Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

Yeah but it has a glaring error. 72 years is NOT ATWT. It's GL. I really cannot believe no one caught it in post-production!!!

[kalbir]

 

Isn't Pamela Long herself from the southeast? You'd think she would know cultural differences between the southeast and southwest and midwest regions, but maybe she didn't.

Edited February 18 by kalbir

[Contessa Donatella]

She was once Miss Alabama, so, yes, from the southeast.

 

[chrisml]

Is the Cross Creek Wedding #1 the one that Zimmer that submitted as part of her third Emmy win?

[kalbir]

@chrisml

 

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[DRW50]

I wonder how much of the Lewises was her along with Gail Kobe just trying to recreate Texas! rather than drawing on her knowledge. She clearly cared a lot about the Lewises, but I notice she didn't try to introduce similar character backgrounds when she wrote for other soaps. 

Edited February 18 by DRW50

[Soapsuds]

Haha!

I think that's why the show became more fluff for me and lost the luster it had in the early 1980s.

[Contessa Donatella]

My god, that is filled with so much brilliance. The story, of course, is unbeatable & also unbearable, so very hard to keep watching it & the dialogue is amazing. 

Were Emmy reels allowed to be that long back then?

Does anyone know any details about the making of this scene? Was it directed by Bruce Barry? Did they shoot it in one long uninterrupted take?

 

Edited February 18 by Contessa Donatella

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, the fact that Reva was first offered to Carla Boretti who played Rena on Texas & her turning it down, saying she really wanted her next part to be different & Reva seemed to be sort of a redux of Rena, would lend some credence, I think, to the idea that Long was maybe "going by" Texas when she began at GL.

Kobe, I have no anecdote to support it but I've always thought that about her tenure as GL EP.

[Mitch64]

I don't know why it matters so much...Gush and the whole weird Cooper family were living in a under construction house with kids running around and supposed backyard full of junk...all choices from Wheeler which as usual was weird and offputting.

[Khan]

And that seemed odd to me, because the Lewises and Shaynes were supposed to be from Tulsa; yet, Tulsa, IMO, is a very urban, very progressive city.  But even the small town where my mother is from isn't exactly like Hooterville, lol.

[TheyStartedOnSoaps]

The only requirement was that you submit two episodes - even if the reel was an hour and a half as long as it was two episodes with only the actors scenes, there was no cut-off in terms of the length of the reel. 

Edited February 18 by TheyStartedOnSoaps

[Soapsuds]

I've been to Tulsa several times and I never saw any Lewis's or Shaynes.

[Khan]

Yes.  IIRC, she's a former Miss Alabama.  And if you watch even one early scene with the Lewises, you can tell that's what she was writing.

In the beginning, the Lewises and Shaynes were this queasy combination of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Giant," but neither truly reflects what being an Okie means.

Okies are more Great Plains (Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, etc.) than Southerners.  We don't walk around wearing Stetson hats and Colonel Sanders outfits like H.B. did.  We don't prance around in Chinchillas like Mindy or Reva, or mink stoles with tailored hats and outfits like Miss Sally (and by the way, we do have madams in Oklahoma, but none of 'em look anything like Miss Sally, lol).  We don't even drive luxury cars like Rolls Royces, because Okies don't call attention to themselves like that, no matter how rich they are.

Furthermore, that Brick-and-Maggie routine that Josh and Reva had going at the beginning, with Billy as Gooper?  That might go on all the time in places like Alabama, but it's been my experience, at least, that Okies aren't that hypersexual.  We're more William Inge than Tennessee Williams, lol.

And those accents!  My Gawd!  People from outside our state are always amazed when I tell them where I'm from, because "you don't have an accent."  And then I have to tell them, "Neither does anyone else from Oklahoma!"

Listen to James Garner.  Listen to Rue McClanahan (when she isn't playing Blanche Devereaux).  Listen to Kristin Chenoweth.  Hell, listen to Beverlee McKinsey!  Do they SOUND as if they're from Dogpatch!  ("But, what about Reba McEntire," they say.  And I reply, "That's a put-on.  No one else from that area sounds like her.")

One more thing: no self-respecting Okie is gonna have an outdoor wedding IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER, when the heat in Oklahoma is at its' most miserable, near a creek, with all the mosquitos, wasps and other bugs flying around.  That's a surefire way to guarantee that no one's coming to your wedding, lol.

Nor would you see any plantations like the one the Lewises apparently lived on.  Again, Tulsa isn't Tara or Twelve Oaks.  Just as Dallas isn't what DALLAS made Dallas out to be.

Also hilarious: the backstory that Sarah Shayne had worked as the Lewises' maid.  First of all, if the Lewises had had a maid in Oklahoma, she would've been Black, Hispanic/Latino, or possibly Indigenous.  Second, even if Sarah had been the maid, she wouldn't have worked JUST for the Lewises.  She would've cleaned several houses, because most housekeepers around here belong to agencies.  They're not employed by a single family like Pearl on "Diff'rent Strokes."

Edited February 18 by Khan

[Soapsuds]

@Khan

Interesting that you mention accents.

 

I had a friend who knew I was from Texas but had never heard my voice, and when he did, he told me that I spoke with an accent. I had never noticed or thought that I did.