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) patient, the result of a botched abortion. Unwilling to compromise her story for CBS executives, Phillips quit the series, as the character of Mia Elliott was written out of the series in March 1968, never to be mentioned again. CBS and 20th Century-Fox Television were then the co-producers of the show. Phillips' resignation led to the end of Fox's role as co-producer and distributor. In February 1968, Irna Phillips was replaced by husband-and-wife writing team Jane and Ira Avery. The Averys quickly refocused the series on two families: The Donnellys and the Elliotts. The Donnelly family was headed by widower