Reverend Ruthledge

You're welcome. I have a wealth of trivia in my brain and always happy to share it with anyone who might care.

Well, her accident was the day after marrying Dan. She hovered between life and death for a month or so before finally kicking the bucket.

They could have done it just to get Dan and Liz together as Paul's only real storyline on the show was the Dan-Liz-Paul triangle. Although, Liz had her infamous, fatal fall the day after her wedding to Dan so they didn't stay together too long. But Paul was always a minor character. He always played second fiddle to Dan's story and he was away in Vietnam a lot of the time. They probably just thought he outlived his usefulness. He was never fully fleshed-out as a character or given much to do. Elsie was also always pressuring Bert to divorce Bill. Even taking her to see her lawyer once and having Bert file divorce papers because Bill was an alcoholic. Which she withdrew when she decided to go back to Selby Flats and give Bill a chance. Elsie hated Bill. Of course, I'm sure a lot of people thought Bert should have divorced Bill but I actually thought the opposite. I thought Bill should have divorced Bert. LOL. Especially in the younger years. In the latter years, Bert turned out to be an anchor for Bill instead of the irritant she was in the younger years. I thought Bill was a fascinating character. He seemed to always be doing the wrong things but those things came out of him trying to do the right thing and denying himself. He married Bert and stayed with her because it was expected when he should have been with a woman like Gloria and, probably, later, Maggie. He worked at jobs he hated when he really wanted to be in the military and travel but felt like he had to be domestic. That's why he could never keep a job and drank so much. He was unhappy in his life but never felt like he could do what would have made him happy because he was trying to do "the right thing". Very misunderstood character. Sorry. This is an ATWT thread and I've spent too much time deconstructing Bill Bauer. I just find the character very interesting. Everybody talks about women being constrained back then because of social expectations but men were too to some degree.

Yeah, he pressured Ellen to give up her baby. He was very stuffy and always telling Jim and Claire how they should act. Granted, somebody needed to keep a reign on those two but he did it in a heavy-handed way. He wasn't all that likable in the beginning at all. Tragic is the best way to describe Claire. She was a fascinating mess. I think Emily inherited her neurotic gene.

Yes, a lot of the matriarchs/patriarchs mellowed with age. Papa Bauer was almost tyrannical in his early days. Judge Lowell was very controlling. Bert Bauer was materialistic, opportunistic and manipulative. Pa Hughes was stubborn and cranky. These are the shows I'm most familiar with but, on GL and ATWT, the matriarchs/patriarchs all mellowed with age and became the kind, supportive heads of the family. Chris Hughes was pretty even-keeled with his kind, albeit oblivious, nature throughout his run.

No, the Soaps & Serials rendition of what happened didn't have her "fall up the stairs" but it was just as weird. In the book, she wasn't running up the stairs but was walking up the stairs with a tea tray and tripped. The ceramic tea pot shattered and she was stabbed with a shard of the broken tea pot. I think they were competing for the weirdest version of the accident. I never got the tea pot angle unless the writer was trying to make some statement about Liz being English and being killed by a tea pot. Soaps and Serials would change things up for no discernible reason. Sometimes they were accurate to what really happened and sometimes they just completely pulled something out of nowhere. What Irna really wrote was less sensational than all the future discussions of it. Liz was running up the stairs because Susan had left the baby gate open and Emily was teetering at the top of the stairs. When she fell, she landed on the sharp edge of the stairs on her side and ruptured her liver. She hovered a very long time at death's door before she finally died. The idea that she could fall hard enough to rupture her liver did ask the viewer to suspend disbelief but she didn't "fall up the stairs". If this was Days of Our Lives in 2024 then, yes, I'm sure someone could fall up the stairs.

I don't think she truly calmed down until the 70s. After Bill faked his death, Papa Bauer died and she eased into the matriarch role. It's funny because most people remember the kindly matriarch Bert of the 70s and 80s when they were watching and never witnessed anything else. I have the opposite viewpoint in that I really only started watching GL right before Bert died so I don't remember her much as the kindly matriarch. I don't have many episodes from the 70s but have a lot of episodes from the 40s, 50s and 60s. Most of the experience I have with Bert was when she was a bitch-on-wheels. LOL. I'm sure people are shocked when I say I didn't like Bert.

Thank you, Matt! These are great!

I'm glad you had a positive experience. Thanks for letting us know. I've been trying to order but they don't answer my emails which made me think they weren't professional and, therefore, not reliable. I'd hate to send a lot of money to someone who didn't answer emails.

I'd be careful with ordering things from them. They don't seem to be very professional and I question their authenticity.