Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[prefab1]

Great question! I think Lauren Koslow has the right combination of sensuality and smarts to be good in the role of Rita, and if they'd snatched her up after she left B&B in 1992 (and before she started Days in 1996), that could have generated good stories for Ed and the newly returned Alan. 

[Sapounopera]

Marj Dusay before she got trapped in the bigger than life matriarch role.

They wanted to bring back Rita in 1989 and she would be just fine.

Edited September 14, 2024 by Sapounopera

[Paul Raven]

Marj Dusay was 12 years older than Lenore.

[Sapounopera]

They were both playing mothers of young adults in the mid-80s.

My other pick would be Nancy Addison Altman.

[prefab1]

Nancy probably would have been quite good in the role, but I wonder if casting her as Rita would have been too hard on older viewers who remembered her as Kit Vested in the early 70s. 

[P.J.]

And of course, once I thought of Jess Walton, I thought of Deborah Adair, who I actually liked better in the role of Jill. 

[DRW50]

I think if you couldn't get Lenore there wasn't much reason for the character to return. What was left for her - a secret child with Ed? That could have been compelling but with two actors who had never played out the original Ed/Rita story, I'm not sure. She had an ugly history with Roger but Holly already had that story. Chris Bernau was, sadly, no longer with us. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Me, I would definitely go with this actress you might all recall, Lenore Kasdorf. She was it, the end all & be all of Rita. I mean, come on, what are you guys smoking this early in the day?

[Mitch64]

I would have gone with it..as I posted before I would love to see Poser as Rita's daughter, who Rita lies and says is Alan's but is really Eds..so we have a Bauer with  a really bad attitude slinking around town doing her best to sully the name.."Roger, do me quick, I have to go to some boring potluck by the pool."

What about Judith Chapman (ex-Natalie on ATWT..I never saw her on YR)

[Contessa Donatella]

Also Leo Stark's mom on Ron's DAYS. I used to adore her as Gloria on Y&R but now she is so totally over the top I cannot reach that high.

[P.J.]

Even if they recast around the time of Chris' '86 return? They could've cast someone really allowed to go at Reva, instead of throwing Vanessa in the role of also-ran. Rita could've come back with Alan's child...oh boy, imagine Rita fighting for a piece of Spaulding against Alex.

Granted the writing around '86 is mostly crap, and the casting iffy. I don't know if the audience would've accept anyone else in the role.  But I think there would've always been a place on the canvas for Rita. 

 

[DRW50]

Anything I've seen of Chapman is hammy but she may have been better in past years. 

I do see what you mean about Toby Poser as Rita's daughter. 

It might have been more interesting if Rita had been the madam, not Amanda. And maybe Rita had the past with Matt. I don't know if the show would have remembered (probably not as it was never mentioned in later years) but when Ed and Vanessa dated, it was made clear he was only interested in her because she reminded him of Rita. 

I actually did like Kathleen Cullen (although I haven't seen her full run) and I blame the writing for regressing her and making her so passive (by the time she became stronger she was written out), but I think Toby Poser could have made the part work if given the proper chance. The biggest problem is there was just no reason to bring Amanda back. I liked the idea of expanding the Spauldings, but as years have passed, I've realized I did not actually care about the Spauldings as a family. I cared about Alex when Bev played her, and Alan when Chris played him, and yes there were some compelling moments here and there with their ties to Philip (or rarely, with Alan-Michael), but they just weren't compelling as a unit. Laibson/McTavish just dumped them all together. I think it was SOD at the time who named "A. Spaulding" as the worst story of the year and pointed out that every person in the family was written the same way. 

Amanda chasing after Ross could have been compelling, but it wasn't a fair triangle, because he never had feelings for her on her return and the writing dehumanized her. Liz Keifer even said in print how uncomfortable she was with some of the comments they had her make about Amanda and her hair. 

That was also the problem with the whole Malibu Madam story. It was treated as a joke and Amanda was treated as a joke. The world that Amanda would describe Matt living in - essentially his cute little ass poolside in Speedos, property of rich housewives only - was more like one of those glossy late '80s miniseries than the reality of him being an escort.

It would have been more interesting if he had revealed he'd had sex with men for money and certainly forced Vanessa to ask herself a lot of questions about trusting so much in the power of love and so on. 

 

That could have worked, yes, in the time Chris had left on the show. 

(hopefully she wouldn't have been there when RVV still played Ed)

Edited September 14, 2024 by DRW50

[MichaelGL]

Rita comes back to Springfield claiming the child she had after leaving town was Ed's, but eventually it is revealed to be Alan's (she's seen what Alan has done to his children and want her son to have no part of that). Perfect opportunity would've been the mid 80s, or perhaps the early 90s, where Rita's son would butt heads with Alan-Michael, perhaps form a bond with Ed, be someone new that Bev's Alex wanted to dote upon (other than Nick).

Yeah, Rita's son would've been a better Spaulding than what we had to endure with Nick McHenry. 

[P.J.]

I don't think there was a chance in hell of ever getting Lenore back. And certainly not to the east coast when she was guest starring on everything in LA.

[P.J.]

I do remember watching some early Vanessa stuff that seemed like they were ticking off the "brunette schemer" boxes. I've just seen so little of Vanessa/Ed that it's hard to judge what the attraction was. The way the recaps made it sound was that he saw a lot of Holly in her after her (fake) suicide attempt. And Vanessa wasn't above pushing that narrative to land him.

I get what you mean re: the Spauldings. They're never a cohesive family unit. They're usually too busy fighting each other to ever pull together.

There's a lot of GL history I'd forgotten, and I gladly could've lived never being reminded of Matt's. *eyeblech*