Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[chrisml]

She's the one! What a mess of a character. 

[Contessa Donatella]

That whole "speak easy" set & time spent there, etc. was so awful. What was it an after hours' club that Danny let Tony run? One funny thing, well bittersweet, Mae the cigarette girl is the only thing Claire got to write at GL that she liked! I hated her. But I feel so sorry for Claire Labine. 

Megan McTavish wrote it. 

[Forever8]

Wasn't it supposed to turn out she was supposed to be Stacey Chamberlain, but TPTB couldn't get Lisa Brown and Michael Tylo back? 

[Contessa Donatella]

It's not so much a question of it being the actor's "responsibility" as much as it is that they're in a position to help out if they choose to just like pilots when airlines get in trouble. But, it is true that at one point when soap were cheap to produce, that  the talent was cheap & by this time actor salaries had grown unbelievably. But, yes, I also understand how expensive it was & is to live where they had to live. I don't agree with you that the only morale issue was taat EW didn't cut KZ loose but I do agree with you that she should have done so. I also don't agree that it was Wheeler's decisions that led to the show cutting people but it also wasn't Zimmer's. Some people seem to think that Wheeler had this great amount of agency about what to do & what not to do when so much was dictated either by CBS or by her less than sufficient budget.

@titan1978  I like to think that victim-blaming like Calhoun did wouldn't be said today but then maybe that's naive. I like Calhoun's work generally. That statement is just what an insensitive clod would say. I figure in that meeting about what was going to be coming up with Roger & Holly that the top of Maureen's head blew off. 

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[Mitch64]

The problem began when Rauch made Zimmer the center of the show, well past Reva's expiration date of "heroine" and "love goddess that no one can deny." (and I like Zimmer...but as part of an ensemble..not the STAR...) and she kept getting fat meaty contracts and the ability to write her own ticket and sick her group of "fans" on the press and show anytime they gave Josh and Reva a day off. They made her the only game in town, and they really should have started tapering off on Jeva as soon as Annie left...(write for them, sure, but again, as part of an ensemble.) Just like idiot Cowboy giving Brad Cole a big fat contract...(uh..why???) I don't understand why TPTB didn't see that with an ensemble you have more control over the contracts and can more easily write someone off..(even if they got good press in exchange for breaking bad on their fellow actors...) 

Who in their right mind..in a youth obsessed industry, would have given the show over to a middle aged actress whose character has seen better days (again, I like Zimmer but come on...) They got the monster they created and I don't blame her for holding their balls to the fire for her contract. She was smart enough to know this was the last hurrah. 

[bboy875]

I don't remember the months, but Curlee left for maternity leave in 92, and Lorraine Broderick took her place. Curlee returned sometime in the fall when Reilly left for Days. I'm pretty sure she wasn't there when McKinsey and Simms left, but I think she said she gave her husband the idea of having Bridget's hairdryer cause the blackout, though she wasn't writing at the time. The maternity leave announcement is when I learned she and Demorest were married, and I think I remember SOD said she was to appear as an extra at the diner b4 she left. It's funny how I struggle to remember these things then realize this was a good 30 yrs ago lol. 

[antmunoz]

Martha was replaceable though. She knew it. She’d been successfully replaced before. For all the crap that Heather Rattray sometimes gets now, 30 years later, we LOVED HER at the time and so did the soap press.  Noelle Beck was a great recast also.  Martha took the pay cut because she felt threatened. And she should’ve complied the next go-round because look what happened. I wasn’t tuning in for Lilden Part 27 anyway. 
 

Zimmer, as Reva, was irreplaceable.  Yes, she left once and the show was still fantastic, but she, as Reva, cannot be replaced. (And in hindsight, so was Laura Wright as Cassie.)

[Contessa Donatella]

Oh, that habit of hers was so ridiculous. If she was not front burner for ONE DAY she'd sic her sycophants on the show calling to bitch. And Robert, was held captive, couldn't play any story with anyone else just "ALWAYS."

We were stuck with Rauch-view including overlit sets & his choice of colors. Skirts & blouses, practically a uniform. 

ALL OF ME, great book! 

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
together

[antmunoz]

You know what I take away from that?

Zimmer was a STRONG WOMAN AND SHE WON. 

If I was the lead actress on a soap, I’d fight tooth and nail for every second of screen time. 
 

Read BOTH OF ME by Mary Stuart, who battled P&G for 35 effin years to stay on the show SHE STARTED AND STARRED IN. 

It’s exhausting. More power to the Zimmers in the soap world, the male-dominated soap world. 
 

Zimmer wouldn’t have taken any of that DAYS crap, either. We’d have heard about Albert YEARS ago. 
 

#teamzimmer

Edited August 9, 2023 by antmunoz
Title

[Contessa Donatella]

Yes but the show lost. She put some of the nails in that coffin all by herself. Guiding Light before it was The Reva Show was stronger & more resilient. 

Could not stand her. 

[Vee]

Zimmer stood by her contract for the same reason Jerry verDorn left the show and took a major contract role on ABC when it cut him to recurring in 2005 - GL and CBS were screwing them both. (Grant Aleksander left shortly before JVD after being pushed out by the same regime) Their reasons were all valid IMO.

It's obvious someone wants to mitigate Wheeler's, the show's, the network's and parent company's shared responsibility for its consistent failure state til its cancellation and the tactics they employed against the GL ensemble. (And I'm sorry, but Donna has a well-documented history of forgiving Ellen or other AW alum anything.) Kim, loud, flamboyant and divisive, is simply a convenient choice vs. trying to also throw blame on Grant or a dead man.

Noelle Beck is a nice lady and a fine actor. But that recast was a failure and never worked, for the audience or most of the cast. She was all class suggesting they bring back MB for the end.

Martha left in part for reasons that are perhaps best left unsaid, as she is clearly too disturbed to talk about them in public even today.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

Oh, that's absurd. If I am biased in favor of certain shows, it is a long list of them, yes including AW but also GL & SB & PC & GEN & DAYS & GH & AMC! The fact that I know a lot about GL behind the scenes then also has zero to do with AW. That's a silly notion. I count Jill Lorie Hurst among my personal friends & she never even watched AW. 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
together

[Paul Raven]

Am I correct in saying that Kim was prepared to take a cut in her next contract but simply wanted the current contract honored?

Just as the opposite would be true. If an actor decided they wanted to work fewer days when they were in the midst of a hot story the answer would be NO - they need to honor their contract.

Kim continued on the show till the end so obviously did take a pay cut and CBS held on to her, despite the earlier situation. showing they considered her to valuable to drop.

[Contessa Donatella]

What she said was that when her date came up she would consider it, not that she would take it. But, her point was that she would not even consider it in between dates, which was her right. I don't think she took one because if she had I think she'd have said so in her book. 

[antmunoz]

You are correct.