Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Mitch64]

When Quint was back the second time and the Quola reunion got sidelined during the writers and exec switch..I thought it would have been interesting if they had Quint having POA over the Chambelin portfolio now that Henry and Vanessa (fake dead) were gone. Instead they had the Spaulding talking to Matt, who no moron would put in charge. I think having vixen Amanda trying to seduce Quint, and then falling for him might have interesting...having Amanda be another woman gaga over Roger was kind of stupid. I can imagine the campy cat fights between Amanda and Nola.

And it was odd, while this was happening...Marland was just starting to dig into ATWT and restablishing the Hughes family and the vets. You think PG would have made GL follow suit.

[VelekaCarruthers]

Michael Tylo couldn't remember his lines, bless his heart.  Neither could Lisa Brown. She flubbed all the time.  

[DRW50]

I don't remember this being as much of an issue with Lisa on ATWT, unless they just handled it better. I think Lisa being on Broadway for part of her run may have been a factor.

[P.J.]

Well, I think Matt was left in charge simply because he was a moron, and yet supposed to have enough integrity to outwit Alan. Or at least be street savvy enough not to trust a word coming out of his mouth (which ironically, even morons wouldn't do) after Alan tried blackmailing Vanessa. 

Yeah, if Reva had the Golden Hoo-ha, the Golden Wee-Wee was Roger's. 

 

I think there was so much mismanagement of GL, that it just fed on itself. Yes, they let core vets go, yes they overinvested in young performers, yes there were lousy recasts---but mostly there was chaos brought on multiple regime changes. The Red Sox had the curse of the Bambino, Guiding Light had the curse of Marland. Rarely was who/what was important to one regime important to another. 

There are things they couldn't control---Charita's death, Chris Bernau's health. And at some point, you have to invest in a new generation and some new blood. And even if they had tried, I'm not sure how much they could've dug into the past and reestablished like ATWT did. It worked because they had a core set of vets (Bob, Kim, Ellen, Lisa, John) viewers had known for years. Even in the 70's with the Dobsons, they were whittling away history and dumping vets.

I don't think Lisa flubbed lines as much as she made it a quirk of Nola's to kind of let her mouth run in the moment, then pull it back.

[Khan]

I think it was a little of both.  She'd flub lines to the point where they seemed to tumble out (because, let's be honest, as brilliant as Douglas Marland was as a HW, he also could be kind of wordy, lol), but in a way, it worked for a left-of-center character like Nola Reardon.  It's just that Pamela K. Long (God bless her) interpreted that quirk to mean she was semi-ditzy and a bad cook, lol.

Edited March 4 by Khan

[P.J.]

True enough! LOL...not everyone is Maeve Kinkead with her perfect diction.

[Khan]

In a way, Lisa Brown, as Nola, reminded me of old screwball heroines like Jean Arthur and Carole Lombard, who could go in a thousand different directions within each sentence and still come out understandable and endearing.

[P.J.]

Jean Arthur may be the perfect comparison. There was something so down to earth about her, and while she was beautiful, not unapproachable.

[zanereed]

For those earlier in the thread that were asking about Mike Bauer and when Don Stewart started playing the role, the listed timeframe on various websites of December 1968 should be correct. Robert Pickering had been portraying Mike since the spring of 1968. I'm not sure if Pickering decided to leave or if TPTB decided to recast.

As mentioned by others, 1968 was the first time that both adult Bauer brothers were on screen together when Mike returned (Ed still being played by Robert Gentry since 1966). Pickering still should have been playing Mike when Mike and Leslie (Lynne Adams) first interacted, as I think that storyline was in place not too long after Mike and Hope returned to Springfield.

Gentry left the role in late April of 1969, shortly after Ed had been pulled over and arrested for drunk driving (in fact, some black and white kinescope footage of this segment was on GL's "Find Your Light" website for a time). I think Gentry left of his own accord, and the show recast Mart Hulswit in the role of Ed. Mart's first airdate should have been in July of 1969, right after Bill Bauer had been presumably killed in a plane crash.

Edited March 4 by zanereed

[SoapDope]

I found these pics of Robert Pickering. He looks a bit like Don Murray.

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[Paul Raven]

Maybe a bit of both.

I don't think at that point Pickering could choose to leave as he would have been on a 3 yr contract. More likely was that he wasn't working out in the role-maybe he was unhappy in daytime and  producers agreed it wasn't working and hence  a recast.

They lucked out with Hulswit and Stewart. So within a year there were 2 new Bauers fighting over Miss Leslie.

[Mona Kane Croft]

Did Gary Pillar leave the role when Mike returned from Bay City?  Did Pillar ever play Mike on Guiding Light?  

[Reverend Ruthledge]

Yes. Yes. 

[Mitch64]

He is handsome..I wonder what kind of actor he is and if they could have recast with him when Don left.

[Soaplovers]

Quint and Nola should have been like Nick and Nora Charles.  You had hints of that dynamic during the whole 1983/1984 Annabelle Sims mystery where Nola was investigating clues with Quint going along while they bantered and balanced being newlyweds.

It's a shame that they were written off in the spring 1985, when I think how much their presence would have made the 2nd half of 1985 a bit more light/whimsical to contrast the darkness of the Infinity story.

In fact, I think Quint/Nola along with Tony/Annabelle could have fit in with the Infinity story due to their ties with Beth/Lujack...and the Lewis/Spauldings.

Lastly, I found the weekly ratings for 1985 and I was surprised that GL didn't really suffer quite as badly as I thought they would in the 2nd half of 1985.  Granted they usually ranked 5th or 6th on a weekly basis (out of 13 soaps), with an occasional jump in ratings up to 4 th (such as the last week of November 1985 which was the climax of the Infinity story).  Rating didn't start falling until the first half of 1986 when Jeff Ryder was sole headwriter, which could explain why he was quickly replaced.