Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Rauch called her a dog? That's awful. Mary Kay Adams was very striking - she looked like the old Hollywood legends in their prime. I thought she was OK in her return. She and Ross had a sweet, poignant chemistry, which made sense, given that Ross would want the anti-Blake. She was also sweet with Ron Raines, and most of the time his attempts at relationships with women were as believable as Liberace.

[SFK]

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[DRW50]

Thanks. I hadn't seen that before.

June 1975 TV Radio Mirror

Edited October 18, 2011 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

ly acts on the show.

"When I first did The Guiding Light, well I wasn't sure if I wanted to really even do the show. I remember asking my father if he thought I should do it, and he said that I should. After all, it was only for two years. Little did I know.

"I suppose I have so many memories connected with the show, but off-hand it's hard to pinpoint any. Time hallows things...but there, back in time, it was great fun. How did we ever get through the summers, I wonder now. There in one room with one great big window. But those first days on television, it was so much fun. There was such spirit."

Charita, going backwards in time, remembers that she started out wanting to be a ballerina. "But who would have me with my stumpy legs?" she comments. "I think I got into the business because my downstairs were the Perez Twins who were quite a noted act. So I think my mother got the idea from their mother and I began making rounds and then modeling.

"My mother...she's still alive...now there is a liberated woman. And I'm a liberated woman. I had no choice but to follow the example set by her.

"I can remember going around with her and meeting all sorts of exciting people. I don't know how we or she knew them. I remember visiting dance studios with her, and studio apartments...I remember one had one of those Chinese lamps with the fringes on them...so romantic. And the quality of my memories is like the light shed from that lamp - delicate.

"Music has always been a part of my life...then and now. Just recently I had an evening with nothing to do so I decided to go to Rizzoli, a wonderful bookshop on Fifth Avenue. And outside the bookshop two struggling students were playing oboe duets so that they could earn some money to continue their studies.

"Well, watching them, I so admired their devotion and concentration, that that experience was like gold to me. Such beauty. It was a hot night, but it didn't matter, it all went away as I listened to them play and I was happy. Music makes me happy.

"I was exposed to music and art as a child, and living and growing up in the city I took as much advantage as I could. I guess that's why I love New York because it offers so much. I grew up just a few blocks from where I'm now living and my mother lives just a few blocks away.

"She's still a liberated woman. As for myself, I find my own 'liberation' so tiresome. I wish for more of the other. Nowadays, there's all of this talk about the new liberated woman. Don't people know that they are liberated only because they have a vacuum cleaner? It's all timing. Years ago, women couldn't afford to be liberated because there were no machines to do all of the work like there are today. And honestly some contend the scientific wonders of man have only brought us even more problems to cope with!

"But for me, well, I've always believed that you have choices. That things don't have to be a certain way. I don't know...maybe everything's planned from the start though. You know when I was five my mother brought me to a woman to have my chard done. I'm a Sagittarius. After the chart was completed my mother never said a word to me. Every so often I ask to see the chart and she asks me why. She's very evasive...says it's hidden somewhere."

She says with a smile, in a joking voice, that she wishes that her life had been different, that she wishes that her life had been different, that she's terribly erratic, but nice, and that she can't help it but she is forever late. "I must have an arrogant streak in me," she says, "but I never worry about being late. I mean, after all, when you're on time, let's face it, everyone else is late.

"Haven't you ever waited for a bus or a plane? I mean getting onto a 747 is sheer steerage. You have to wait and wait and wait for all of those people to board. I'd rather be the one to run across the field as the plane's about to depart. I mean there's no point in being there early.

"I don't admire my being late, it's just that I so dislike having to wait. I'd rather have George do it.

"I suppose if my being late is my greatest flaw it's not so bad. You know, being ill, I did re-evaluate my lot. (Charita was rushed to the hospital for surgery last year.) And I find that I'm more sure of myself. I got rid of a lot of fringe. I've got a freer view now. No pressures...few responsibilities.

"My son Michael was married not long ago. He's my only child and my parents and I raised him. I left his father early in the marriage when Michael was quite young.

"I'm free now. You know, through my illness, I suppose what kept me going was a good amount of faith. I am religious. But in this life I believe you do everything you can so when the jig is up you have no regrets.

"I don't like to really think about the big problems of the world. I can't worry about the big things...the price of food is just about enough. Who could dare to worry about the Atom bomb. After all, I'm only five foot one.

"The world's in a different way today. We need things to be as simple and as sweet as possible. You asked me what I would like to be. I don't know."

She sits there smiling for a time, trying to find an answer. Finally she says softly, "I wish I was pleasant all of the time..."

We leave the celebrated daytime actress the way we found her - with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her lips, and a look that lets you know she's totally in love with life.

MARVIN J. BEVANS

[DRW50]

It's very odd, reading in the '70s soap magazines, when Don Stewart (Mike Bauer) talks about finding the right woman and how he isn't sure he wants to get married. Then, somewhere around the middle of the decade, some of the soap magazines essentially call him out, and say they are pretty sure he has been married for a while and has a child. And after this, when he's interviewed, the whole single-right-woman thing is dropped altogether.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IB0CKTbIk

[Paul Raven]

[DRW50]

Thanks for sharing that. I'd never seen that. It's too bad they didn't do more with that storyline, as it seemed to be one of less awful stories by then.

[Mitch]

Well, it got sidelined when Alexander left and they recast with Bolger. I remember that scene and wasnt it the also the night that Josh and Reva made love (though she was married to H.B.??)

Whatever happened to that Murry Bartlet guy? Hated that storyline, (Alex as a pathetic old sexless woman desperate for affection and actually threatned by Minnie Mouse Marina??) but for the "hawwwt," guys on soaps he actually had some charm and personality on screen.

[rlj]

Not sure but I think Carl is refering to the Dusay scans.

The India story went on with Aleksander until he left and continued with Bolger.

[Mitch]

Ahh, sorry. When Carl said one of the less awful stories I thought you ment the India thing, which took place when GL was going through a rough transitional period.

The Alex/Cyrus story could have been good, with someone other then Marina as the third. Plus, if they would have shown that Alex liked Cyrus edge, his wit, his charm, his fun and that Cyrus liked Alex's wit, charm, fun, smarts, power and money....but he just couldnt naturally resist a woman his age. It just came off as more this weird old asexual lady lusting after a Chippendale's dancer and him using her for her money and access to her rich friends but we were still supposed to like him and root for him and Marina..its just kind of sucked. I guess if they had made him something different then a soap cliche jewel thief, maybe a rough and tumble business guy who comes in with some great management and business ideas and saves the Spauldings a fortune..t

[Khan]

In retrospect, though, we would've been spared Quint's OOC infidelity and the general nasty tone of their return during the McTavish/Laibson era.

[DRW50]

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

[SFK]

I of course know who he is and I've seen clips, but I was never a true GL fan. That said, this made me tear up a little. This version of MGL is really touching, and it's especially sad considering how the New York artistic community was being hit so hard by that dreaded disease.

[DRW50]

I'm not even sure if they used this version of MGL at any other time. It's very moving, and appropriate for Chris Bernau, who was such a vibrant presence, so vital to GL, and irreplaceable.