Peyton Place - The fictional New England town that was the inspiration for the steamy prime time drama PEYTON PLACE/ABC/1964-69. The program was based on the best-selling novel Peyton Place (1956) written by Grace Metalious, the wife of a school teacher who lived in the quiet little town of Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Unfortunately, the sexual going-ons professed in the novel upset the citizens of Gilmanton especially the high school principal Thomas Makris who sued Metalious for slander and defamation when he discovered that the principal in the book was suggestively named "Tomas" Makris. Metalious claimed that her book was a work of fiction and that none of the characters were based on the good people of her hometown, but that didn't keep her husband from being fired from his teaching position. The town of Peyton Place worked its way further into American popular culture when the phrase "This is just another Peyton Place" appeared in the lyrics of the Number One hit song "Harper Valley, PTA" (1968) sung by Jeannie C. Riley. Gilmanton (a.k.a. "Peyton Place") is located about 20 miles northeast of Concord, taking eastbound Interstate 393 and northbound New Hampshire 106 in the Lakes Region near Laconia. The movie Peyton Place (1957) was filmed in the town of Camden, Maine. The prime time TV version was so popular that it was aired three evenings a week during the 1965-66 season. Look magazine offered some viewing rules when watching the soap opera: 1) You need to watch every episode; 2) If you suspect anything, you're wrong; and 3) If a villain appears, he's probably not one.  TRIVIA NOTE: The 2001-2002 season WB Network program GLORY DAYS starred Eddie Cahill as author Mike Dolan who returns his hometown Lake Glory to write a second novel . Unfortunately, the town's residents give him a cold welcome because of the way he portrayed them in his first novel. What an original idea!