Reverend Ruthledge

ICAM. I think James should have stayed dead after Paul shot him.

The male and the female interviewers both seemed like they had just done a line of coke right before the interview. Thank you for sharing a video that would easily go under the radar. This was great to see as I like Kim Zimmer (talked to her once and she was VERY cool) and The Trip to Bountiful is probably my favorite play. I would definitely go if I lived in Raleigh.

He sure had a shiny face.

I just googled him to try to remember him and saw an article where he was recently arrested for stealing used cooking oil. Such a bizarre story.

I'm beginning to really hate that website. You are right in that there was never any talk of Bruce and Meta getting a divorce. Either when she was off-screen or when she returned. Bruce was never mentioned. As thrilled as I was that they brought Meta back in the 90s, there was so much material that could have been mined for her in regards to her past that was never even touched upon. Such a waste. She was just brought on to be a generic matriarch of the Bauer family. She could have been anybody. The only past she seemed to mention was the angel stuff or going to see Reverend Ruthledge. Neither of which actually happened on the show. I just don't think later writers cared at all about the history of the show. Which is why it was shocking that they even brought Meta back at all.

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with this. I never liked Van Hansis nor his acting. His Luke was always a snot and very unlikable to me.

It's a shame Gary Pilar and Robert Gentry weren't on the show at the same time as they were my favorite Mike and Ed. It would have been great to see them together.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you. Glad I could help! I just recently discovered the cast list thread so I was just skimming through it.

I know this is an old post but I just stumbled upon it and thought I'd make the correction that Ben was not blind to Maggie's affair with Bill. In fact, he used that information to blackmail Maggie into marrying him.

I still don't buy it. After all, Bert forgave Bill for his past infidelities with Gloria and Maggie and even befriended both women(albeit not closely). And she practically adopted Hillary when she found out about her. I just don't see the need for Bill to go to the drastic measure of faking his death and letting his whole Springfield family think he was dead. That's just a level of cruel and selfish that Bill never was. I just look at his back from the dead story as just hack, revisionist writing. Which I MIGHT have forgiven if they brought Bill back for good. I just didn't see any purpose in it except to introduce Hillary. But they could have done that without Bill having faked his death and come back from the dead. Why bring Bill back just to have him hang around for a few months and then disappear? As much as I loved the character, I wish he really would have died in 1969.

Well, soap timelines are screwy as you know but, if one were to look at it from a realistic perspective, yes, she was already conceived since the plane crash was in 1969 and Hillary was a grown woman when Bill came back from the dead in 1977.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. At the risk of being highly pedantic (which I've come to accept over the years), Bill's plane was not "overseas" but I wouldn't expect completevaccuracy in that article or anyone to know or care about the error. The problem I had with Bill faking his death was that the main struggle the character had over his 21 years of story before the plane crash was being tortured by his conscience when it came to his family obligations. Even when he tried to separate from Bert to be with women he loved more, he would always go back home because of his sense of responsibility. Bill was constantly trying to deny himself and his desires for the sake of family. I just can't buy that he would suddenly be ok with them all thinking he was dead to run off to be with another woman. Especially Papa and Mike (who he was very close to). He cared too much about family. To his personal detriment.

Well, it was only Marty and his mother Claudia and Claudia wasn't on it too much. I didn't feel like there was too much attention paid to Marty either. At least not in those months. At least that's how it felt to me.

Not yet. They would expand to 30 minutes on September 9th, 1968. A few months after the synopsis I wrote ends.

Thanks for all the insights. It makes me happy to talk about the glory years of GL. Since I was talking about Irna's late 60s run on the show, I thought I'd share the synopses I wrote of her months on the show for anyone that is interested: -12/18/67 thru 12/22/67. Script breakdowns. Ed is in trouble with the hospital for leaving while on duty. Leslie thinks Joe is responsible. Bill rushes to help Ed. -12/25/67 thru 12/29/67. Christmas episode. Meta surprises the Bauers with a Christmas visit. Tracy (Charlotte) and Johnny meet. Meta goes to see Paul and reassures him that he’s not responsible for Robin’s death. Paul thinks Robin could have committed suicide because of him. Joe and Ed are in trouble for fighting at the hospital. Ed and Leslie’s dinner with Bill and Bert is ruined by Ed’s antagonism toward Bill. Ed tells Leslie he’s afraid of alcohol because of what it did to his father. Leslie tells Ed not to be afraid of anything. Sarah announces she’s thinking about moving back to Chicago when her research grant runs out and Paul offers her a permanent job at Cedars. Bert and Meta catch up over coffee. Paul and Johnny discuss Anne. -1/2/68-1/31/68. Tracy gets even more interested in Johnny when she learns how rich Henry is. Meta meets Sarah. Paul remembers, with regret, that he convinced Peggy to lie to Johnny and tell him she didn’t love him so that he wouldn’t be so persistent on getting married. Leslie warns Ed not to worship her father and to be his own man. Sarah signs a contract to stay at Cedars for a year. A group of hoodlums comes to the ER after a knife fight. A guy named Marty Dillman is in the worst shape and Ed saves his life in surgery. Joe and Ed call a truce and bury the hatchet. Marty is revealed to be a rich guy. Stephen offers Ed the job of being his assistant and Leslie is afraid Ed is going to turn into a clone of her father. Bert is excited that Mike wants to come home. Marty is interested in Peggy. She’s not interested in him at first but then he starts to grow on her. Marty claims he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time but he’s hiding the fact that he is the head of a gang. Johnny thinks he’d rather be a psychologist than a doctor. -2/1/68-2/29/68. Stephen makes Ed his resident and Ed is already neglecting Leslie in favor of her father. Marty gets mad when George is reluctant to give him the inheritance money from his dad due to his delinquency. Marty plays Dr. Jekyll when he’s pursuing Peggy and Mr. Hyde when he’s with his gang. Bill fills Leslie in on the family dynamic of Mike being Bill’s and Ed being Bert’s, the animosity between Bert and Mike, Bill and Ed and the closeness of Mike and Ed. He also fills her in on Mike’s history with Pat Randolph and tells her that Mike is coming home soon. Marty brings Peggy home to meet his mother Claudia. Marty starts coming on too strongly sexually for Peggy’s style. Maggie Scott is coming from New York to Cedars to be treated for an illness. Stephen wants Ed to talk to Peggy about it but Ed, still bitter at Maggie, refuses. Leslie, tired of the unforgiveness Ed and Peggy have towards Maggie, decides to take matters into her own hands. -3/1/68-3/29/68. Leslie implores Peggy to forgive Maggie. Peggy goes to see Maggie but with reservations. Bill goes to see Maggie at the hospital, with Bert’s full knowledge, but has a fight with Ed when he walks in on them. Maggie rebukes Ed for trying to forbid Bill from visiting her and for not helping Peggy to reconcile with her. Maggie is diagnosed with colon cancer and Dr. Jackson orders a surgery. Maggie tells Peggy that she came back to have time with Peggy in case she dies. Peggy pretends to forgive Maggie based on the encouragement Marty gave her to fake it. Bert visits Maggie and offers her friendship. As she prepares for surgery, Maggie tries to make Peggy understand what happened with Bill Bauer. Peggy starts to genuinely understand and forgive Peggy and wants a new start with her. Marty later tells Peggy to forget about her mother as he’s forgotten his own and the rest of the out of touch older generation. Leslie is concerned that Ed is becoming obsessed with his career. Bill goes to the hospital to be with Maggie before her surgery. Stephen discovers the cancer is malignant and has spread but wants to end the surgery after the obstruction is removed. Ed pushes for more radical surgery to try to save Maggie’s life. Stephen disagrees but lets Ed take over. While waiting, Peggy shares her remorse for having cut off her mother and her desire to live with her again. Maggie goes into cardiac arrest and dies on the operating table. Ed blames himself for Maggie’s death. -4/1/68-4/29/68. Peggy is appalled by Marty’s insensitivity about her mother’s death. Ed’s confidence as a surgeon is shaken by Maggie’s death under his hands. Bill thinks failure will help Ed grow up and realize he’s not a god. Sarah has moved back to Chicago and given Tracy her apartment. Leslie invites Bill over to talk about her concern for Ed. Ed comes home early and he and Bill have it out. Bill finally lets Ed know how he feels about him and tells him he needs to grow up. An irate Ed throws him out. Stephen tells Ed to get his act together and if he doesn’t show up for surgery the next day he will replace him. After an encouraging talk from Marty, whose life Ed saved, Ed rallies and tells Stephen he’ll be back in surgery with him. Bert tells Leslie how glad she is that Mike and Hope are coming back home and recounts to her Mike and Julie’s problems. Bill goes to Paul for a check up as he’s experiencing stomach pains. Mike comes back home with Hope and meets Leslie. Mike and Ed catch up and Mike tells Ed his affair with Pat Randolph is over. Mike and Leslie take an immediate liking to each other. Bert and Mike reconcile. Leslie’s fusses with Ed due to his neglect of her over his career and his insistence on not having children. Tracy pushes Johnny into getting engaged. Bill’s abdominal pains worsen so Joe has him check into the hospital for tests. -5/1/68-5/24/68. Mike calls Ed out on his self-righteousness. Ed reminds Mike he didn’t have to go through what he had to with Bill. George learns that Marty is lying about getting his law degree soon and he breaks the news to Claudia, urging her not to let Marty have any of his trust fund money. Bill goes in for exploratory surgery which was Ed’s decision. Joe is upset with Ed because he unethically told Bill that’s what he needed even though Joe is his doctor. The exploratory surgery reveals appendicitis which was missed due to a misaligned appendix. Claudia confronts Marty with the knowledge that he’s not really graduating and her fears of him being drafted. Marty assures her he has intent to graduate although he’s lying. Bill offers Leslie a job at his PR company but Ed forbids it. And here are the episodes surrounding Bill's death (written by Sommer and Soderberg): -7/11/69 & 7/14/69. Mike tells Leslie that Bert knows about them. Johnny tells Paul that he and Peggy are getting back together. He later breaks the news to Charlotte that he doesn’t love her anymore and is breaking up with her. Charlotte guesses that it’s Peggy. Leslie goes to see an enraged Bert. Leslie tries to tell her that Ed’s accusations aren’t true and that she never cheated on Ed with Mike but Bert believes Ed. Leslie said she wants to divorce Ed on grounds of desertion but Bert says she’ll defend Ed against the accusation by exposing Mike and Leslie’s adultery. Leslie leaves quickly after her fight with Bert. Bert tells Bill that Leslie is no longer welcome in their home. Bill and Leslie talk about Bert and her anger over finding out Ed and Leslie are getting a divorce and Mike and Leslie are in love. Grove and Ellen are worried about Janet’s relationship with Ed. Bill defends Mike to Bert who tells him that she’s willing to reveal Leslie’s affair with Mike if Leslie tries to divorce Ed. Bill is about to leave on a work trip to Alaska. -7/16/69 thru 7/18/69. Bill packs for his trip. Ed has called home to Leslie and Bert wants to know all about it. The Bauers hope that Ed has stopped drinking. Bill tells Mike that he’s proud of him. Bert tells Bill that if Ed comes back she’s going to beg Leslie to stay with him, which Bill disagrees with. Bill is looking at Ed as a fellow alcoholic and Bert thinks Ed is drinking because of Mike and Leslie. Bert misses Bill, who has left on his Alaskan trip. She tells Papa that she’s afraid for Ed when he returns because of Mike and Leslie and that she’ll never forgive them for what they’ve done to Ed. Janet tells her mother, Ellen, that she’s in love with Ed, which worries Ellen since Ed is a married alcoholic. Mike visits Charlotte, who is sad about losing Johnny, at the hospital. Ed goes over to Janet’s to tell her that he’s leaving Tarrywood and going back to Springfield. Papa gets a phone call with the news that Bill’s plane is missing and might have gone down between Seattle and Juneau. Mike and Lee Gantry’s discussion about Lee’s financial concerns is interrupted by a call from Peggy to let Mike know about Bill. Bert visits Charlotte in the hospital to apologize for thinking Charlotte was trying to hurt Peggy instead of helping her in the Dillman murder case. Charlotte talks about how fond she is of Mike and that Johnny doesn’t love her anymore. Mike comforts Leslie and Sara brings Bert to Mike for him to break the news to her about Bill’s plane.

If that's true, I would imagine it was Ed. Mike had already raped Julie. I doubt they'd have him rape Leslie too. Are you saying that heart transplants only give you five more years in real life?

Who knows why writers make these decisions. I would imagine that both characters may have been written into a corner. Even though I loved the character, I wish they would have kept Bill dead after 1969. Faking his own death was way out of character for Bill. He had already left Bert to be with Gloria so I don't see why he would feel the need to fake his death to be with Simone. Plus, he would never let his family think he was dead. And the most egregious thing about it is that there was no need to bring him back as he wasn't even around long before he just faded away. The ONLY thing his back from the dead storyline accomplished was to give Bert a storyline and to introduce Hillary. And then his second and final death was just nothing but an insult to the character. A character who had been around, off and on, for over 30 years, mind you.

Agnes seems to have stopped writing after November 1966. At least, that's when the scripts from her GL collection stop. Irna wrote from December 1967 to May 24, 1968. During this period she co-wrote with John Boruff. Robin died in October 1967 so, no, Irna didn't pen that story. If I can speak for the poster, they mean 1966 is when Ed came back on the show after having been gone for many years. Mike was already gone as he left GL in 1965. Mike didn't come back until 1968 and that was the first time he and Ed, who was still on the show, shared air time as adults. Ed, when he was Billy, was strangely never seen much. He was always kind of around but not seen. He didn't become a prominent character until 1966 when he came back as Ed.

Your assumption is correct.

It was before Freddie was born. Ed didn't have amnesia. He just ran away. He came back when he learned Bill had been killed. While he was in Tarrywood could possibly have been with things got more serious with Mike and Leslie. I don't know. I haven't gotten to that part of the story yet.

Well, Mike and Bert never got along but Mike really resented her meddling with his and Julie's relationship and Bert became obsessed with Hope after Julie was committed, basically stealing Mike's role as parent. Mike actually moved to Bay City to get away from Bert. Bert was very overbearing in those days.

Funny you should ask that question as I just finished reading the genesis of that particular storyline. Mike has just moved back home with Hope and met Leslie. He had never met her before. This is in 1968. When Ed and Leslie were on the show before that, Mike had never even met Leslie or been home for a visit. He was still angry at Bert. Mike and Bert reconciled shortly after he came back. Mike and Leslie took an instant liking to each other but it wasn't anything romantic at first. Although Mike was kind of flirty and paying her lots of compliments. This was the way Mike was with most woman. His weakness was always women where Ed's weakness was always alcohol. Anyway, Leslie, at least at this point, just looks at him as a sympathetic character to unload her frustrations about Ed on to. Leslie at this point was feeling very neglected due to Ed's cold nature, obsession with his career, absence from home a lot because of work and his desire not to have children (Leslie wanted a child desperately). Anyway, Mike is trying to get Ed to treat both Leslie and Bill better and encourage an interest in children (for Leslie's sake) but it's just angering Ed (which wasn't hard to do at this time in Ed's life). Anyway, that's where I've left the story. I haven't read yet where the romance between Mike and Leslie begins. I have read when Bert finds out about it and she was NOT happy. She was always close with Leslie and considered her a daughter and not just a daughter-in-law. However, that all changed when Bert found out about Mike and Leslie. A lot of that had to do with Ed being Bert's favorite (Mike was Bill's favorite) and Bert being fiercely protective of Ed. Bert basically disowns Leslie and forbids her from coming around. Anyway, that's all I know for right now. I will be able to tell you more later. The genesis of the story, I can tell you, was written by Irna Phillips. Although they aren't romantically linked yet, you can see signs of it happening so Irna may have thought up the story. However, Irna has stopped writing at this point (May 24, 1968 was her last episode) and so future writers will flesh out the story. But, by all indications, the story of Mike and Leslie came from Irna and I don't think it was the endgame. After all, Mike hadn't been on GL for several years and was perhaps meant to stay on AW. I think when they brought Mike back in 1968, they knew the character was available and could stir up the pot with Ed and Leslie. I don't really know, though. My guess. I have no idea what all the writers were thinking. There was a revolving door of writers in the 60s so who knows what idea belonged to whom. The significant dates were: 1966: Ed comes back to the show and Leslie joins the show. 1967: Ed and Leslie get married. 1968: Mike comes back to the show and meets Leslie. They start an affair either in late 1968 or early 1969. 1969: Bert and Ed find out about the affair. 1970: Leslie gives birth to Ed's son. Ed and Leslie divorce. 1973: Mike and Leslie get married. 1976: Leslie dies while still married to Mike.

Lisa was from Rockford, Illinois. Not far from the fictional Oakdale. She wasn't Southern. Yeah, I think Lisa got the story because she was in Duncan and Jessica's orbit. Nancy wasn't. And like I say, Nancy had morphed into the sweet little grandma by this time.

I liked how Duncan and Jessica's relationship caused Lisa to deal with long-held prejudices but I never bought that the character who would have the problem would be Lisa. Lisa was always a progressive free-spirit. I would have bought that storyline if it had been Nancy with the problem since she was always conservative and could be judgmental. Perhaps it was because Nancy wasn't really in the Duncan and Jessica orbit or because Marland had so defanged Nancy by this time. I also didn't buy Nancy being so accepting of Hank Elliot being gay. Anyway, I think it was a good story idea but I just feel like Lisa got shoehorned into the story. I honestly don't think Lisa would have cared at all that Duncan and Jessica were mixed race. I think they just put her in that place to give her something to do and because she fit the age of the generation that is more likely to have a problem with it. I think that storyline should have gone to Nancy.