Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

I was looking through a few old Digests, and one from 1987 mentioned Krista Tesreau and Vincent Irizarry being on an ABC show called Circus that had been picked up, which meant Krista would be leaving GL. That never aired, and Krista didn't leave until a few years later. What happened?

One from 1991 talked about how Kimberly Simms leaving was officially claimed to be based on her wanting to go, but actually they pushed her out because she was taking too long to make up her mind about staying. That sounds like the JFP of that era. While that can work out in some cases, it led to some horrible Mindy recasts, and a weakening of the show at a time when there were already so many new faces.

[DRW50]

Tina Sloan interview from the June 20, 2000 Weekly (Primedia). Some of the text went blurry so I cropped that and will type up the last page.

[DRW50]

[DRW50]

From the December 23, 1997 Soap Opera News (SOM Publishing Inc). Rare to get a Bucky Carter shoutout...

[DRW50]

Interview from the 12/14/99 Weekly (Primedia Inc) with Paul Wasilewski, who has since gone on to complete and total obscurity.

I will type up the interview. It was by Mark McGarry. The photo is Arthur L. Cohen/Televest.

[Bright Eyes]

That's Paul Wesley. He's the lead on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES.

Edited December 24, 2010 by Amello

[DRW50]

Clearly my sarcasm powers fail again.

[DRW50]

[DRW50]

An ET piece on GL's 50th anniversary. I'd never seen a few of the black and white clips (not sure who those two men are at the start, is one of them Papa Bauer).

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[heffer]

It's great seeing Chris Bernau looking so chipper in the interview(he had to know he was gravely ill at this point).

A big "ouch" for John Tesh's closing comments, something that didn't need to be said during a supposed celebration of the show.

[DRW50]

From the August 29, 1995 Weekly (K-III Magazines).

Edited December 25, 2010 by CarlD2

[Mitch]

McTavish's GL was so weird..on one hand really exciting (LOVED Brent/Marion) but disjointed and really, really weird (HATED Folly as they used to call them but I really hated Jay Hammer as Fletch...that pic is so him, starring straight at the camera he used to walk over Garret's lines all the time.)

That was really the make or break of GL and point of no return to its eventual cancellation. If MCtrash had gotten someone like Aunt Meta in earlier to consolidate the show again, got us out of 7th Street and Buzz mania and not cartooned everyone out we could have repaired the damage that JFP's later years and ego did to the show.

[EastMA2]

I'd love to see more of the Jennifer Richards stuff from 1980. When she was on trial for killing Lucille Wexler and it came out that Alan Spaulding was Amanda's father and Jennifer was her mother. The best I could find on youtube was an Emmy Awards clip when Doug Marland won the Emmy for Best Writing based on the episode submission where Jennifer admits to killing Lucille instead of the secret of Amanda's parentage coming out. Great stuff.

[DRW50]

I'd like to see more of that too. It's probably the story which is available that I'd want to see the most, along with the full Carrie storyline. I have an interview with Rita Lloyd from around this time I will post sometime.

Mitch, I agree with you that McTavish was probably make or break for GL -- on the one hand, the ratings did go up for a while, and if that hadn't happened then there's a good chance GL would have been canceled. But by the time she was fired the show was a living hell. Looking back it's actually surprising GL managed to survive that...I guess this was when CBS/P&G still cared. Then Rauch revived the show before the long, slide downward.

I do wonder if McTavish helped create the initial plans for Meta. She had already come in by the time Laibson was going.

[Mitch]

The ratings probably went up as the last few months of JFP were total [!@#$%^&*] so anything looked better. Also, those last months had the show staggering and it had no energy. McT did bring a great deal of energy to the show, and there was always something happening. I suppose if she had a stronger producer she could have been kept reigned in. Brent was a great "umbrella," story, but as soon as that was over the show lost all its energy. She had extremely bad judgement (the Downs story going to Folly, it would have worked with Frank and Eleni, who had nothing to do..) the reversal of Roger to a maniac, the reversal of Holly having any feeling for Rog, Reva chasing after Buzzard begging him to schtump her, Alan and Alex having an almost incestual weird thing going, Michelle chasing after her own cousin, (by adoption) Michelle forgetting that Nola was her aunt (calling her Mrs. Chamberlin) or that Vanessa was her mom;s best friend and married to her cousin (calling Van"Mrs. Reardon," ) and of course, the black incest plot which ended with one of the few strong male black characters shooting himself to frame Alan. After Brent all we had was the battle for Reva and 5th Street (BORING) and Lonatrat...