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
Laura Donnelly (Love Is a Many Splendored Thing) dismay. However, Iris, good and loyal sister that she was, told Mark to make his marriage work—something she continued to tell him after he mistook her for Laura, made love to her, and impregnated her. Laura was enraged, although she later realized that it wasn't Iris's fault completely (Iris had been blinded in an accident, and it was Mark who had thought Iris was Laura). Besides, it was Iris who was forever telling Mark to make his marriage work, which made Laura feel good. Iris married Spencer Garrison later on, but yet, Iris had given birth to Mark's daughter, Maggie.