Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[RogerNewcomb]

Just interviewed Cindy Pickett. Been wanting to do that for years. She's playing the mom in a new web series opposite Nic Coster. Despite all she's done since GL, still gets recognized as Jackie Marler.

[zanereed]

Roger,

Thank you for the update. I look forward to that interview very much. I still remember her as Jackie very, very well. I was never able to get used to Carrie Mowery in the role.

I often wish that Cindy/Jackie would have returned from the dead, being that she was Phillip's natural mother. I think there was still storyline potential there, especially with Phillip as an adult (which Jackie was never around for, unfortunately).

Edited October 22, 2012 by zanereed

[DRW50]

Pickett was such a breath of fresh air as Jackie - there were few actresses on soaps with that look, and also the ability to play subtext so much. Jackie was so obsessive over Phillip and yet she never seems like a psycho or a danger when you watch scenes of her, the way a soap would probably write her today.

Mowery seems more like an Elizabeth recast to me. I wonder if they cast that actress just to diminish Jackie's role on the canvas.

[katie_9918]

Is it wrong to want to punch my screen every time Barbara and Andy appear during these Richards trial episodes?

[DRW50]

I was reading a James Goodwin interview from when he was cast on AW, and he said when he tested as Johnny Bauer, he had a romantic scene with Judi Evans. Then she left. I wonder if they were planning to pair Beth/Johnny if she had stayed.

[DRW50]

I'd forgotten some of these stories. Some I think to spare myself the pain of hack writing.

Oh the irony of my actually starting to really like Nick about six months before he was fired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lUTUs58Svw

[katie_9918]

My major problem with Nick was more of a problem-by-association.

The Mindy/Alexandra feud was getting old before Mindy even stumbled across Nick in New York and somehow Alexandra became the bad guy when poor innocent Mindy, who knew how devastated Alexandra was by Lujack's death, maliciously decided to keep Alexandra from finding out that Nick was her son, for her own selfish reasons. I wasn't exactly siding with either of them (I more hated Roger for pitting two characters I liked against each other) until Mindy pulled that trick and then I wanted Nick to dump her narcissistic, selfish, petty ass. It took a hell of a long time (and Krista Tesreau's return to the role) before I liked Mindy again.

I really started liking Nick when he hooked up with Susan Bates after he finally made the final break from Mindy and he and Alan-Michael finally started getting along. I wish there was more on YT about Nick and Susan.

I really enjoyed the non-stop snarkage he kept tossing Alan's way when he and Susan visited for Christmas in 1996.

Edited November 3, 2012 by katie_9918

[zanereed]

I wanted to bring back some discussion regarding Roger and Holly. Since people were talking about the onscreen chemistry between MZ and MG, I wanted to ask a question along those lines. I was too young to ever remember Lynn Deerfield in the role of Holly:

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2011/11/lynndeerfield.html

Can anyone tell me how her chemistry was with MZ and Mart Hulswit? Unless Roger unearths a hidden episode of the early 1970's to add in a future DVD collection, I probably will never be fortunate enough to see her in the role.

[saynotoursoap]

I adored Lynn Deerfield's Holly. She was a lovely blonde with a somewhat husky voice which seemed incongruous with her physical appearance. Her Holly was selfish, spoiled, and manipulative, but not to the point of villainy. I found the switch to Maureen Garrett disconcerting. In fact, I disliked Garrett's Holly for many years. Part of the problem was that P&G wanted to clean the character up a bit, and in doing so, Holly became a perpetual victim, which Garrett did not play well. It is somewhat ironic because Maureen eventually became my favorite actress on the soap, and I completely forgot about Deerfield. The character of Holly improved greatly in the 80s when she was reintroduced. Pam Long took one look at Garrett and commented about her sexiness. She, and later the triumvirate of Curlee, Demorest, and Reilly, really wrote to MG's strengths in a way that simply eluded Doug Marland, and to a lesser extent the Dobsons. Holly became alluring, cynical, smart, empowered, and nuanced. I doubt Deerfield could have played it half as well as MG, but in her day, Deerfield did have more chemistry with Hulswit. As for Roger and Michael Zaslow, Roger did not become the complex character we knew until the Dobsons took over. In 1974, I could not have imagined the ultimate evolution of him into such a dynamic villain. So, whatever chemistry he had with Deerfield was largely insignificant to me.

[DRW50]

I've always wondered about that period where Roger was so involved with Peggy, playing guitar and singing at his restaurant...it's a little odd to picture.

[katie_9918]

I'm pretty sure a lot of the history between Roger and Holly was retconned later on.

From what I've read, Peggy was the one Roger really wanted and loved back in the seventies and Holly was just some annoying kid foisted on him by her father. I think Roger and Peggy left for a little while and then Peggy came back briefly (around the time Bill Bauer made his return from the dead) and then Roger came back a little while later.

I think the post-1980 writers also liked to ignore the fact that Roger raped Rita before he raped Holly.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob7xtKFHqJQ&feature=channel&list=UL

[DRW50]

Great promo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5wcbPnzsLk

[DRW50]

This Holly/Blake scene is damn good (I wish Sherry had been there).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VG7q__I4IQ&feature=autoplay&list=ULob7xtKFHqJQ&playnext=1

[Khan]

IA, Carl. The music is dramatic without being overly so, and the clips for each show speak for themselves. If it were a promo for an NBC soap, chances are their department would've edited the [!@#$%^&*] out of it and made a whole bunch of something out of nothing.