Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

I think so, too, but you're totally correct that this is distinctly a minority position!!! For me it's not that I wasn't born. I just came to GL late in the game. Going back to the 70s I was watching soaps but it was other soaps. I have a whole cluster of GL Minority positions. I do not disdain either Marj Dusay or Ron Raines. Despite my love for Beverlee McKinsey. I do not hate the Coopers. I'm actually a fan of Harley's. I do not blame her or Buzz for Global Warming. Possibly the only dislike I have where I fall in line with the SON majority in GL terms is in detesting Lucy/Sonia Satra. 

[DRW50]

Not for several years. I wasn't sure if ATWT or GL hired him first - looking at IMDB (which, bewilderingly, only credits him at OLTL from 09-12), it was ATWT first. At the time I think he had an SPW interview which mentioned being out and he was grateful for the chance to come back. After his brief ATWT stint in 1999 he then got a bit more on there and a bit on GL before returning to OLTL in 2002.

The story was confusing even for the time, which is saying a lot, but at least it was compelling, unlike others of that time like the trucking vendetta or Simon's parentage (I think I've had to ask you all on here about 3 times if he was actually Alex's brother or not). 

Michelle Forbes was so dynamic, a once-in-a-generation soap casting, on a show that needed new female blood. And Long didn't have long (no pun intended) to write for her before the lengthy strike kicked in. I can see why she wanted to do whatever she could with Forbes, even pairing her with Roger near the end when they knew she was leaving. In another life Forbes and Zaslow would have been one hell of a pairing for film or TV.

I always think of Robert Newman talking with SOD in the late '90s about how he still had people asking him to explain the Sonni/Solita storyline.

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, IIRC Shapiro tried to blackball him, literally in the sense of "You'll never work in this town again." So, given the close-knit (?) almost inbred way the soap working community is, it's a wonder he ever got work, at all, again. But, if you ask me the biggest lesson from that was that if you're smart you inform actors what they're going to be playing up front rather than letting them be shocked the day they're meant to play some monster. 

[Mitch64]

I respect your opinion...I actually didn't HATE some of the Rauch/MADD era...and contrary to everyone on here...I LOVED Holly the stalker..she looked sexy as hell and for once during that era she wasn't sitting around getting yelled at by Fletcher, listening to Blake or just in the background...But I think one of my favorite scenes of that time sums up the era..it was during the clone, and Alan calls Holly to tell her that there was clone running around town..Holly, deep in her stalker period is drunk (she pulls a bottle from her desk) and dismisses him with a funny line I can't remember (maybe it was "Alan, I haven't had enough drinks to believe that,") It was funny, and the actors delivered it, but it was so dumb and cartoony...Alan would have gotten himself and Spaulding in a [!@#$%^&*] load of trouble, and Holly doesn't even think that this captain of industry might be going nuts so she should investigate? Alan is portrayed as in ineffectual blow hard as usual, etc. 

Some of the stuff during that time is really entertaining (especially after what comes later) and there are hints that its still GL...(whenever the vets are on, holidays, etc) but its like its GL Lite. Or more accurately, its like GL was suddenly on ABC...everthing was too bright and broad it just wasn't a CBS/PG soap anymore (IMO) 

LOL..I never got that..Sonni/Solita are sisters in a small very Catholic Venezuelan village. Sonni is a live wire rebellious girls but not evil, though her repressive dad says so and so do their conservative neighbors...Sonni was the good girl, who sneaks out to have sex with a guy about to take his priestly vows, is caught and thought to be Sonni. Sonni takes the rap for her sister, is paraded through the town and whipped, all the while being called slut, and she then kills herself, where Sonni finds her in a closet...goes nuts and assumes her "personality" through the lens of her father (sly, wicked, sexually promiscuous and just bad.) She marries Josh, falls off a cliff, they think she's dead, she wakes up and thinks she is Solita, who, along with no longer a priest cause he is evil and creepy as hell, Will (and who she has an S/M relationship with) comes back to con Josh that she is actually Sonni.  

I mean it's PERFECTLY clear ( to a weirdo like me who grew up on this soap nonsense!) 

[DRW50]

I found GL watchable, at times entertaining, during the Rauch/B&E period. The wheels come off in the last year or two and looking back I know what I was initially fine with was a big mess in the long run (the Santoses and San Cristobel - although GL actually did manage to move away from them, which some soaps never do). 

It wasn't until the Labines came in with Rauch that something shifted for me and the show started to feel very sour and unpleasant. It wasn't just their fault, but I lost my interest and other than a brief period in the last months of 2002 that didn't change (and then Conboy/Weston and the later arrival of Jonathan finished my viewing experience until the cancelation news).

As for Alan...Ron Raines was a decent enough actor. I wasn't surprised that he had a real following onstage, in musicals. I just don't think he was tough enough or sexy enough to be Alan. To be Alan you need to be cutthroat and charismatic. Chris Bernau was a very tough act to follow. 

I would have chosen Dennis Parlato, although he was still on Loving at the time Alan was cast. I would have waited a lot longer to find a more suitable figure, whether it be Dennis or someone else. 

So Solita was the good girl?

I think the DID element also confused people, especially as the end, IIRC, implied that she had become the bad sister again.

[Contessa Donatella]

BRAVO!

 

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[kalbir]

I only caught the tail end of Michelle Forbes GL run, but did anyone BITD think she would have the post GL career that she did? She's been working steadily for the better part of the last 35 years, and in some pretty big hits too.

[DRW50]

It's always hard to tell. Michelle never had the big breakout moment but has never really needed it. I'd imagine few would have guessed within 5 years of leaving GL she would have been offered a central role in a Star Trek spinoff.

[P.J.]

Honestly, you can't go wrong starting with any period you love. I end up skipping around my favorite eras for one reason or another.

lol...true enough. But I don't think anyone gives a second thought to characters like Calla.

[Contessa Donatella]

What show was this?

[titan1978]

Deep Space Nine. Kira was originally Ensign Ro, from MF time on TNG. Forbes did not want to be typecast.

As far back as her tenure on Homicide, when she did do any press it always seemed to me that she wanted to be a character actress, and was very selective about her choices. I think she has had the career she has mostly by design.

Edited February 7 by titan1978

[Contessa Donatella]

Thanks. Now I remember.

[titan1978]

What is this about? Were they rumored to be beards for each other?

Also, the last couple pages have been fascinating, I didn’t know Malloy was difficult, and yet, it doesn’t surprise me in the least!

[Contessa Donatella]

Marcia Cross is gay?!!!

[P.J.]

If you want a minority opinion---I liked Lucy. 

Sometimes it's just a matter of the comparison. I didn't hate the Coopers (well, except Nadine). I loved Harley, (her reaming out Buzz and Nadine after Frank's wedding is easily in my Top Ten GL moments of all time) and was aghast when Phillip cheated on her with Beth. But I did grow really weary of Buzz rather quickly. And I scratch my head over Frank lasting so long.

 My dislike for certain eras stems mostly from knowing how good it was, and how far it had fallen.