I think in some ways Long's writing choices set the path for what it was after she left - the heavy focus on the Lewises, big mystery stories, etc. I guess they just weren't able to pull this together the way she could. I also think some of the story choices were odd, like the whole thing where Simon is a con artist who has a torrid affair with India but gives it all up for mousy Jessie. Really? And some of the writing for India also seemed a little odd to me, sort of taming her when she didn't need to be tamed. But the show had strong enough characters to where it's still very watchable.

So Long was gone by the time of stuff like Floyd going psycho, and the Infinity story? Or was that still her?

Did she have any involvement in the creation of Rusty, Sarah, or Hawk? Or did she have nothing to do with them? I thought the show made those relationships very believable. I've always had a soft spot for the Reva/Hawk relationship. I'm glad that he was there even close to the end. I just wish they hadn't killed Sarah off.

I have very mixed feelings on the Roxie character, as I don't think Kristi Ferrell is a very good actress, but she has a lot of heart and this adds to emotional scenes. There's a scene with Mindy/Roxie in this clip that is beautifully done.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=DCHs8OaexCw

I HATED the Roxie character, as there were just too many damn Lewis/Shaynes in too short of a time. I really hated her as they used her to break up one of my fave couples Rick and Minday (no one watching later on would believe me that MOL was cute as hell in his younger years and he and Terseu were just a cute couple together.) Not that I didnt think that R & M could break up, it just was a quick switch from Rick accepting and actually liking Mindy with all of her quirks, to him being totally in love with Roxie and hating Mindy for being vain, etc. Plus that dumb ass story they gave her of having a split personality...sorry, the actress was cute and had a nice warm personality but she could NOT act more then being cute, young and nice. Giving her heavy emotional scenes was ridiculous.

I thought Long was still there for Andy Ferris and Infinity right? It doesnt seem like her though???

I think Michael was very cute back then and remained handsome when he returned...he aged, of course, but whatever he may have done to his face 3-4 years ago was the big mistake.

I wonder if they broke Rick/Mindy up to try to move Mindy into bigger stories? It seems like they had no idea what to do with Rick for years. His fling with Claire was a rewrite, wasn't it, or did that really happen?

I also think the show aged that group a little too much. For instance, by 1987 wasn't Rick already getting involved with Meredith, who looked much older? That whole story about passing Phillip's child off as Rick's also seemed too old for them. I think SOD named Rick/Meredith worst couple of the year.

I wish the show had done more with Mindy in the last year. The Rick/Mindy reunion was so rushed.

I thought Infinity was Ryder, but I don't know.

I HATED the Roxie character, as there were just too many damn Lewis/Shaynes in too short of a time. I really hated her as they used her to break up one of my fave couples Rick and Minday (no one watching later on would believe me that MOL was cute as hell in his younger years and he and Terseu were just a cute couple together.)

That reminds me, I have the episode where Reva baptizes herself as the slut on Springfield saved on my computer. While KZ's scenes are one of the many highlights of the episode, another highlight is when Rick dumps Mindy into the fountain and forces her to take a good look at herself for the vain person she is. I really liked those scenes and made me wish they could have seriously pursued Rick and Mindy as a couple, instead of sending Mindy into Kurt's atmosphere and Rick into Roxy's. If the show really wanted a pairing for Roxy, I think they should have pursued Roxy and Kyle.

I also think the show aged that group a little too much. For instance, by 1987 wasn't Rick already getting involved with Meredith, who looked much older? That whole story about passing Phillip's child off as Rick's also seemed too old for them. I think SOD named Rick/Meredith worst couple of the year.

Honestly I think that whole story was rushed and ill paced, from the episodes I've watched of Rick/Meredith (their proposal on the fourth of July...it seemed like Rick and Meredith had only known each other for a short amount of time, and all of a sudden Rick was proposing to her). While I loved the mechanics of the story, Meredith practically becoming a late 80s equivalent of Rita Bauer(Rick=Ed, Phillip=Alan), there were just some parts of the story that didn't work or seemed to not ring true to me, like Rick/Meredith's rushed pairing.

MOL had work done? Big mistake as it was BAD. I remember up until really the time Abby left him he was still looking cute. Matter of fact, the Abby leaving episodes have him running around in some tight jeans with his shirt off and he looks great (obviously MOL had recently slimmed down, buffed up and wanted to show it off) so I always wondered what happened. As a fellow big Irish guy I know he probably has the same thing I do, when working out I build great but if you let it go it can turn to fat, and it looks like MOL really let himself go. Speaking of Abby, why did they let her go. I think those two worked as the nice couple in town, kinda normal but cute. Hated Rick with cold ass Mel.

Rick and Claire did have a one night stand, she "pop his cherry," so to speak. It was played for laughs more then anything, with Mindy finding out and then locking him in a closet at Cedars to protect him/harrass him about it when Darcy was going on her rampage. I remember when Mindy married Phillip and they went on their honeymoon to Cross Creek or the Bauer cabin, and Mindy starts crying because Phillip doesnt make burgers like Rick does!!

I hated that scene with Rick and Mindy in the fountain as it came out of nowhere and was just a plot point to move him toward Roxie. Kurt was a duller Rick, it was weird that they even did that.

They aged the FM's way too fast, but I think that came about when they recast Phillip with an older actor. One day they are all in college, the next Phillip is 35 and running Spaulding and married to India, etc. The Rick Meredith thing was weird...Meredith had all the charm of a turnip and how either one of those guys like her...

I don't know if he did or not (get work done) but his face in the last years reminded me of that look men get when they've had a facelift. It's one of several reasons I don't watch anything with Jon Voight or Michael Douglas now.

I think Amy Ecklund left the show because they weren't giving her any stories. I liked her a lot. Her story was one of the few things McTavish got right without demolishing it later on.

I get the idea behind the ultimate betrayal of Phillip, sleeping with Rick's wife, and the baby, but that type of thing never has any real consequences. It would have worked if Rick and Phillip had been at odds for a long time, but that didn't seem to happen. It's similar to when Rick got Harley pregnant when she and Phillip were pretty much done, and Phillip was angry. In the end this just became another kid viewers never saw or heard about.

The story with Beth/Jessie/Mindy and Sampson Gal, what did you think of that?

It's strange to me how Liz Taylor's son pops up at random throughout the mid/late 80's. I thought he was a music person and then there he is working at the trucking company. While he looked good in jeans, I don't quite get the point.

This episode seems like an episode of General Hospital from the 80s. Centering heavily around Cedars, which I liked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lUx2RVd2Hk&feature=related

Thanks for that. I have been lax in watching a lot of GL episodes from the 80's. I'm not sure why. I guess because I'm wary of what was done to the show. Either that or I'm holding out for more 80-82 stuff.

This episode seems like an episode of General Hospital from the 80s. Centering heavily around Cedars, which I liked.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Ah, the last summer the show was "on fire," before it went to hell for several years really until the Curlee era. Never understood why the successful formula of the Bauers, Reardons, Chamberlines, Spaudlings and Lewises all mixing it up with a dose of camp, mystery, romance and goofy family schmaltz had to be thrown out for Infinity and constant Reva and the Lewises. During this summer the show hit number one and in the fall a radically different GL took over and the ratings dropped.

Did Long or Kobe hate Brown? The Cabin Mystery had Nola written all over it and it should have gone to Quint and Nola instead of Tony and Annabelle and then Fletcher and Claire of all people involved.

Loved the flash of cute Rick Bauer in the credits and then hottie Tony Reardon (Frank Cooper who???)

I did notice the start of it falling apart. Loved Reva married to H.B. and bugging the [!@#$%^&*] out of Billy, and the rest of the society "fat cats," but notice Vanessa sitting there saying nothing. This was after they defused Vanessa and she became really boring and would cow tow to Billy instead of slapping the [!@#$%^&*] out of him like she would do later.

Edited August 16, 201114 yr by Mitch

November 1956 TV Radio Mirror

past few years. Nina has helped greatly."

Mrs. Lipton is the former Nina Foch - and still Nina Foch, the actress. When she catches Jim disappearing, she laughs him right out of it. He says, "I have an insincere smile that I use when I'm lost - you know I'm thinking about something else. Maybe Nina says something and I give her this smile. Well, she knows what it means and she mimics me. And she won't quit. I gave up smoking for gumchewing and, when I get lost, I get to chewing pretty hard - and she mimics this, too. She keeps it up for ten minutes or more. S Until she gets me laughing. And then, she mimics my laugh!"

The Liptons have been married since June 12, 1954, and they have a good marriage. Both are artists and individualists, but they make a successful go of their marriage. "Nina has her day, too," Jim notes. "She doesn't get lost as I do, but she can blow up like a summer storm. She can have an emotional explosion which stuns me - and then, a minute later, be as happy as a lark. Of course, I'm in favor of the explosion. Nina was too shy when we first married. She gave in too easily. I was always saying, 'Now are you sure you want to go there?'"

Jim puts as much thought into his marriage as he does into his career. And most of the time his motor is running. He usually has a half-dozen projects going. During the past year, he continued his studies, finished an original play, adapted a Moliere play and then it. He's been Dick Grant in both the radio and TV versions of The Guiding Light. Nina also leads a hectic lief, "Sometimes we don't see each other to talk to until weekends," Jim says ruefully. "Or we may meet at a class in the evening and say 'good morning' for the first first time."

Jim's schedule is a full one. He is at the TV studio at 8:45 A.M. for The Guiding Light rehearsals. The show goes on at 12:45. He's off the air at one, of course. But, until just recently, there was then a mad dash to rehearse and broadcast the radio version of The Guiding Light. At this writing, a good part of his afternoon is still devoted to TV rehearsals for the next day's show. In the evenings, there are voice lessons with Arthur Lessac, fencing lessons, ballet, gymnastics, and modern dance. He will probably run into Nina at the ballet class, or at 11:30 P.M. in Harold Clurman's acting workshop.They are at Clurman's until two in the morning. It makes for a frenetic life, but things are accomplished - and the marriage works.

"I figure a good marriage has two possibilities," he says. "There is one in which one person, usually the man, calls all the turns and the wife keeps up the home. Or there is our kind, where we are making a continual and conscious effort to live equally and share the burdens. What I mean is: Whoever gets out of bed last in the morning makes it. At dinner time, we work together in the kitchen, eat and clean up together."

They have been living in a two-and-a-half-room apartment at Seventy-second Street and Park Avenue. Any way you look at it, Park Avenue is a far cry from Jim's beginning. "As a kid," Jim recalls, "I lived in a tough neighborhood. The school I went to was the second toughest in all of Detroit. We had thievery. Sluggings. Knifings. It was tough."

Jim was born in Detroit, September 9, 1926. His parents separated when he was three. He was raised wholly by his mother. She is a college graduate who then taught grade school and worked as a librarian. "She is a splendid woman," JIm says. "I am very indebted to her. She was the good influence in my life."

Because his mother worked, Jim was alone much of the time. She provided him with books, but it didn't keep him out of the streets. "The gangs did a lot of fighting," he remembers. "My behavior wasn't the best. However, I drew the line at dishonesty." This wasn't easy during Depression days, for Mrs. Lipton and son were poor as church mice. They lived on skimpy rations. They had no luxuries.

The summer he was thirteen, Jim Lipton got his first job. He worked in a photo-engraving plant at twelve dollars a week. He washed photographic glass in nitric acid. This turned his hands yellow - but that was nothing compared to the pain when he frequently cut his hands on chipped or broken pieces of glass and the acid got into the wound. Another chore was to sweep up. He was at this job, near the end of the summer, when his job vanished. He was sweeping up the floor - and suddenly there was no floor. The plant had blown up. Luckily for Jim, he wasn't hurt.

"That was the year we moved, too," he recalls. "To a very small apartment, but in a better neighborhood. We had been living with my grandparents, and it was the first year my mother and I had any kind of privacy. when Christmas came, I insisted that we had to have a tree. Well, there was only a quarter for the tree, so I put off shopping until late Christmas Eve, when prices came down."

He had acquired one string of six lights, one box of small colored balls and one box of icicles. What Jim got for his quarter was a tree that stood about six-feet high with five or six branches - and about as many needles to each branch. This he took home and, together with his mother, he hung the balls and draped the tinsel. They strung the lights vertically, straight up the trunk.

"Mother and I played it straight, too. We both admired the tree and said, 'How wonderful!' Christmas morning, one of my uncles came over and we showed him the ridiculous-looking tree. He said nothing. He sat down. His mouth was working and he was trying to control himself, but he couldn't. He burst out laughing. He was staring at the tree and laughing. Then I laughed and so did Mother. We laughed till we fell out of our chairs."

From the age of ten, Jim's ambition was to be a lawyer. That year, his mother had been ill. He was sent away, to spend the summer with an uncle in California. The uncle was an attorney and - compared with Jim's Detroit home - lived in great luxury. So Jim decided he, too, would study law. In grade and high schools, however, he worked in dramatic productions. Ernie Ricca, now a New Yorker and director of The Romance of Helen Trent, was head of production at Detroit's WWJ. He heard Jim, who was sixteen, on a high-school radio show and invited him to audition for professional work. Within a year, Jim was making about sixty dollars a week as the nephew of The Lone Ranger.

Continuing his radio work, Jim enrolled in an accelerated pre-legal course at Wayne University and was a sophomore when he enlisted as an air cadet. That was during World War II. Jim was still a cadet when the war ended a year later, and he was discharged before winning his wings. "I went back to Detroit for a week," he remembers. "Just one week. I couldn't stay there much longer. There were too many unpleasant memories. So I went on to New York." That was in December of 1945. He auditioned for radio work and tried to enroll at Columbia University in a pre-law course. Columbia, overcrowded with New York veterans, turned him down. But, within two weeks, he had three substantial roles in network daytime dramas. He had a part in Just Plain Bill and the romantic lead in both David Harum and The Strange Romance of Evelyn Winters.

"It was another year," Jim says, "before I completely gave up the idea of studying law. It was about 1947 that I became earnest about the theater. I began to cut down on my radio work so that I could study acting. I studied with Stella Adler, a wonderful teacher. I studied French three evenings a week for two years. The study still goes on and I've been getting the equivalent of a college education. For example, I have a list of classics to be read. I'm working down that list. I haven't read a contemporary book in a couple of years."

Jim Lipton has been succeeding as an actor. He has also made two movies. In 1950, he went to Greece to play the lead in the film, "Wheel of Fire," and followed this up with another, "The Big Break" - in which he was on the screen for all but three minutes. On Broadway, he has played in Lillian Hellman's "The Autumn Garden" and has held the lead in "Dark Legend." He has been Dr. Grant in The Guiding Light for four years. He's played in about every night-time TV dramatic show.

He met Nina on a TV set. "That was the production of "The Skin of Our Teeth.' Of course, I couldn't help noting the particulars about Nina. She's a beauty. Blue-eyed. Blond. Pale skin. A beautiful figure. But she's a fine actress, and then it was all business. We just worked together."

It was thirteen months before they met again. Nina was out of the city frequently. When Jim finally got through on the phone, she had a bad cold. A few days later, he phoned again. She still had the cold but allowed Jim to call. Another couple of dates and there was a spark. Time passed and the spark flamed and they married. The double-ring ceremony took place on a Saturday in Brooklyn.

"I was working on The Guiding Light until late Friday," Jim recalls, "and then I had five days off. We wanted to marry on Saturday but couldn't find a judge to perform the ceremony. Most of them seem to play golf on Saturday. Finally, our attorney found a judge in Brooklyn who had a late date to tee off."

Nina has said that Jim impressed her from the very beginning with his thoughtfulness. He didn't merely bring flowers. He first spun them into a gilded bird cage which held a colorful toy bird. And usually there was a reason behind the gift. Nina, although she has lived in the United States since she was eight, was born in Leyden, Holland. Her mother was an American actress and musical comedy star; her father, a distinguished Dutch musical conductor. In tribute to Nina's Dutch ancestry, Jim gave her colorful old Dutch maps.

It's impossible to move a foot, anywhere in the apartment, without finding something intriguing to catch the eye. For example, in the living room there are a fork and spoon framed behind glass and hung on the wall - the utensils came from the personal table of George Bernard Shaw. The fork and spoon are ringed by original Daumier lithographs. There are a couple of plaques. One is Nina's Academy Award nomination. The other belongs to Jim and is the TV RADIO MIRROR AWARD for Favorite Daytime Actor. (Nina wears the gold medal which came with this Award, on her bracelet.) There is a scrawny but beautiful candleabra which holds fifteen candles. There is a Venetian map which is 400 years old. The walls are covered with maps, prints, mementoes and paintings - some by Nina. Jim brought a vase from Greece that is 2500 years old and it is on the shelf of a French cabinet which dates back to 1640. In the casement of the window above the cabinet is a plant that stands better than five feet tall.

"That's a fatshedera - and Nina's pride," Jim explains. "When she goes away for a time, she makes me solemnly swear that I will water it daily. You see, Nina has never had luck with plants. This is the first that insisted on growing, and she has become close to it. Once there was soil lice in the plant, and as much as the lice upset her, she stood by the plant and refused to throw it out. We finally killed the lice without harming the plant."

Their apartment is about six floors above the street. The walls are white with a touch of pink. The carpeting is green. Generally speaking, the apartment is furnished with antiques - English, Italian, French. Although it is as handsome as it is intriguing, the Liptons are getting crowded. In the bedroom, for example, is a stack of cartons that reaches to the ceiling.

"That was my Christmas gift to Nina," Jim explains. "I gave her a complete darkroom. Rather the equipment for a darkroom. It's never been unpacked except to look at, for there's no place to set it up."

Because they are crowded, they will be moving into a larger apartment - in a building now nearing completion. It will have an extra bedroom which Jim will use for his writing. And it will have a larger kitchen, important for Nina.

"She is an excellent cook," Jim says. "You can tell that with just a glance at her spice and condiment shelf. I like to help in the kitchen and she is teaching me. She calls me her second chef. I'm allowed to slice onions, shell peas, stir things, turn the meat over and baste. I am permitted to make only mashed potatoes by myself."

On Nina's recent Hollywood trip, she spent four months working in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments." Jim was home on the range alone. As a matter of fact, the day after Nina flew out, a delivery boy came calling with a gift from her. IT was a cookbook for Jim, inscribed, "Now you're on your own." And he did prepare many of his own meals while she was away. He even invented a few recipes involving peanut butter - peanut butter spread over a steak before broiling, or peanut butter baked on corn on the cob. Nina was a little horrified at some of these experiments.

"We used to talk to each other every night," Jim says. "We always try to, wherever we are. When Nina was in California, we talked an hour to an hour-and-a-half every evening. Came to hundreds of dollars each month. But, after all, if a marriage is going to succeed, you can't let distance keep you apart."

This is one aspect of their lives which makes for problems. Jim stays close to New York, but Nina must go out of the city for weeks or months at a time - with a show, to make a picture or a personal appearance, to work in a summer theater. So it's hard to plan for the larger home they want, the children they hope to have. But anyone who knows Jim and Nina Lipton also knows that these problems will be worked out, too - in the same spirit of romance and understanding which has already marked their courtship and marriage in the hectic world of show business.

March 1977 TV Mirror

This is terrific, Carl. I love seeing the old sets, like Rita and Ed's place before he bought the house we are so familiar with -the one with the arches and columns. All of these behind the scenes looks at days gone by are fascinating. I had a red and white striped jersey just like the one MZ is wearing in the photo. Oh, and to see Fran Myers as Peggy again. This was a wonderful period for GL, when it was beginning to rebound from years of boredom.

Thanks for reading. I wish we could see more of Peggy too, and Peggy/Roger. It's kind of the forgotten relationship for his character.

I remember someone once saying that the story with Alan and Ed living side by side happened to help set up the Rita/Alan affair, but watching the clips from 1979, it seemed like it happened several years earlier. When exactly did Ed move in there?

I know the clip where Ed and Roger are fighting has a different set.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=pdnwF5O_Z4Y

Edited August 21, 201114 yr by CarlD2

Thanks for both articles Carl! I never knew James Lipton and Nina Foch were married; unfortunately it appears to have lasted only a few years. I wonder if Lipton should have stuck to acting instead of taking up writing.

I'd actually love to see Roger and Peggy's wedding. From the synopses I've read Roger spent tons of money of a period of several weeks to give Peggy a big extravagant wedding and invited the entire town but the only invited guest to show up for the ceremony was Bert

Interesting a few months after the '77 article was written the word "The" was dropped from the show's official title, but even now and through out the last decade my grandma will still refer to it as "The Guiding Light". Was there any negative reaction to the show dropping the word "The" from the official title?