Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Not sure if this helps with Eric's question, but the October 1967 TV Picture Life has Theodore and Mathilda Ferro as taking over at scripting GL. So this was, usually, about a month to 2 months behind, so they took over sometime in the summer. Who did they replace?

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnbTG8ob2ss

[Paul Raven]

Julian Funt and David Lesan preceded the Ferro's.Funt and Lesan had replaced Agnes Nixon.Agnes left in late 65/early 66 when she took over AW.Did she write both shows concurrently for a while?

GL went through a ton of writers in the mid to late 60's.I wonder why there was such instability?It also expanded to 30 min and moved timeslots for the first time after 16 years,which may have affected the ratings.

[DRW50]

The summer 1966 episodes available are Nixon aren't they?

I guess you could say that GL had no real core identity outside of the Bauers, and they'd run through a lot of story. Mike wasn't even around.

One thing which I think was a mistake was the decision to write out a lot of good characters - I think George and Jane (who seemed to have strong ties to every character on the canvas and were perfect supporting characters) were out not long after Nixon left, and then Maggie and Ben Scott, which was such a waste, especially of Maggie.

[EricMontreal22]

She did, for at least a year. In Schemering's 50th Anniversary GL book he doesn't give exact dates, but he does say that Agnes Nixon actually wrote almost to the very end of 1966--so far I'd trust his word (the behind the scenes section of that book is a wonderful read, BTW). So I assume these Summer episodes--the 30 out there--are largely hers.

(It's interesting that when she created One Life to Live she likewise continued writing AW at the same time for 3/4 of a year--which is even more impressive since these were two 30 min shows--with GL and AW, GL was still 15 minutes under her).

Schemering doesn't go into specifics but he does mention, after the stability of Nixon HWriting GL from 1958 to 1966, it went through 6 HWs/HW teams in 2 years. (I believe the Ferro's had been regularly writing Peyton Place scripts just before then). Then in 1968 Irna Phillips left ATWT with Katherine Babecki--sp?-to help at GL for a year, but without much success. Ironically, as is typical of Irna, she had popular heroine Kathy killed in the infamous wheelchair in traffic death JUST as she gave the show fully over to Agnes, leaving Agnes in a difficult spot. When Irna left again in 1969, popular heroine Robin threw herself into traffic and was killed, leaving again the new HWs in a nice spot. The show finally found stability for four years under Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer, but then went into another, shorter cycle of headwriters until the Dobsons came in 75.

[KMan101]

What was with Irna and killing off popular heroines through ridiculous traffic accidents? Lol

[DRW50]

I've heard people say that Irna had nothing to do with Robin's death. But then I also thought for a long time that Irna did kill Robin. I'm not sure. I think Gillian Spencer was the last Robin, and she left in 1966 or 1967, not 1969.

Edited September 28, 2011 by CarlD2

[EricMontreal22]

I'm just going by Schemering's book which has the Exec producer talking about Irna killing off Robin as a sort of exit of her second stint there. She did seem to like to make the shows hard to write for her sucessors (even when they were friends like Agnes)

[Paul Raven]

Edited October 2, 2011 by Paul Raven

[soapfan770]

GL was one of the five soaps mentioned in rather thick 1998 book TV Mania by Edith Pavese and Judith Henry:

Edited October 6, 2011 by soapfan770

[DRW50]

Thanks. I hadn't seen that photo before.

[DRW50]

Guess the GL person in this 1978 ad. It's about 4:40 into the clip. Hard to believe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B70RY54pOxg

[Paul Raven]

Charita!!

[Mitch]

I remember her kind of being the spokesperson for the Enquirer at that time, while they don't say it, they definitaley are making her Bert Bauerish, and who else but Bert Bauer could convince America to read a gossip rag. I just wish they would have tied that into GL with Bert saying,m "Now Rita dear, your catting around all over town can cause what is called apparently an STD. I read in the enquirer that syphillas is very painful but even a bad case of clamydia will have you sidelined for quite a while. Would you like to read it dear, it is right after the story about how much Liberace loves his mother and how Farrah and Lee are splitting up!"

[DRW50]

I wonder if your scenario is something they had in mind when they had that hilarious Guiding Plight parody where Bert called Rita a slut.

I'm just surprised P&G let her do this. She was, along with Mary Stuart and Helen Wagner, the heart of P&G soaps at this time, and supposed to be representative of the everyday grandmother. And yet there she is reading a magazine which at that time was considered trash.