Guiding Light discussion thread

[DRW50]

I don't think she's wrong about Wheeler being in over her head, and I'm sure Wheeler was exhausting to deal with. I also agree that little group could sell material many others couldn't. Last week I was watching some of her last scenes with Jonathan where she was convincing him to go out instead of hiding in her house all the time and I was impressed by how much she and Tom Pelphrey were clearly just riffing and making it work. I just find the tone a little precious, and high-handed, given her own history with the show. It's a good read but I wish we had other perspectives about whether Wheeler was going to completely reset the show or not.

I'm glad you keep mentioning British soap divas because that's exactly what they lack now - so often it's just Botox queens all over the place these days.

Gentry's repressed Ed, quaking with rage, is very compelling. Rauch did bring him back. There was no spark. I think they may have considered bringing Ellen Parker back. Once that didn't happen, they seemed to just stop showing him.

Edited February 15 by DRW50

[prefab1]

I haven't read Zimmer's book, but I wonder if she also resented the fact that in the Peapack years she often appeared as a supporting character in other people's storylines (for instance, as a supportive grandma in Daisy's abortion storyline). As you say, Zimmer was actually great in this role and turned in some captivating naturalistic performances. It's a smart way to use a star whose guarantee says they have to appear 3 days a week, much better than the Rauch era which came up with increasingly ludicrous plot-driven storylines to keep Reva front and center. And Zimmer showed why she won all those Emmys by slipping seamlessly into those supporting roles and really connecting with her younger scene partners, boosting their performances as well. It's a talent I wish some other overexposed soap actors who appear in 150+ episodes a year (cough, Maurice Bernard) shared.  

[Vee]

Kim (by her own admission, IIRC) complained constantly about story or lack of story, in almost every regime. But I think even she felt some of Reva's major stories in that period (like her ludicrous late in life pregnancy by Jeffrey) were stupid as hell. IIRC she did like the cancer saga.

Edited February 15 by Vee

[DRW50]

Speaking of that (I'm so grateful to the guy who ran this channel for finding some moments to clip in those last years):

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Much as GL's final years are criticized for a conservative slant, this is still material I don't know if any of the current soaps would go near. 

I can't remember who it was who talked about how much terrible music choices hurt the last few years of the show, but you aren't wrong. And the Coopers seem to be living in a building set for demolition.

 

[prefab1]

Having endured a year of Clone Reva, I had no problem coping with Geriatric Pregnancy Reva. 

But honestly it must have been tough for the writers to keep coming up with frontburner storylines for Reva, who'd already been through all the soap cliches: amnesia, cancer, long-lost child (twice). That said, I actually can think of a story I wish they'd done in their later years: Reva and Josh run against each other for mayor. It might have been a fun new spin on the Reva-Josh conflict, and we could have gotten juicy scenes of their mutual friends and family members having to pick sides on who to support. 

 

[Vee]

IIRC, Cassie's "house" looked like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Scrap metal on the lawn or whatever.

[Alan]

This is totally valid criticism of KZ. She acknowledges that she needed a boss who could stand up to her (who she seems to think needed to be male) and she had her feathers ruffled by having an EP that was both female and younger than she is. I can also imagine how the clash of personalities played out: KZ's confrontational nature, demanding, confident, enjoys a good argument vs. EW's personality - sensitive, emotional, perhaps even timid.

I checked out of GL before the Peapack era but @Vee and @DRW50's comments are piquing my interest. I have long thought that the best models for an aging Reva were characters from UK soaps like Pat Evans and Deirdre Barlow. Women considered "past it" by society but who still liked going out to the pub, drinking, smoking, picking up men. Even as they fulfilled their roles as wise advice-dispensing matriarchs, they never needed to settle into the propriety or saintliness of an Alice Horton or Emily Bishop. Is that what you mean?

[Maxim]

Sometimes... the result speaks for itself.  

[Alan]

Thank you mentioning GL's incidental music, including "Destiny Calling" the Josh and Reva cue, because it reminded me of some files that I have had for eons. I saved these cues many years ago from GL's soundtrack website.

Brian D. Siewert is my third favorite composer for soaps, (after Jack Allocco and David Kurtz), his cues always stir memories. A lot these are from Taggart's era, which like you I loved. 

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/dgnj8z4nsn7dv/Guiding_Light_soundtrack

[Maxim]

Thank you for sharing these... I am a fan of soap opera background music... so I'm going to be giving them a listen later.

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[Vee]

That's absolutely what Kim and Reva became by the end. Reva was an aging, overweight good time girl who still clearly liked to drink and fúck, in the vein of a Pat or Peggy Mitchell or whoever else. And because the show was so regularly shorn of viable budget and coherent story, and perhaps because Wheeler wanted to put Zimmer in her place, they let her appear like that and wrote her like that regularly. Would never have happened before. But virtually every character was demolished and deconstructed due to the Peapack poverty grind, made banal or demystified. For many of them that demeaned them and made them small. For Reva (putting aside much of the actual story, or the marriage to Jeffrey) I think it just made her greater.

This makes Peapack GL seem far more artistically intriguing than it is. I assure you, IMO at least it is not (and I say that as someone who owns Bill Gunn's Personal Problems, a public-access Black 'avant-garde soap' shot largely on very very rough home video from the early '80s). The show is a debacle. But what works amidst that mess is often down to Kim and other veteran performers creating something from very little in half-written scenes, and what aspects of the characters emerge from the disaster. For me, Reva is #1 with a bullet.

Which I guess is all a kind of endorsement to watch, in its own way lol. But I still hate that era.

Edited February 15 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

There have been a number of things said here in the last 24 hours & I want to address some of them.

To begin I know some people may think I am a Wheeler apologist or that I have a pro-Wheeler bias. I do not. My bias is actually pro-Hurst. But, I am not anti-Kim either. I have read her book, more than once & I have reviewed it & actually I have a  blog about it. I recommend it to fans. I disagree with some of it but I agree with more.

Now about this idea that a whole bunch of people affirm some of Kim's allegations, I cannot credit that. But, what I  can credit is that many people had various criticisms of the new production model. It is important to keep the two things separate & distinct in our heads. Wheeler was not the equivalent of the new production model. It was just her job to try to implement it, without P&G providing either the budget or even moral support for the effort. Maureen Garrett's rather scathing negative comments to me were particularly apt.

Now about this idea that Wheeler wanted to erase show history, I also cannot credit that. Please explain to me if you can how a person who could produce that loving homage to Irna Phillips & to the original radio show that they did for the anniversary, is that the same person that you say wanted to do away with show history?!!! 

What she was trying to do was what so many EPs have tried to do & that is to give the show a facelift. 

Now, moving on, this idea that she was trying to demean her star actress, obviously not only do I not credit it but I find no evidence of it & to me, frankly, the very idea is ludicrous. If anyone was, Reva at the end was a strong, even fierce, character. Did Ellen give her a hard time about her weight gain? No, she did not. No one at the show did anything even remotely like that. Kim retained the respect of her peers. Yes, we all know that she could be a handful but she was allowed the liberty to continue as she had been.

Now about Wheeler being in over her head, what I said previously was that she was from the first week & continuing on from there. As you might recall I blame P&G for putting an inexperienced EP in the position they put her in. This would have been true if they had gone with their second choice, also.

Now, possibly you may not credit what I have said about Kim & others crying in those last weeks. I can only tell you that they were working in very stressful times & situations. Emotions were running very high. The level of personal drama was also exceedingly high.

The only other thing I have to say  is that I appreciate them & their efforts. That they tried is to me important. Also there were things that I loved. Otalia & Jami were brilliant. I know many of you didn't but I loved the music. The primary singer/composer is someone I have had in my personal music library for years before.

[Mitch64]

Yes...the only time I liked Reva post resurrection was Peapack, despite thrusting her on a character I loathed. I do wonder if Zimmer looks back on that as not only a chance to bring an earthy character down to earth, but a chance for her to connect to her old energy and imagination without the artificial propping of the Rauch era on.  Her and Phillip's scene when she is putting the crib together is gold...they both put across history and Reva comes off as being strong with him, greeting her old friend, and a bit of a flirt (and how she pulled off a middle age flirt who is pregnant and not wearing any make up, without making it gross or ridiculous is anyone's guess.)  I can even see why Josh would go for the messier, let's face it..fatter Reva more then the overly made up middle aged bore she was during the Rauch era and beyond. 

And I would have loved to Reva and Nola as endgame matriarchs of SF...not sweet old ladies but full older women with their own eccentricities and living life while taking care of their people (as someone upthread put better then I did.) 

[P.J.]

I must be the only one who thoroughly despises that 70th anniversary show. 

[Vee]

The P&G/Beyond the Gates post on the main forum has a lovely video taking note of ATWT and GL with some nice comments from a rep. Very surreal to see after all this time.