Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Aback]

 

He's also dealing with a bunch of older people who are not familiar with technology. I was amazed at Denise Pence's participation: her shot was perfect, she had flowers next to her, her audio was absolutely perfect and so was her picture. The woman is doing everything she can to start acting again. Even if she can be intense at times, I find her so inspiring. I wish her the very best.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Aback

[gimmetoo]

Today's tech issues were only minor -- for sure, today was one of Locher's better shows.  The smaller groups are easier for Alan to control.  And for this one, he allowed the actors to focus on memories of GL in the 80s, without any overlong discussion of quarantine pastimes, etc.  

 

The four actors, especially Elvera, seemed to really enjoy discussing their time on GL / their co-stars.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Actors who were woefully miscast in their roles, and therefore forgettable, or actors who played irrelevant characters who added nothing to TGL in the first place.

 

Strange selection of performers. Not one of them made a real mark on the show, so it's like...why bother? Where's Lisa Brown, Mart Hulswit, John Wesley Shipp, Kristen Vigard, Kathleen Cullen, Marsha Clark? Actors who actually mattered while they were on the show?

 

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by vetsoapfan

[DRW50]

 

Murray is hot, although I also have to say I enjoyed Orlagh Cassidy's work as Doris and her managing to stay to the end is one of the more interesting GL journeys of its last decade. 

 

I don't really have any interest in the others. I haven't been watching these lately as I'm not on at the right times and they also, as mentioned, tend to have a lot of technical problems. When I watched the Otalia-related one, part of it, I had to stop because of the errors being so grating.

 

At first I thought you meant Elvera, Denise, etc. and I was like - don't hold back, lol. 

[Soaplovers]

Finally, someone mentioned one of the elephants in the room...Zaaslow being dumped when he got sick.  Shame Denise as Katie didn't stay past the mid 80s.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Oh heavens, no!

 

I was referring to Orlagh Cassidy (ex-Doris), Bonnie Dennison (ex-Susan), Jessica Leccia (ex-Natalia) and Caitlin Van Zandt (ex-Ashlee).

 

I love Elvera, Denise, and Jerry, and was even happy to see Michael (although I wish he appeared with Lisa Brown).

[DRW50]

 

Oh I know. There are just so many messages in here lately I didn't see the first batch for a while. 

[RavenWhitney]

I wish Alan Locher would get assemble interviews with some of the writers. Here's an old article about Nancy Curlee and Steve Demorest.

 

http://www.newsoforange.com/news/article_471ac8fa-681a-11e3-abf7-0019bb2963f4.html

[GLATWT88]

I found myself watching a few episode from 1977, as I was up late and had nothing to watch. Then I ended up on some wikipedia rabbit hole. I noticed not many characters from the 70s or earlier "survived" into the last decade of the show and if they did, they weren't played by their original actor. I think Ed and Meta Bauer were the only two characters pre-1970 that existed on the show in the 2000s. I know actor replacements are common on soaps, but P&G sister show ATWT had a few long running characters played by the same actors that lasted from the 50s and 60s. This isn't true for GL. I also noticed that GLs longest running actor was Charita Bauer who lasted 34 years which is a very long time, but considering GL was on close to 60 years, I thought there may have been someone who would have been on longer. ATWT has a few 40+ and BB has several cast members who will soon surpass Charita's run.

 

I'm curious if GL had some sort of revamp or major change that may have led to few early characters continuing on, especially characters from the 70s.  

[Paul Raven]

GL always had the Bauers as the main family and other families seemed to come and go over the years. ATWT had the Lowell/Stewarts so Betsy, Dani ,Emily kept that family and continuity going.

GL wrote off Meta in the 70's and she never had any children to carry on her lineage. And Bill was killed off, resurrected and killed off gain. Then Mike, Hope and Hilary were also written out in the 80's.

Ed was recast, so when Charita passed there was only nu Ed and Rick to carry on the family.

Had Charita lived and Mart Huswit stayed, there would have been more continuity.

 

GL had the Norris family in the 70's. Barbara Berger continued acting into the 90's and could have stayed at GL. Her grandaughter Emily could have come on, Andy  return with a child Ken return etc so the possibilities were there but writers were more interested in new characters.

 

It took ATWT a lot longer to drop long running characters eg John, Ellen etc and it got to the point where Bob, Nancy etc were so entrenched.

 

I guess it was just a different set of circumstances eg ATWT could have dropped Kim in the 80's or Lisa later on but they had children on the show so more involvement.

 

 

[Aback]

 

If you search a few pages back, some posters were discussing how GL became unrecognizable by the early 80s. It was very interesting

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[Forever8]

This morning I saw that the 1982 Daytime Emmy Awards were on YT.

That year Guiding Light won Outstanding Daytime Drama Series and for Outstanding Daytime Drama Series Writing.

 

By the way I had no idea that Tony and Katie had chemistry nor were in a romance until I watched that clip near the end for Best Show. 

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[gimmetoo]

The 82 Emmy wins were in large part to Doug Marland's brilliant headwriting.  The travesty was that none of the GL actors were nominated...the acting categories were dominated by ABC.  

[GLATWT88]

Thank you, I definitely will. 

 

Very insightful. I appreciate it.

[BetterForgotten]

I had never seen Allen Potter before, so that was nice.
 

Patrick Mulcahey looks so cleaned-up and young, lol. 
 

Lisa Brown looks so overjoyed at these wins.

Edited May 13, 2020 by BetterForgotten