Reverend Ruthledge

6 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

I don't recall him fumbling his lines very much on ATWT, either, but it had much more of a problem when he appeared on OLTL.

I do remember him fumbling his lines quite often although it wasn't so much him fumbling his lines as him always pausing too long before delivering his lines. I've noticed other actors doing this. Eileen Fulton did it. So did Helen Wagner. You can tell the pause is them trying to remember the lines. He would mix things up too from time to time but he was good at saving it. As was Fulton. I would imagine they edited out the big fumbles. I can't imagine how any of them memorize all those lines. I, personally, couldn't do it. 

28 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

In 1972, Mike was married to Charlotte Waring while he was defending Leslie on charges of murdering Stanley Norris.  Their union ended bitterly, however, because of Charlotte's insecurity and treachery (she was jealous of Leslie and even tried to sabotage Mike's defense strategy by leaking his legal plans to the D.A.)

A low-life former associate of Charlotte's named Flip Malone kidnapped her and ultimately tried to kill her. Mike, forever the hero, had come to rescue her. He jumped between Charlotte and the gun and got shot in the chest. Trying to escape, Flip sped off and died in a car crash. Although she wanted to reconcile with Mike, Charlotte could not win him back. Their marriage was permanently over. Mike recovered from being shot and subsequently married Leslie.

Thanks for the history lesson. I was at least partially right with it being Leslie he was defending and the year being 1972. I didn't remember about Flip Malone. I guess the butterfly collar was a 1972 thing. I didn't think they came along until the late 70s. My fashion knowledge isn't as extensive as my TGL knowledge. To say the least. 

30 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

The references to Mike being shot after winning a big court case seemed fairly recent, so I guess around then (was that 72?).

Could be. My 70s historical knowledge is spotty but he could be referring to winning Leslie's court case when she was tried for murdering Stanley Norris which would have been 1972, I believe. I didn't know he was shot right after that, though. I wonder who shot him. 

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

Thanks for sharing! I wonder what year this was? By the fashions, I would say late 70s but he said TGL had only been on 20 years. Even if he was only counting the radio years, that would put this at 1972. 

20 hours ago, P.J. said:

BTW, does anyone remember what the five fan favorite moments were (for the 50th anniversary)? One was Nola getting busted, one was Roger's death. And I assume one was Reva's "slut of Springfield" moment (because...of course...RME) What were the other two?

One was definitely a tribute to Charita Bauer and it was introduced by Ed Bryce. The other one, I BELIEVE, was Phillip learning out who his real parents were. I'm not 100% sure on that one but I know it was Grant Alexander and Michael O'Leary introducing it. I'm pretty sure that was the scene shown. 

58 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Yes,

How did you find that Pat Collins, Robert Gentry, Mart Hulswit and Richard van Fleet failed to capture the essence of Ed Bauer as well as Peter Simon did? 

6 hours ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Well, I will enter in. Peter Simon was my favorite Ed! 

He was your favorite but did you think he was the actor who most definitively captured the essence of the character of Ed? 

9 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 And while I loved Robert Gentry as Ed Bauer, Mart Hulswit ended up being the perfect and definitive Ed for me.

Oh no! We finally have a difference of opinion! LOL. While I definitely think Hulswit was much more likable than Gentry, I never thought of the character of Ed as being likable so Gentry was more the definitive Ed for me. 

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

Thanks, everyone. I have the ATWT 40th anniversary book, and found it very useful. I wouldn't be expecting complete accuracy.

I thought Harley was great---until the Gus Aitoro years. Ugh.

I found the GL books better for me than the ATWT book only because they did offer specific years for events, even if it was wrong a lot of the time, which made it easier to locate specific episodes I wanted. But, other than that, the ATWT book and the GL books are of similar quality and good. 

12 hours ago, slick jones said:

Scott Bryce and Anne Sward in the final episode of TATTLETALES.  With   Marj Dusay and Todd Curtis of CAPITOL and Marla Adams with Franc M. Benard of Y&R

 

I wonder whatever happened with Todd and Frank.

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

They talk about how slow soaps are. Both Tony & Annabelle and Billy and Vanessa were fast-track romances in the summer of 83.

Does anyone have the Guiding Light history books? Are they any good? 

They are good but have a lot of inaccuracies. In particular, when it comes to dates. 

11 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

Slightly off topic -  but when PFS came back to DAYS in 1981, NBC ran a commercial promo about “having the writer from GH now!” I wish that was still up, and why did no one bother to tell NBC PFS started at DAYS? 

Oh, here it is. How tacky:

 

That commercial is cringe-worthy. Everybody has different perspectives but that would make me NOT want to watch Days. 

7 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Young marrieds Bob and Lisa with Chris and Nancy in the background

Cool photo! Lisa busy texting and not listening to Bob.  

7 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

LOL. Surely Ellen had lived long enough to know you should never tell a woman she looks pregnant. 

18 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

A really good interview and Caso is on top of his game with his memory of things. I don't agree with Caso that the depressing stories of Margo's rape and the incest thing and the pulling the plug was stuff women could "relate to," but it was good drama if a bit much all at once. Interesting that Ann Sward suggested the Casey plug thing and wonder how she felt about Dolan getting it instead. 

 

I didn't listen very closely but I don't think that's what he was referring to. He was talking about women entering the work force. I think he was talking about having the female characters do the same. He was talking about the socially-relevant storylines just being something that Doug enjoyed doing. 

9 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

 

Thinking about Sara, she was GL's first woman doctor-a sign of the times.

 

I don't mean to be pedantic, but Dr. Mary Leland was actually GL's first woman doctor. Back in the late 40s. It was a major part of her storyline to struggle with sexism in that field. In fact, she could only get one patient, Mama Bauer. That was when Mama was sick with cancer. Mama loved her but the rest of the Bauers were against a woman treating Mama. They only went along with Mary treating Mama because Mama insisted. Surprisingly, even Trudy was against Mama having a female doctor. 

30 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

I'd always assumed that killing off Robin was Irna's doing when she came back, but this was all before her return.

 

Yes. Robin's death was erroneously attributed to Irna in Christopher Schmering's book and in, possibly, also Julie Poll's book. However, Irna did not write Robin's death. 

@FrenchFan I've said it before and I'll say it again. Your command of the English language is incredible! That, on top of the fact that you have excellent taste in soaps. You are right in that the late 60s were a great time for soaps, in general, and Guiding Light, in particular. Also As the World Turns, Days of Our Lives and Another World. 

3 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

@FrenchFan thank you so much for continuing to share these gems.

The Paul/Sara engagement from the 50's was a retcon by the Ferro's I think. Pretty sure Paul was established as a loner who never had time for women when he was introduced. That changed when he met Anne.

You are correct.

Delete

11 hours ago, kalbir said:

The big difference though is that Y&R had been on less than 10 years when Bill Bell shifted focus whereas GL had 30 years of history (I'm counting from the first television episode).

Hey kalbir, 

Just curious. No antagonism intended at all. Why would you only consider the TV years and not the radio years. I ask because I know several people do this when talking about GL and I'm genuinely curious as to the reason for this. It's like some people refuse to even acknowledge the radio years. I don't get that. It's the same show, just different medium. It's almost like people have an aversion to the medium of radio or something. I've never understood it. 

9 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

thanks @FrenchFan Robin never seemed a very stable character. She was very much a forerunner of later soap ladies who had several short lived marriages in the space of a few years eg Erica, Carly,Mindy...

No, she wasn't but she had a very hard life. To sum it up, Meta told Paul, when she was trying to comfort him for feeling guilty about Robin's suicide, "Robin's life was conceived in tragedy, lived in tragedy and ended in tragedy". 

45 minutes ago, jam6242 said:

 

Here are a few newsclips from February 1960 and May 1960.  Was Ed Bauer originally called Billy, as the second article mentions?

Yes. 

2 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Yes, he was on good terms with Robin. She had gotten over him marrying Ruth. Ruth, however, blamed Robin for Karl's death and even accused Robin of trying to get even with Ruth by causing Karl's death. This was an accusation coming out of grief. Robin and Mark had left that in the past but Ruth dragged it back out when Karl died. I'm not sure if Ruth got over her resentment towards Robin before she left town, however. So, yes, Mark and Ruth were both in town when Karl died. I don't know they weren't at the inquest.

Corrected a line from above. Ruth blamed Robin for Karl's death and accused her of trying to get even with her for marrying Mark. This was an accusation out of grief. Ruth eventually realized Karl's death was an accident.

4 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks so much for answering my questions. These years of the show seem to have so many psychologically complex relationships, even if I'm not sure that was intended in the writing or just the result of intermarrying a small canvas. It does seem like they changed Robin to noticeably older by the time Gillian Spencer is in the part. Did you enjoy her work as Robin?

Do you know if that was Philip Sterling as the lawyer? George is listed as arriving in Springfield in 1962 so I guess it wouldn't have been that character (even though he was also a lawyer)?

You're welcome. I wish I could answer everything. I don't know if that's Philip Sterling. You're right that you can get into complex relationships when there's a small canvas. Especially when a core group of characters stays around for many years. I liked Gillian Spencer but my favorite Robin was Abigail Kellogg. Although those are the only two actress I witnessed in the role so I don't know which of all the actresses who played the role would have been my favorite.