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
Mark Elliott (Love Is a Many Splendored Thing) was engaged to Iris Donnelly, but his overachieving mother did not necessarily like Iris. She would prefer that he date Iris' sister, former nun, Laura Donnelly instead. Mark broke off his engagement to Iris, and married Laura, to his mother's delight. Later on, Mark's mother, Helen, after the death of his father, Phil, married Laura's brother, Tom Donnelly, a police officer in San Francisco. Despite his marriage to Laura, Iris wasn't far from his mind. Even when she met and married politician, Spencer Garrison, he still loved her. However, he made a major blunder, when he mistook Iris for his