Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[soapfan770]

Is that why Kinkead left the show at the end of '87? That wouldn't surprise me given her stormy relationship with the show in the '90s and her ability to speak out and openly criticize the bad writing plaguing her character.

Gina Tognoni's first scene was with Jerry ver Dorn actually when she was making a phone call home to check in on things at the same time Cassie was getting weird credit card charges and had realized someone was using her identity.

[~bl~]

Supposedly Maeve left to spend time with her kids, of course that may have been just said to keep quiet about the real reasons.

[jam6242]

Same here. Quint & Nola are second only to Doug & Julie from Days for my affections. I'm sure I would have hated it at the time if either Quint or Nola had been killed off. I would have continued watching as long as they stayed. I returned to GL when they did in the 90s, but their characterizations then were even worse than the mid-80s silliness, especially when Nola started being obsessed with Buzz!

[saynotoursoap]

I am replying to Soaplovers' post, though my comments are not necessarily directed at this particular poster. Because the 80's era of GL is the topic at hand, I wanted to offer my own opinions and insights into a subject that often does not get an opposing view. I am referring to the Gail Kobe/Pamela Long regime.

In my opinion, these are two are often unfairly judged as intentionally wanting to dismantle a series and morph it into something else. Yes, they made errors, sometimes grievous ones, but they did not move into Guiding Light with the intention of getting rid of the Bauers and other established characters just to promote Reva and the Lewises. The destruction of the Bauers was planned before Long and Kobe ever arrived. I spoke with columnist Jon-Michael Reed in 1982, and he told me about an interview he had with Mart Hulswit after he had been replaced by Peter Simon. Hulswit discussed with him the fact that P&G was gung-ho on doing whatever they could to boost GL's demos. At that time, GL was one of the higher rated soaps, yet it commanded fewer advertising dollars than The Edge of Night, a half hour soap with much lower ratings. P&G felt that GL needed more humor, more youthful characters, and less concentration on elements that it perceived as being regarded as your grandmother's soap. To that end, Hulswit said that the Bauer family would be primarily dismantled within 5 years. At the time, I laughed it off as post termination anger, but Hulswit was proven correct, and it did not take 5 full years.

I have also spoken with Long, and according to her, the decision to terminate many of the characters came down to inability to form a consensus between writers, actors, directors, producers, P&G, and CBS. In other words, she had no grudge against the Bauer family and could have found a way to continue all of them. As far as Reva is considered, Pam Long and Kim Zimmer were not friends. In fact, Long envisioned Reva as different type of character and initially did not think Zimmer was right for the role during the auditions. It was John Whitsell who convinced her to give Zimmer a chance.

Now, Vanessa Chamberlain. It has been written in soap history that Pam Long "defused" Vanessa. I disagree. Vanessa was a rather shallow character as created by Doug Marland. She was snobbish and manipulative, not that there is anything wrong with those qualities in a soap villainess, but in my opinion Marland never balanced Vanessa enough to make me care about her. She was a spoiled bitch without a reason, and it was often one-note. I recently watched a scene many are familiar with, as the episode is widely circulated on the trading circuit. It's the one with Eve hiding from her stalker in Ross' apartment, and Vanessa stops by to beg her to leave Ross alone. Vanessa throws a tantrum, bangs on the door, and pleads "Oh, Eve, why are you doing this to me? You don't even want Ross, and I can't stand it!" It was not Maeve Kinkead's finest moment, and I'm being diplomatic. Under Long, Vanessa still had sass. I loved her banter with Billy. He was so wrong for her, but it worked. It made Vanessa a little softer. For the first time, the character felt real love, and as she grew, she became more sympathetic and three dimensional. Others have mentioned the pill addiction story. Sorry, but I loved it. Kinkead was fantastic in that plot, and it earned her a first time Emmy nomination because she had an opportunity to play emotions she never would have gotten under Doug Marland. Also, when she gave notice that she was leaving in 1987, Sheri Anderson was the writer. Kinkead came back in June 1989 with the show written by Pam Long, so she must not have found Long's writing of her character to be that bad.

[DRW50]

I thought I read somewhere that Elvera Roussell was fired by Kobe as some sort of a warning shot to the cast or something. I guess that's one of the reasons I wondered if they wanted to dismantle the Bauers.

I can't remember who was writing during the period where Vanessa was mainly just there to hold Billy's hand (Lumina and such) but I thought Maeve wasn't fond of this type of writing for her character. I can't remember now though.

I wouldn't be surprised if P&G was the main motivating force behind getting rid of the Bauers, it's just the way it was done was so sudden and so crass, compared to some of the other P&G soaps phasing out their core families around the same time.

[Mitch]

I don't know, P & G start dismantling the Hughes family long before the Bauers, Nancy and Chris were treated as walk ons while Bert and co. were still charging on. It was funny, but when Marland came back and brought back the Hughes family GL had done a flip flop and dismanteld the Bauers. So it seems odd that it is just TPTB that were instrumental in this.

I do think that there is some validity with what Long said, when she and the other guy was writing the show it was heavy on Bauers, Reardons, Spauldings, Marlers with the Lewises thrown in. This is the formula which got them to No 1 and when they dismantled this formula the show fell hard and never recovered. I don't see how TPTB could not have thought, "Hey, we made a mistake."

I do know that Pam Long did give an interview that she was not interested in expanding the Bauer family (i.e Frank DickieD was going to be a Bauer) but wanted to create another family. So who knows.

[DRW50]

The ATWT/GL comparison is a good one, as they both seemed to have the same idea - keep the middle-aged son (Bob, Ed) and phase out everyone else (I guess Don Hastings was too identified with Bob and hadn't aged the way Mart Hulswit had so they didn't recast Bob)...Don Hughes and Mike Bauer (although Mike seemed more prominent then Don) went, etc. I guess it's more jarring to me with the Bauers because several of them were suddenly, violently killed, with no window for return. Hope and Mike also got very sudden exits.

Considering how P&G felt about Nancy Hughes and Jo Barron Tate etc. on SFT, I wonder if they would have tried to phase out Bert, if Charita hadn't had health problems.

Edited April 16, 2011 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

1999 BBC look at Guiding Light. A few rare clips, and some interviews with Kim Zimmer and Jerry ver Dorn, and some interviews with Rauch, a very bored looking and half-dead B&E, and the always awful MADD.

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[DRW50]

I had to laugh at the slo-mo scenes of the people celebrating OJ's acquittal, almost as if they were the monster killing soaps.

Did anyone else notice that Barbara Esensten was far more animated when talking about the OJ trial than at any other time?

[MichaelGL]

Rauch and his goddamn cigar.

[Paul Raven]

The theory that P&G wanted the Bauers gone could be true,but a few years later Jack & Lainie Bauer were introduced-older characters in supporting roles.Did P&G have a change of heart? Anyway,Jack,Lainie,Lacey didn't last long and Todd Bauer became Frank Cooper,a symbolic sign that the Coopers were going to be the new core.

I'll say it again,Meta should have come back for Bert's funeral and stayed,Hope had years of story left (only one marriage!) and maybe an illegitimate child for Mike to boost the Bauers (was there any possibility in his past that that could have occurred?)

[Paul Raven]

[Mitch]

Everyone came off better then I imagined them. B & W have the personality of a two blocks of wood, but MADD didn't come off bad and Zimmer came off very, very well, especially her reprisal of Reva's "death," and resurection, with her sense of humor. Everytime I have seen her interviewed she has been too ON, and here she comes off as a normal person. I forgot how good she looked before the HUGE freakin' wait gain. By the end of the show she WAS a sloppy, Bert Bauer.

[MichaelGL]

Agreed, KZ looked radiant in the interview, what the hell happened?

Rauch comes off cocky as usual, I remember a SOD interview he did around 2000 or so, and it had him in the same leather chair that is shown in the video, I think with a cigar as well. My goodness, after leaving Another World, the success of his tenure (thanks to LeMay) sure got to his head.

Edited May 13, 2011 by MichaelGL

[Paul Raven]

Maureen Garrett speaks upon her return for the final GL episodes

SPEAKING HER MIND

Exclusive interview: Mimi Torchin catches up with GL’s Maureen Garrett (Holly)

The fabulous Maureen Garrett, Holly to legions of Guiding Light fans, recently taped her farewell performances as her part in GL’s endgame. I spoke to my friend after she taped a few final scenes with Elizabeth Kiefer (Blake) and Crystal Chappell (Olivia), but hadn’t yet taped the scenes that will wrap up her 30 something-year storyline forever. This is happening Monday (tomorrow as I write, today as you read). It’s an ending she hopes the fans will find satisfying. I think you will. Garrett has been largely absent from Springfield for the last six years (she did make an appearance at Ross’s funeral in 2005), but spent the better part of her professional life (1976-1981; 1989-2003) playing the iconic Holly Norris, a woman who suffered through a battery of soap opera-heroine traumas, tragedies and life experiences including marital rape, alcoholism, the birth of a child with Down syndrome and mental illness — but ultimately triumphed and came out whole and sound in the end.

Holly, perhaps more than any other female character on the show, experienced many things that the women in her audience had also lived through, if you don’t count (among other “adventures”) fleeing for her life from her lover through the jungles of South America; and kidnapping, Pied Piper-like, all the children in town during a psychotic break of epic proportions! Her long-running, on-again/off-again romance with Roger Thorpe, played by the late and extraordinary Michael Zaslow, was one of soapdom’s most dramatic and popular. Roger was not by any stretch of the imagination “a good man,” but he was a fascinating, complex one and his love affair with the steel butterfly, Holly, struck an enduringly responsive chord with the viewers.

Maureen (I’m dropping this journalistic convention of last names and since she has been one of my nearest and dearest for two decades!) had quite a bit to say after shooting in GL’s new cost-cutting atmosphere. And she didn’t mince words.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “It was astounding, the working situation at Guiding Light. The actors are reduced to something like automatons. There’s no connection between the citizens of Springfield [when they’re not in scenes together].” She goes on to clarify her observations, words flying like birds let out of a cage. “You do not see the other actors. There are no rehearsals, no monitors on which to watch the action. Actors are led from hair and makeup to a kind of holding pen. Then they’re guided through the maze of pieces of sets to their spot. That ‘leading me from one place to the other’ was the only direction I received! Then, when you get to your mark, there’s no room to move, so there’s no blocking. The cameramen with their handhelds squeeze past you. You stand there and say your words, which immediately go onto tape. And that's it. You are led out of the maze. Complete isolation. Scenes are only one page long to make up for lack of movement within the scene.” She stops to draw breath, and then says sadly, “If this is the wave of the future, I am so glad I spent my time in the ‘classical era.’ It’s amazing what the actors manage to produce under these conditions. My hat is off to any actors who can build story, a genuine connection in this new media. It bears no resemblance to what was before. And that’s the way it goes.”

I ask her how she felt when she heard that Guiding Light had been cancelled? “Well, of course I felt terrible,” she says. “I’m sad that it’s over. But we knew it was coming; the threat has been hanging over everyone’s heads for so many years that I guess it was time.” But even though she feels the loss of the soap that for so long was her home, the death of the process grieves her more. She simply can’t stop talking about it.

“If this is the future (for soaps), as an actor, it really concerns me. There’s no director, no time, no spontaneity. If this is what has to be done to save the form, I think there’s room for debate about trying to preserve the process, too. You can’t really create connections or foster ‘chemistry’ without the work. I know some actors manage to somehow still do that, but not everyone has that skill, or even that natural, undeniable chemistry.” She reminds me about the theatre company she created within GL for actors who wanted to do stage work, even including some actors from other shows. “I went the complete other way when I was here the last time. I created an affiliate theater company because I just feel the process, for lack of any other word, is invaluable. As actors, we need that.” She sighs, “We’re losing the genre, the narratives. I guess we have them at night now in shows like Nurse Jackie.”

Of course when she thinks of her own character’s “narratives,” she thinks one in particular was the apex. None of us would be surprised to hear what it is. “The whole Roger/Holly saga was so richly layered with love and hate. It was just so much fun to play, so full of challenges and emotion. Michael [Zaslow, Roger] was the ultimate acting partner. He always pushed me to be better, to give more. The connection between the characters was palpable, electric.”

If Roger and Holly were the zenith, what was the nadir, her lowest point on the show? She doesn’t hesitate, “Oh, what absolutely did me in was when Holly fell in love with her abuser, Sebastian (Doug Hutchison). I was asked to do a lot of things over the years I was on the show that I didn’t particularly love, but it was my job to play them. But this was too much. I just couldn’t bend any more; I couldn’t fulfill the terms of that story.” She goes on to explain what she found so ultimately offensive. “It was insulting, insulting that this character (Holly) had come no further, that she was made to regress to that point of degradation. That was the end for me.” And for many of us, as well. I hated that story with a vengeance. It disgusted me.

As her final thought about the dimming of the light, fans of the Olivia and Natalia romance will be happy to hear what Maureen says about the story, completely unsolicited, by the way. “I have to say that it’s owing to the long-overdue lesbian storyline and the incredible work of Crystal (Olivia) and Jessica (Leccia, Natalia) and [due to the fact that the] story has been able to catch fire. There’s so much buzz about it. It’s the only story I ever hear anyone talking about.”