Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm looking at John Conboy's tenure as an EP on the 5 different soaps where he was EP. (At LIAMST he was a Producer & a Production Supervisor.) I'm hung up because I can't find the HWs for Y&R for 1973-1981. Everywhere I've looked so far has been missing data, which really surprised me.

Well, of course it is actually strange that  it doesn't show up in lists, etc. but, G'yahly, d'uh, how can I have been so dense, can't see the forest for the most outstanding tree in it. Bill Bell, was of course, the HW through all those years & then some more. Color me embarrassed.

But, anyway, when he came to GL & hired Ellen Weston as his HW there, it was said that she had been his HW at 2 other shows, now GL, made 3. It was said that he was the only person who had ever hired her as a Writer. Well, so far, she had one Writing job, HW at GL during critical times. No sub-, associate, breakdown, continuity, simple writer credits, etc. Nothing of the sort is showing up anywhere. I'm getting even madder than I usually am at the ConWest Time to Be Survived.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Tonksadora
Temporary loss of mental faculty.

[wonderwoman1951]

ahh — that would be bill bell.

[Contessa Donatella]

No kidding! I am mortified. I've never had a case of forest for the trees like this. The thing about being like a dog with a bone is that you miss what else is right smack dab in front of you. argh.

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[victoria foxton]

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Bio's on Ben McFarren and Shayne Lewis.

Edited May 1, 2022 by victoria foxton

[Contessa Donatella]

No, actually Kahn said it. Quote right!

GL was vulnerable & Conboy took advantage of it just by being himself. Worst place, worst time.

[RavenWhitney]

I always felt that if Conboy had matched his lush production style with a Nancy Curlee or Pam Long (big romantic stories), the show would have been on fire. But his hubris in hiring hack Ellen Weston was his downfall.  He had no interest in cultivating quality stories and the network and P&G backed him up.  They simply should have told him NO when he suggested Weston.  They didn't need him.  

[Khan]

Perhaps.  But then there's the other problem (among many!) of Conboy's blatant predilection for hiring young, feckless men who looked pretty but who couldn't act for [!@#$%^&*].

[Contessa Donatella]

Yes, I hold Marty West against him. And besides not being able to act, he sold amateur video tapes of himself wrestling, he exposed his buttocks in the middle of a scene & brought down Standards & Practices, and it appeared to me that he made Aubrey Dollar frightfully uncomfortable in scenes with him.

[Sapounopera]

Conboy ruined everything good that Taggart and Culliton did. Too bad that they didn't get a chance to stay longer. 

I have to say that his opening (while it was not that good) it was much better than Rauch's 2002 one. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Was that one the anniversary theme? Did it have the lighthouses that looked like playing pieces for a Sorry game?

[j swift]

I'm thinking of at least one kidnapping and one death that occurred at the lighthouse.  Can anyone recall how many people died, or almost died, falling off of the thing?

Which is why it was odd a few years later that they would build a hotel there.  It seems like an bad idea to construct a tourist attraction on the fatality site of many of the town's villains.  But, then again, who would vacation in Springfield?

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Edited May 1, 2022 by j swift

[Mitch64]

The clone kidnapped Reva there right? Marion kidnapped Dimbulb Lucy, Phillip locked Chelsea out in the lighthouse....light area so she wouldn't spoil Alex and his plan to take over Spaulding in the merger with Lewis, there was the infamous JFP burning down of the lighthouse...the lighthouse suddenly was restored and then years later Meta and Claire were doing a fundraiser to restore it(???) then they had the hotel built on to it...and then suddenly with the new model Reva and NuCassie are wondering around lost and end up at the lighthouse (there was no hotel attached suddenly)  and its in the woods, and the last shot of the show the lighthouse is right there in a harbor with no woods to be seen.  I would say the Lighthouse was in a pocket universe of its own that had some weird Twin Peaks thing going on.

 

Oh poor Marty West had to do something to pay the rent...but it was not his fault that Conboy had a hard on for him and ruined the budget to build a baseball set to get him into a uniform or threw Dollar, one of the most talented young actors GL had in those years, and wasted her on him, or made him show his ass on...(ah Conboy, we have all seen asses in our lives, its not that exciting...) Its funny how close West's facial features are to the actor who played Shane at the last, except that actor was more masculine and actually had chemistry with his parents and the rest of the cast. 

 

That was the problem, at that time GL could not afford his lush sets...Rauch had screwed the budget up as it was...but he had a lot of the old sets refurbished before he left, like the Bauers, Company, etc. and the show didn't need production, it needed writing and casting.  Blame Conboy but it was MADD who hired him, let him hire Weston, let him turn the show into something even worse then the worst of Rauch.

[Contessa Donatella]

I never *got* the idea that the hotel was attached. That was not working. Made zero sense.

I would venture that at that point GL couldn't even afford what would've been Conboy Outlet Mall! And, it's okay. I have plenty to blame MADD for & still parcel out some for Conboy!

Yeah, I really liked Last Shayne. And, they did favor in the face.

Poor Aubrey Dollar. No wonder she didn't want to stay.

[j swift]

I recall Dolly the clone keeping kidnapped Reva in the poolhouse, or somewhere closer in proximity to her main home

That was the kidnapping I was thinking of, but didn't Will also die falling from the lighthouse, and wasn't the denouement of the Tangie Hill fortune-in-a-duffel-bag at the lighthouse?

Logically, it would be dumb to build a lighthouse in the middle of a forest, a harbor seems more appropriate, but they rarely referenced what part of town the lighthouse was built.  Was it down near Fifth Street, or uptown closer to the Spaulding Mansion?

[Contessa Donatella]

Right, she had her stashed in the poolhouse.

You said the show didn't need production, instead it needed writing & casting. Yet, the mandate CBS laid on GL when they agreed not to go forward with their plans to cancel GL back a bit was the new production model. Period. Of course, CBS has as much of a right to be wrong as anyone else.