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Joseph Hardy Dies: Tony-Winning Broadway Director, Exec Producer Of ‘Ryan’s Hope’ Was 95
Joseph Hardy, the stage director who introduced the enduring charmer You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, died June 6. He was 95.
Joseph Hardy, the stage director who introduced the enduring charmer You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, won a Tony Award for 1970’s Child’s Play and, as an executive producer in daytime drama, attempted to rescue the fading serial Ryan’s Hope with some of the most controversial changes in soap history, died June 6. Hardy became part of a new producing team that overhauled the serial by firing some of its most popular cast members and shifting the focus from its longtime setting of the Ryan family bar to the goings on at a nearby deli. Hardy’s Ryan’s Hope era became something of a cautionary tale for the daytime drama industry, as networks and producers would ever after tread carefully about making major shifts away from a serial’s founding focus.
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