Todd McKee. Maybe that was the reason why the ratings drop so much the next year.