With the success of such "glamorous" soap operas like Dallas and Dynasty, and its desire to gain younger viewers,[ ] CBS asked The Young and the Restless producer John Conboy to produce an equivalent in daytime during Summer 1981. Capitol became the first soap opera to be produced in Los Angeles since The Young and the Restless began in 1973.
The show's title sequence during its early years showed aerial scenes of Washington, D.C. shot during the winter of 1980 to 1981. In the final year, a computerized sequence was instituted, illustrating glamour and sex in addition to the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.
Capitol is an American soap opera which aired on CBS from March 29, 1982 to March 20, 1987 for 1,270 episodes. As its name suggests, the storyline usually revolved around the political intrigues of people whose lives intertwined in Washington D.C.
Capitol revolves around the Denning, Clegg, and McCandless families, who live in the fictional Washington, D.C. suburb of Jeffersonia.
At the center of the drama are feuding matriarchs Clarissa Tyler McCandless (Constance Towers) and Myrna Clegg (Carolyn Jones; Marla Adams; Marj Dusay). Kindly and down-to-earth Clarissa and vituperative and vindictive Myrna are former best friends who in their youth had been rivals over the love of Baxter McCandless; in retaliation for Baxter falling for Clarissa and not her, scheming Myrna had spread lies about Clarissa's father, liberal Congressman Judson (Rory Calhoun), linking him to communists during the McCarthy era.
Baxter has left Clarissa a widow, and Myrna is married to government worker Sam Clegg (Robert Sampson; Richard Egan). The longstanding feud between the women is inflamed when Clarissa's war-hero son Tyler McCandless (David Mason Daniels; Dane Witherspoon) falls in love with Myrna's daughter, Julie Clegg (Kimberly Beck; Catherine Hickland). 
Despite Myrna's best efforts to destroy this match, they eventually marry. Also featured are Myrna's other children: Trey (Nicholas Walker), who is being groomed for the presidency; Brenda (Leslie Graves; Shannon Terhune; Ashley Laurence; Karen Kelly), and Jordy (Todd Curtis).
Ironically, despite their mother's scheming and conniving, Trey, Julie, Jordy and Brenda were not like Myrna whatsoever.
Besides Tyler and her father, Judson, Clarissa's family includes sons Wally (Bill Beyers), a young man with a gambling problem, Thomas (Brian Robert Taylor; Michael Catlin), a doctor, and Matt (Shea Farrell; Christopher Durham), a handsome athlete. Also living with them for a time was Clarissa's niece, Gillian (Kelly Palzis). Meanwhile Clarissa is in love with Senator Mark Denning (Ed Nelson) who is in an unhappy marriage with agoraphobic Paula (Julie Adams) and is the father of reporter Sloane Denning (Debrah Farentino).
Clarissa later falls for Jarrett Morgan (Ron Harper), who turns out to be her presumed-dead husband Baxter. While the original focus was on the Romeo and Juliet style love story of Tyler and Julie, the bulk of the storyline quickly switched to Trey and Sloane whose 1984 wedding was filmed on location at the Jefferson Memorial. Trey's previous relationship with former prostitute Kelly Harper (Jane Daly Gamble; Jess Walton) produced a son, Scotty, and eventually caused Trey and Sloane to divorce.
Julie and Tyler dealt with constant interference by Myrna as well as Julie's inability to have a child. Playboy Jordy had several serious romances, most notably with feisty Lizabeth Bachman (Tonja Walker and sweet Leanne Foster (Christine Kellogg.
The older characters were busy in storylines as well, most notably Clarissa and Mark who had to deal with the psychotic Paula (Julie Adams). The performances of the older actors were honored with several Soap Opera Digest Nominations, but none of the cast were ever Emmy Nominated.
The storylines of the last year caused a fall in ratings, particularly because of the many absurd plot twists. Not only was Scotty Harper revealed to have been fathered by Sam Clegg, Senator Mark Denning turned out to be a spy.
Sloane was paired with a handsome Arab prince Prince Ali Peter Lochran which gave the opportunity for some exotic love scenes. With Clarissa not sure if the man she thought was Baxter was really her long presumed dead husband, the show veered further off track by revealing that Clarissa and Baxter's son, Matt, was really Prince Ali's long-lost brother, adopted by Baxter to prevent him from being killed.
However, the addition of film and stage actress Janis Paige as Sam's long gone first wife Laureen was filled with potential that never got the chance to be explored.
Paul Rauch created Grosse Pointe as a replacement for the serial in 1986. During her absence from Ryan's Hope, Michael Brockman, former President of CBS Daytime, asked Claire Labine to develop a new serial in 1986. Her proposal was entitled Celebration but never made it to the air. Had it been greenlit, Jane Greenstein would have been have Assistant to the Head Writer like she was on General Hospital.[
CBS announced the series' cancellation in December 1986. With the last two months of episodes taped in the span of a month to accommodate the beginning of replacement soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, Conboy and head writer James Lipton ended the series with the cliffhanger of Sam being blackmailed by his lover Kate into asking Myrna for a divorce, and Sloane placed in front of a firing squad in the Middle Eastern kingdom of her lover, King Ali.
Nevertheless, CAPITOL is one of the most brilliant productions in daytime. Sy Tomashoff’s flawlessly-crafted sets shine, and are aided by an immense studio and clothing of consummate good taste. The stunning cast includes Constance Towers (Clarissa), as lovely and as believable a heroine as one can find.
Marj Dusay’s Myrna is perfectly-balanced bitchery, always tempered with vulnerability. Julie Adams is captivating as instigator Paula Denning. Nicholas Walker is perfect as the ambivalent Trey Clegg, with Jess Walton (Kelly) matching him ounce for ounce, despite her character’s disappointing new path. The show’s younger performers are unique, hardworking and well-cast, and probably no single performer in the history of daytime has shown more growth than Deborah Mullowney, as Sloane Denning. Relatively inexperienced when the show premiered, this actress has never ceased to surprise viewers as the romantically-thwarted career woman. Mullowney has molded one of the few flawed heroines on television – a sympathetic, industrious young woman given to vengeful fits when pushed to the edge.
Insisting "we've only been allowed to see what the press and the politicians want us to see", producer John Conboy outlined, "I would like to explore...that kind of behind-the-doors thing we never know."
"I think the soap opera's time has come," writer Elinor Karpf offered. "It is the true realization of the novel....This is a true American art form."
Of Capitol, John pointed out, "There is great mystery about Washington because we are only allowed to see what goes on when a politican and his wife have a microphone put in front of them."
Carolyn Jones played Myrna Clegg on Capitol. "There's a bit of Myrna in myself," she revealed. "I say what I think. I can be acerbic....But then there's a little of Myrna in all of us."
"As the most powerful political and social hostess in Washington," Marj Dusay observed, "Myrna does all of the things people would like to do in real life, but can't."
Constance Towers played Clarissa McCandless on Capitol. "The character is a lady I can respect and love and enjoy playing," she enthused. "She is a widow with 6 children, and she has raised them to be fair and honest and caring and loving. She tries to solve her problems in a fair and honest way. It's the kind of role one would like to be identified with."
"Myrna and Clarissa - the object of her vitriol," Marj mentioned, "were childhood friends. Myrna was madly in love with Baxter McCandless, but Clarissa got him. Clarissa took the man Myrna loved, which completely devastated her, and she's been lacking in love ever since. She wants position and power to insure that she'll never lose again."
"When we started," John recounted, "we were told the audience didn't care about politics and that people weren't interested in politicians....The closest we could come to a real Washington story was a few scandals. That's the only thing we were allowed to touch."
On reflection, he conceded, "If we are able to move the show to cable we can take a much sharper storyline."
Writer Stephen Karpf shared, "The lines are blurred these days. Voters cross party lines all the time. In Washington today, you are judged by your character not your affiliation."
"I originally conceived Capitol as an hour show," John disclosed. "I'd produced The Young And The Restless for 9 years. When we expanded that to an hour it meant enormous changes. We had to create new families and new storylines. So I conceived of Capitol as an hour show from the beginning."
"Washington is fantasized in Europe a lot," John expressed. "We're dealing with the power center of the world."
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