Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DeeVee]

Ugh, didn't he also swap out Olivia's birth control pills but instead she ended up pregnant by Mr. Fertility, Philip? (Trashy AND hugely problematic).

I don't have an issue with him having more kids (pretty common with super rich guys like him) but every time I see the scene between Alan and Beth before Alan's first exit where she helps him reconcile with Philip, I can't stop thinking, "Yuck, they end up married and having a baby." 

I would have preferred the family expanded though his kids and nephews (and niece, I forgot about Vicky).

Edited Saturday at 12:35 AM by DeeVee

[P.J.]

They could've easily given Alex a grandchild via Lujack---having kids (or in this case a grandchild) dropped on you out of the blue was nothing new in Springfield. 

[GL Oldtimer]

alwaysAMC, I really hope you have a chance to watch Guiding Light from the early 90s. It was truly firing on all cylinders. If you're a fan of Roger now, you're going to absolutely love him from that time period. He was involved in causing trouble for nearly the whole town of Springfield.

Annette

[alwaysAMC]

Thanks, Annette!  I can't wait

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[chrisml]

What has always struck me is that this was commented on in the press. They didn't keep it an inside joke.  As we've discussed, quite a few of us wouldn't have known just by looking at Marian that she was meant to look like JFP. 

I asked this before, but why did Douglas Anderson last such a short time as HW? JFP made such a huge deal about him in Michael Logan's column, but he doesn't seem to have lasted more than a few months.

[j swift]

I think you've hit the nail on its proverbial head.

It was cruel to leak it, and suggests that often creatives make poor managers.  And at the very least, it should make us question the source of some of our opinions.  I know there's always one person to comment that they knew her professionally, and she was the meanest person that they knew.  But, nobody deserves (or earns) that type of disrespect without a lot of animosity in the work place.  And, the press tends to favor stories by people she fired, rather than those she supported.

Edited Saturday at 03:41 AM by j swift

[Paul Raven]

Re Douglas Anderson.

He was a playwright and apparently a GL fan. How he came to be headwriter is a mystery.

I would assume he only lasted a short time because of his inexperience. Maybe he couldn't cope with the demands and wanted out or TPTB weren't happy for a variety of reasons.

Found this on facebook

This week’s #SpotlightSunday is on Douglas Anderson. Doug graduated in 1978 with an MFA in directing from the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. Doug was nominated by his wife Debby.

In her words…

Doug and I arrived in Lincoln in 1976. It was the perfect place for Doug.

With the support and friendship of department chair Dr. Rex McGraw, Doug was free to explore his many talents. He won acting awards two years in a row. (He still has the trophies in our guest bathroom - for real.) He was musical director and pianist for the summer rep. His thesis was a directing project. But he was most proud of the fact that a play he wrote (The Beams Are Creaking, based on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer) won two national playwriting awards. Doug wanted to explore everything, and UNL gave him the space to do that.

He went on to 14 years of teaching (University of Illinois, Middlebury College, Amherst College) and continued writing. He wrote for the Children’s Television Workshop (Square One TV and 3-2-1 Contact) and in 1994-95 he was the head writer on the CBS soap opera, The Guiding Light.

He continues to direct several productions each year. In New York he directed at the Ensemble Studio Theater and 59E59.

In 1997 he discovered that a crumbling building on Middlebury’s town square was originally a theater, and he led the charge to save and restore it. Doug raised $5 million, and Town Hall Theater opened in 2008. Doug was now an Executive Director and a producer and brilliantly created an ideal small town performing arts center, producing up to 165 events a year.

In 2004 he created the Opera Company of Middlebury, a professional company that is now in its18th season. The Company has produced over 25 operas with professional talent and a full orchestra.

The State of Vermont gave Doug a lifetime achievement award in 2019. He jokes that it’s weird to get a lifetime achievement award when he feels he’s just getting started.
 

[chrisml]

Thank you @Paul Ravenfor the info on Douglas Anderson. I appreciate it. So interesting how JFP promoted him so much and then he disappeared shortly after. 

@j swiftI find it fascinating that GL went out of its way to be as cruel as possible to JFP after she left. One of the reasons I have posted a lot of Logan's columns/other news items at the time of JFP's tenure is I wanted to show what was being said about her tenure without others rewriting what was being said/felt. 

[Contessa Donatella]

So interesting.

[Soaplovers]

I always think if you're going to try out someone in the head writer position that's never written for soaps, they should be paired with someone that has soap opera writing experience as a co-head writer.  Even Harding Lemay listened to Irna Phillips and said he learned from her the foundation/structure of a soap opera so he knew what he could do and not due as head-writer. 

Perhaps Doug Anderson needed a strong co-head writer to show him the ropes so to speak.

[Contessa Donatella]

At ATWT Hogan Sheffer had that kind of arrangement. And, of course, at GL when Ellen Weston supposedly was a HW she, too, was paired with someone who actually could do the job.

[VelekaCarruthers]

JFP liked Doug Anderson because she could be the unnamed (in the credits) head writer and he was HER co-head writer. She had to relent pretty quickly to that set up and brought in Peggy Sloane and elevated Nancy Watts to co head positions while bringing in (for less than three months) Joyce Corrington as story consultant as well as Tom King and Craig Carlson as associate head writers. Harding Lemay was also her consultant for a brief period during Anderson's time. Of course, she took Lemay/King/Carlson to AW when she was moved over there.

I think Doug lasted six months but it was writing by committee for the most part with Jill in the lead.

[P.J.]

Does anyone recall when/where the Four Musketeers came up with "blue skies and Palamino ponies"? I thought it was the summer of '83, but I've never run into it. Maybe it was in NY?

[Mitch64]

The whole show looked trashy at that point. I know Kreizman and Wheeler were idiots, what was Hurst thinking?

Didn't McTavish write in her hoped for book (God I wish that was published, what a trashy read it would be) that JFP tore all the writing up over the weekend and dictated the writing to her? If she did that with a, uh, strong willed writer like McTavish, she must have just run over Anderson.

[Contessa Donatella]

One thing you have to remember about Jill is that she is a team player, first & foremost she is loyal. And, on occasion she says some rather wonderful things. 

"Script writing is the secret weapon of daytime. They paint the picture. A good script writer is everything." - Jill Lorie Hurst, 3-15-23, Locher Room chat room