"Dynasty was a big hit because it showed that rich people have as many problems as poor folks, and there's nothing TV viewers love more than to see rich people skewered. Isn't that why we love to read about the Kennedys and the Royal family of England? Dynasty was pure camp. Women wore fashionable hats and designer gowns and fought continously with each other. There were long'last sons and mothers, lost babies, kings and queens of foreign lands, illegitimate offsprings, divorces, secret pasts, insatiable sex lives, beautiful mansions and sleek cars. Dynasty was responsible for showing that people over forty still fall in love and have sex. We had terrific cast, headed by John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins. The show was developed as our answer to CBS' "Dallas". Prime time serials were in then, and ABC wanted one on their own."

Esther Shapiro, writer and producer

"When ABC asked my husband to write a series, we wanted to do a show that embodied everything you weren't supposed to do for television. We wanted a show with the very rich - which was always a no-no. And we wanted women, middle aged women to be at the center of it. We wanted it to be more about love, not just about sex, about people caring. We wanted at the center of it, a man who was great at business but all the relationships around him were falling apart. We wanted to see how all those people intersected. As we went through, we had people who were impossibly rich, living in impossibly big houses that no one could relate to, and we said, let's just see what would happen if we gave that to an audience. Guess what? They related!"

William Saunders, The president of 20th Century Fox Television International

"We tained the international rights for Dynasty from Metromedia in March 1986. Almost three years later, the series continues to air weekly in prime time troughout the globe, producting strong local ratings. They don't publish the ratings like we get here, but my knowledge stems naturally from the fact that they renew and renew and renew, which means it's doing a great job for them. That's my proof of the success of Dynasty, because it doesn't take long for people to say no... Everyone's very happy - the show's been a huge success."

Nolan Miller, costume designer

"Probably my favorite show was Dynasty. It was a designer's dream. I had carte blanche from a design perspective. Before the series hit the air, executive producer Esther Shapiro called a meeting. She said, 'I don't want anyone on this show that isn't so beautiful that Cary Grant wouldn't fantasize about going to bed with her. I also don't want to see anyone wear the same dress twice.' The show's attention to detail was amazing. It was actually my idea that Alexis, clad in a negligee, would have half a grapefruit and a glass of champagne for breakfast every morning."

Bill Conti, composer

"In television they don't have time to temp-track, so you're dealing with a producer or director. In this case the producers were the writers of Dynasty, Richard and Esther Shapiro, and they had this script that was originally called Oil and they were looking for scope. They knew that it was television but they wanted to give you the feel that this was a big picture here -- big, expansive, sophisticated, on the level of these high money people -- their world is different from our world. Those were the words they used, and I came up with that music. That was my idea of what they meant."