Guiding Light discussion thread

[Contessa Donatella]

I agree, of course, but to be fair, Beverlee McKinsey had not enjoyed the experience of being nominated & losing, for Iris on ANOTHER WORLD, so she chose not to be submitted, at GL. 

[TEdgeofNight]

Beverlee did submit herself for an Emmy during the end of her GL run. She failed to be nominated. 
Beverlee left Texas because she was overworked. Beverlee left GL because she was overworked. There’s a pattern. Beverlee did GH for a few days just for the health insurance. Can anyone explain to me how doing GH for a few days sustained her health insurance for the rest of her life? 

[P.J.]

Oh, the side effects of having to write more and more outrageous stories for Reva. While LaZimmer might not have ever been the worst thing about those stories, the baggage that came with them choked the show. Not only Cole, but I wasn't a fan of DAM or CC either. When I think of the time and energy to bring on the San Cristobel crew on, and drag half of Springfield down there at one time or another...I just want to spit. 

Maeve and Jerry are all kinds of sparkly! 

It's weird to think that Ross doesn't have another child on-screen (other than Dinah) for like a decade. That's got to be some kind of record. I think the twins were born in '96? It's while Annie's around.

[kalbir]

So for 1992 Lead Actress?

Beverlee was Iris for 9 years and Alexandra for 8 years, so pretty much equal runs for both characters.

General Hospital was her last acting credit and she lived another 14 years after that.

Edited August 29, 2024 by kalbir

[DRW50]

Fall 1996, I think.

[chrisml]

Ellen Wheeler produced the show into the grave, but GL had died by a thousand cuts by that point. JFP did immense damage to the show. She robbed the show of its heart; there were firings/exits that did immeasurable damage, and she dumbed down most of the characters. I don't remember the Laibson era (not sure I even watched). Rauch did some things right (the Annie Dutton stuff), but he created too many storylines that did not fit into vibe of GL. They fit into the OLTL era he produced. Conboy was a mess, but on an episode to episode basis, I found the show watchable. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

I think she was probably trying to extend her actors' health insurance until she was old enough to go on Medicare.  Just like everyone else in the US, when she became 65 years of age, she would have been eligible for Medicare and would no longer have needed private health insurance.  All of this is just speculation on my part, but I've heard of other actors doing the same thing.   I believe to remain on actors' health insurance, and individual is required to work as an actor at least one time during a particular length of time -- perhaps at least one job every 5-years.  Or maybe 4-years.  It might even be 10-years. But if they do not have a paid acting job within that interval, they lose that health insurance.    

Edited August 29, 2024 by Mona Kane Croft

[Mitch64]

San Crud was supposed to be a summer storyline and as dumb as it was I could have accepted that..(but I remember back in the day,  summer meant young storylines, not ones built around a 40 something gal, who, lets face it, who looked just that..what new demo were they going for) .but Rauch wanted to extend it and put all three extra actors on contract...(taking RR off for a while.) Stupid move. Lets have two locations when we barely can afford one.

Ross and Van were great together and I am sorry Bloss and Billy/Van fans, they should have been end game. I guess Long and Ryder were trying to create a Billy/Van/Ross/Calla thing here, but really, Calla was such a bore (the only thing I remember about her is her ex..Gordon, cause he gave her "V.D." as we called it in the day. )  And Van..who a year or two earlier was still hell on wheels, as a small town lawyer secretary?

[Khan]

For me, the problem with Wheeler is that, even if she had a vision for GL that was true to the show's spirit, she simply lacked the experience or skill to pull it off even a lil' bit.  It's really as if she was learning how to produce on our time.

As for the rest...

Kobe brought GL into the DALLAS/DYNASTY era, but at terrible expense to the Bauers and other core families.  Nevertheless, the acting, the direction, the day-to-day writing and production values remained as top-notch as ever.

Willmore, IMO, was like GH's current EP, Frank Valentini. There was no vision or heart to anything Willmore did on GL; he just kept the trains running on time.  Plus, he was the only EP who couldn't make Pam Long's writing "pop" in any way - and that's including stuff she has written for other shows.  Robert Calhoun certainly could; Kobe could, too (that is, when she wasn't interfering or being flat-out petty); even Paul Rauch and JFP could produce great stuff with her work at SaBa and OLTL, respectively.  Long's writing under Willmore, however, just lays there.

JFP might have coasted on her predecessor, Robert Calhoun's, vision for much of her run, but she was arguably GL's last, successful EP.  Other EP's that came after her could have been as successful as she'd been, but the proverbial stars weren't aligned for them the way they had been for her for the majority of her time there.

Laibson could have been a real shot in the arm for GL after the abysmal way JFP's regime had ended - his time at other shows (specifically, at ATWT and AW) is marked by strong performances and solid, if occasionally uninspired, storytelling - but he had the misfortune of working with Megan McTavish, a writer who had no affinity for GL (and certainly not as HW) and who clearly took the gig as a means of avenging her being dismissed from her last job at AMC.

Rauch brought GL into the JER era with its' gimmicky, OTT storylines and two-dimensional characters.  He also was (IMO) the last EP who might've understood the common thread of the "brotherhood of man" running through all the eras and regimes that preceded his, even if that thread was often at odds with the stories that the show was telling atm.  (IOW, Rauch's GL was the last time that GL felt like GL to me, even if it still was a shell of its' former self).

Conboy was like Kobe, in that both aimed to make GL more upscale.  The difference, however, was that Kobe had a stable of associate writers (Nancy Curlee, Stephen Demorest, Trent Jones, etc) and a solid cast to smooth over the rougher edges.  Plus, even if many longtime favorites were no longer on the show, Kobe's GL still felt like GL to me, with the core themes laid by Irna Phillips and others still intact.  Conboy's GL was the first time in all my years of watching the show that I felt like I was watching something other than GL.  Hardly anything about it was recognizable, or even made sense.  Simply put, Conboy was the wrong man at the wrong show at the wrong time.  But, hey, at least that baseball field set turned out great!

Edited August 29, 2024 by Khan

[P.J.]

Shows always made a mistake taking extended usttories out of town. You end up isolating the characters and throwing a bunch of newbies at the audience that no one cares about. 

As a Billy/Vanessa fan--I wouldn't have minded a triangle with Ross (Calla could've just dropped off the face of the earth. Pfft--she wasn't fit to wipe Vanessa's high heels). Vanessa should've had men chasing her (and I don't count Fletch). Instead we got decades of men beating their brains against brick walls to declare Reva the be-all end-all. 

I don't think there was ever any serious investment in trying to reunite Vanessa and Ross at the time. I think it was all about servicing the Dinah story. If I understood Maeve correctly during her recent Locher room interview, there was a point where it became too hard for her to work with Jordan, and she asked not to. 

I just watched the July 87 Bauer BBQ, and Vanessa and Ross are cute as bugs. I don't know why the show gave up. Soon after that, Vanessa gets thrown into the Alan/Reva attraction, which made zero sense. And when Vanessa returns in '89, they act like Vanessa/Alan never happened. 

 

 

[Mitch64]

They were trying the..'Spaulding man going for a society marriage but attracted to a hottie from the wrong side of the tracks." to mirror Brandon and Victoria's mom. The problem was (other then we find out Brandon f*cked anything that moved..I always wanted to a retro write where he and Aunt Meta..got it ON..) that we had Reva in that story with Kyle, and while it sucked (sorry, not a Kyle/Malloy fan..the histrionics, the flaring nostrils, boring Maeve who we could care less about..) we saw it before. And while Van was no Maeve..she shouldn't have been thrown into a role as Reva's Melanie Wilkes...Van would smash her or walk away...(unless, Alan  somehow had something to hold over her, so he marries her for a society thing, she goes and bangs Ross behind Company, he suddenly finds that Van is actually a vixen with class, and Reva is exhausting, and he runs after Van, while Reva runs after Alan cause she needs a sugar daddy...) 

But yea, RR's Alan and Van never act like they had any kind of relationship outside of knowing each other forever. Which is good ( I hate RR's Alan, tho he did have surprising chemistry with Holly, which of course the show forgot to have him..marry Beth..cause we just can't get enough white trash storylines...) 

[P.J.]

Vanessa and Reva should've been GL's version of Kim/Susan---two women who could always press the other's buttons and cut the other down to size when warranted. I don't mind that Vanessa grew up, but she should've been allowed to be more bitchy than she was. 

If Chris B had still been there, that would've been one thing, but the others? Nope. 

I don't get Larkin Malloy either. He just doesn't fit on GL somehow.

[kalbir]

@P.J. I think this was brought up before, but it seems as though Pamela Long diminished Vanessa in favor of Reva and Alexandra.

[Mona Kane Croft]

I'll respectfully disagree with that statement.  I think All My Children did a wonderful job of using a semi-permanent secondary location in the early 1980s, when Erica was living in New York City.  Erica was living there and she associated with people there, a few of whom became important to the story. Plus others from Pine Valley also ended up in Manhattan for extended stays (although none nearly as long as Erica).  If I recall, Jessie and Jenny were there for a couple of months, and others visited from time to time. They built wonderful sets for Erica, and I thought the entire experiment was very refreshing and 100 percent successful.  I don't remember how long Erica lived in NYC, but I'd guess many two-years???   I really think it worked.   

I will agree that GL's attempt at a second location was far less successful, but that may have had more to do with the plot -- a fantasy prince/princesses romance that was fairly unbelievable in the first place.  I don't think any fans of GL were wishing for that type of fantasy garbage. And I feel the audience rejected the plot as much as they rejected the second location.  

GL and AMC are the only two soaps I can remember that used a semi-permanent second location.  Were there other soaps that also did this?  Does anyone remember if any radio soaps tried this?  

[Paul Raven]

Not to the same extent but Days sent Bill Horton out of town for months when he encountered Tom Jr and also when Mickey left Salem and lived on the farm with Maggie and later the copycat story on Y&R when Victor lived with Hope.

But they really only concerned one story and location.