Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (film) later inspired a television soap opera in 1967, though without the hyphen in the show's title. A widowed Eurasian doctor Han Suyin (Jones) falls in love with a married-but-separated American correspondent Mark Elliott (Holden) in Hong Kong, during the period of China's Civil War in the late 1940s. Although they briefly find happiness together, she is ostracized by the greater Chinese community. After losing her position at the hospital, Suyin and her adopted daughter go to live with a friend while Mark is on an assignment during the Korean War. They write to each other constantly. She receives word Mark
Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (TV series) Gordon, Paul Stevens) is murdered. Mark's trial for murder causes Laura to miscarry their baby and have a nervous breakdown. Later, learning that she can never carry another child, Laura instigates divorce proceedings. After Iris learns that her brain injury will cause her death within a year, she and Spence agree that their baby would be better off with childless Laura; however, the court rejects the adoption on the grounds that Laura will be a single mother. Iris persuades Mark and Laura to reconcile for the sake of her baby, and gives birth to William Alex Garrison (Arthur Benoit, Jr.).