Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[vetsoapfan]

 

 

I could barely watch the show during that time. Having had a decades-long attachment to TGL, it was hard for me to let go, but after the Curlee writing team left, all quality of storytelling went with it. The last 16 years of the show were generally...dreadful.

[danfling]

I am suprised that there is so little discussion of Victoria Wyndham (Charlotte Waring aka Tracy Delmar) here.

[DRW50]

There's none of her GL run available, as far as I know. I wish I could see her.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKa58MITYE

[Mitch]

93 to 96...Buzz Cooper screaming, arms flapping and spitting is all I can recall of that era.

[Khan]

I've tried, but I just can't hate on Justin Deas. (Buzz Cooper? Yes. JD? No.) He is fantastic. He just needed a strong director at GUIDING LIGHT to rein him in.

[~bl~]

I still think it is funny how Justin Deas shared that once Bruce Barry tried to rein him in and then he phoned in his material. Of course, I wonder how long it took for Mr. Barry to do that.

Edited April 30, 2013 by ~bl~

[Khan]

I love Bruce Barry as a director and will defend him and his work until we both are in the grave. Nevertheless, even I was left scratching my head when JD said he told him to give "10 percent less," or words to that effect.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4prbwHbjSBI

[danfling]

I am very interested in producer Lucy Ferri Rittenberg.

She was the executive producer of The Guiding Light from 1952 until around 1976.

Does anyone here know anything about her that could be posted? Especially when she died (assuming that she has died).

So many performers who later became more famous began on The Guiding Light during her time: Sandy Dennis, Dyan Cannon, Victoria Wyndham, Don Scardino, Christina Pickles, Nancy Addison, Billy Dee Williams, Olivia Cole, etc.

I think that she was one of the greatest producers of the soap operas.

[Mitch]

Oh that video of Cassie made me realize just how trashily entertaining E & B's GL was...up until the San Crud point. I LURVED Moniz Dinah and her evil schemes and hated Cassie. I wish they had made Cassie a villianess after Reva pulled the plug on Richard. LW always reminded me of a bitchy entilted cheerleader that eveyone had to love OR ELSE!

[Soaplovers]

LW actually did kind of play a bitchy entitled character on Loving... I remember she was pretty popular on that show.. and was surprised at how GL didn't want to play up that element of her portrayal.. instead trying to cast her as a good girl opposite Moniz's Dinah. I would have been more interested in the Dinah vs. Cassie fight if Cassie was written as being flawed and called on it by everyone other then Dinah.

After Dinah came back in the form of GT, did dinah and Cassie have much interaction after the initial identity theft story?

[soapfan770]

Oh yeah, Dinah inserted herself into Edmund and Cassie's lives by becoming their surrogate. She miscarried but took part in Edmund's baby switch scheme until he locked her up and left her to die. After that I don't think they had any interaction too much after Nicole Forrester took over but I stopped watching regularly.

Speaking of the 1970s GL, I was wondering about Sara McIntyre. Who were her contemporaries and what other leading ladies was she comparable too?

[DRW50]

Making Dinah such a crazy, sometimes very funny schemer and psycho was one of my favorite things B&E did - I think Wendy knew how to play this, and make it somewhat vulnerable. I never believed her as a heroine.

I wouldn't say Laura Wright's character on Loving was bitchy or entitled. I think Laura in most of her GL run could have played both a heroine and a bitch, then toward the end became too cold for heroine status.

Sara's character seemed to be an intelligent woman, but was also frequently in peril in her years as a leading lady. I think she started out as more of a possible scheming or "other woman" type (didn't Paul's feelings for her help push Robin to kill herself?).

Not sure who she'd be comparable to. For leading ladies, I think her main contemporary was Leslie.

GL ad about 7 minutes in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpPRFG8n71o

[DRW50]

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