Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

Is this recent, or years ago?

[Soapsuds]

3 years ago in 2019 ...season 6 

[DramatistDreamer]

Thanks. I think I’ve only ever seen less than a handful of episodes of this series.

[Darn]

This is so sad. Could they not afford lighting? The actors are performing with their backs to the light source...

[Paul Raven]

Kim looks like hell in that Venice clip...sorry, but it's the truth.

The goatee Robert is sporting on Y&R works for him-covers the thinning upper lip.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Paul Raven

[DramatistDreamer]

Natural light works well in theory but with interior shots you need a very well lit, airy space in order for it to work. This space is too cramped. Did they not have ring lights back in 2019?

[Vee]

The lighting is rough and I have zero interest in Crystal Chappell's vanity webseries, but I'm not gonna hate on Zimmer or RN. I think he looks good, and Kim is letting herself age naturally and not chasing the sexpot stuff they put her through in the late '90s and early 2000s which didn't suit her at all and which even then she frankly did not have the looks for.

IMO her performances leveled up considerably from the Rauch era in the last, sad years of GL while the rest of the show went to hell, and a big part of that was because she (by her own admission) stopped caring about how she looked and the scripts were a mess, so she just went off raw talent. She never reminded me more of a British soap matriarch than she did in those days. She still does.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Vee

[Mitch64]

Agreed...I actually started liking Reva again in the terrible Peapack era (despite the stupidity of them putting her with Jeffie and having a postmenopaus/post cancer baby.)  Rauch, MADD and I think Zimmer herself got Reva wrong...she was not the love goddess or a Vikki Bucchan type heroine...stripped down her character was earthy and all of those shoulder pads and all that big hair covered up the cleaning ladies daughter who just wanted love and stability but continually f*cked that all up.  The outrageous stories that everyone continually told us Kim "could play the hell out of" never worked for the character or the actress.  And I agree, Newman looks best with facial hair but I would love to age (or just look) like him at any age.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Mitch64

[Vee]

I think some part of Kim was more comfortable in the stripped down stuff tbh. In her memoir she freely admits she 'let myself go' physically and stopped caring about how she looked due to depression over the state of the show at the time, and I think she may have said she was also been undergoing menopause somewhere in that decade but I can't recall the timeline. But I think stripped of so much of the tacky Rauch, etc. artifice on an aimless and often plotless show, her real grit and character came out again onscreen. And I don't think she was super bitter to be shed of the ridiculous fantasy/royal palace storylines, if nothing else.

[Mitch64]

I think it was more than an error in judgement..it was just a stupid executive and creative decision. You take the longest running cast member, who had become the patriarch of the show and really taken over the Bert Bauer "town confessor" role, who had three young kids who were ready to be sorased, not to mentioned father of the revitalized town trouble maker Dinah who connected to each core family and then you keep other characters, like Buzz and Frank on the canvas, all to prop Gush (not to mention Brad Cole)  I give Wheeler a ton of breaks but not on this one.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Mitch64

[Vee]

Ellen Wheeler was incompetent and unstable, and not fit to run GL.

No amount of years she spent winning hearts playing Marley on television will change that. I liked her as an actress. As an EP, she turned GL into something just above snuff film. And that's before I even get started on her, uh, mentor, who went from being hailed for giving AW a graceful exit and revitalizing ATWT to running it into the ground for years, to say nothing of whatever the hell he did to Martha Byrne which she still doesn't openly speak about.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

I have a different take on  EW. I think she was one of the few people who could deal with what had been handed down by CBS & agreed to by P&G to keep the show on the air and that was, for GL, the new production model, for ATWT it was a change to a terrible way of telling stories. It's true that Goutman was the one who gave her, as well as other people, chances to first direct & later shadow him as a producer. But, in the last days they couldn't have been more different. Ellen was brilliant & inventive while Goutman/ATWT as compared to Goutman/AW turned against the fans memorably saying he didn't want to hear their ideas, that he didn't need to, that he knew what was best for the show. And, Martha was pretty forthcoming the night after the s*it hit the fan in a chat on her website. She was prepared to say nothing as long as he said nothing. Once he spouted a lot of garbage, she was free to talk about who did what, etc.

I give her a ton of breaks, too, but not this one, by calling it an error in judgment. Obviously to me it's more of an indictment than it is to you. We both hold her responsible for the loss of Jerry Ver Dorn.

[Patrick D]

Just came across this article with many cast members reacting to Jerry’s passing:

https://soaphub.com/general-hospital/news-gh/guiding-light-and-one-life-to-live-vet-jerry-verdorn-dead-at-72/amp/

[bboy875]

Thanks for sharing this! 

[Asb23]

Oooh, what went down between a Byrne and Goutman??