Guiding Light discussion thread

[DRW50]

[teplin]

Ron Raines was just nominated for a Tony Award -- Best Actor in a Musical for his role in Follies. I never liked his take on Alan Spaulding, but I know he's got musical chops. Congratulations to him -- and to OLTL's Judith Light, who was nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

[Matt]

This biography of Claire Lawrence surprises me because it states that she and husband Jonathan McNeal moved to Selby Flats in CA from Five Points in 1946 -- BEFORE the show left the air in November 1946 (thanks to General Mills dropping the show because of that pesky lawsuit between Irna & Emmons Carlson over creator credit). Considering the biography states that Claire & Jonathan married in October 1946, the move had to have occured right before the cancellation. I had always presumed that the shift in locale coincided with the show's return (under P&G sponsorship/ownership) in June 1947 on CBS (it had previously aired on NBC). Dr. Matthews was still a part of the show's cast, but nothing is mentioned of Claire & Jonathan after the November 1946 cancellation. Interestingly, the 1990s GL Family Album cast list only lists Charles Matthews as being part of the show from 1947-1949. I do know that part of the original 1946 plan for GL was to move produciton of the series from Chicago to California along with the productions of the other block of NBC serials it was a part of, but it was cancelled before it happened. I've heard that when it returned in 1947, it was broadcast out of California for a brief time but then moved to NYC, but I've also heard that the P&G version of GL always broadcast from NYC.

[Mitch]

Good for Raines, hated his take on Alan, but who knows...it could have worked but by the time he came the show had started whittling the characters down to basic elements and they became cartoons (i.e. Roger =evil, Alex=rich shrew, etc.)

[jam6242]

I saw Raines in Follies when it was in Washington, D.C. He did a good job. He has a good voice and even did a bit of dancing. I always thought he was too bombastic as Alan though.

[Soapsuds]

Came across this....who are the HWs?? I thought Pamela K. Long was writing by 83. And I dont recall there being another Rick besides Michael O.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW6K_1Ez4x0&feature=g-vrec

[~bl~]

While you could embed the video it won't play on SON...weird.

Yes there was another Rick before MOL, he didn't work out, and they hired MOL who was the guy who did all the auditions for the Beth/Mindy actresses.

Gene Palumbo is someone I am familiar with due seeing his name in the GH credits over 20 years ago. Don't know anything about L. Virginia Browne.

[Soapsuds]

Also came upon a 1995 clip with Douglas Anderson as HW of GL....lol. I had forgotten about him. I dont believe he lasted long.

[DRW50]

Schemering credited L Virginia Browne with getting the show's ratings up after Pat Falken Smith's bad tenure, and seemed to credit her with aging Phillip.

She was an assistant writer to Marland. I have an interview with them somewhere.

I think I posted a photo of the other Rick in the recast thread long ago.

[Paul Raven]

Phil MacGregor was the first Rick.He later played Linc on Loving.French Fan's thread 30 years ago details what stories were happening under Smith,Brown and then Pam Long.

[DRW50]

There are about 7 clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8JIYDfEWAU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDx958ghUeY&feature=channel&list=UL

[DRW50]

August 1982 Daytimers

[DRW50]

August 1953 Radio TV Mirror.

[DRW50]

both...the one named Ellen Demming Thompson - Mrs. Hal Thompson - who lives and laughs with her in their own charming home...and the one called Meta Bauer Roberts - Mrs. Joe Roberts - who lives in that big cabinet in the corner of the Thompson living room.

Ellen Demming herself feels as if she had lived on a television screen for a good portion of her life, because she was in TV in the early experimental days (on Station WRGB) in Schenectady, New York, the town in which she was born and brought up.

Meta Roberts, in The Guiding Light, is the first continuing dramatic role she has ever played. Ellen admires the woman she portrays, grows more interested in her every day. She thinks the cast and all who work with her are tops.

"Although most of them were already on the program when I joined it, they never treated me as a newcomer," she says. "They made me one of them, right from the beginning. Ted Corday, the director, was wonderful - kind and patient. What extraordinary patience that man has with everyone! The producer, David Lesan, couldn't be finer to work with. And the cast - well, they're all just swell. That goes for the crew, too. You never saw a nicer set of people."

Ellen is a fairly tall girl - five feet seven - with a good figure and a tiny waist. Her brown hair is touched with gold lights, her hazel eyes are set wide apart and have a soft and velvety quality, like her voice. That distinctive, low-pitched voice, now so familiar to listeners, is her natural one, except that the microphone seems to emphasize its throatiness and the soft drawl. Many persons ask her what part of the South she hails from, and they can hardly believe she's an up-state New Yorker and that it's her husband, Hal, who hails from Georgia.

Hal was an actor when he and Ellen met, as co-stars in the Green Hills summer theatre at Reading, Pennyslvania. It was Ellen's fourth season of summer stock, most of it on the New England coast, and Hal's first. "Claudia" was the play that brought them together, and they've been very fond of the girl in the title ever since. The year was 1946. Hal had come out of the Army, which he entered from college and in which he served five years. Theatre interested him, and he did some night-club emceeing, then took the acting job as a means of learning what went on behind the scenes of show business.

Ellen, of course, had been a professional actress since those early television days. She had gone to Stephens College, in Missouri, to continue her study under the famous actress, Maude Adams, who was then the head of the drama department there. She had served a summer apprenticeship at the Mohawk Drama Festival during Charles Coburn's last season there. And she had a season with the Clare Tree Major Children's Theatre, a touring group of talented young actors which was led by Mrs. Major. "I was twenty the summer I was with Mrs. Major and it was a thrilling year. She made me company manager - which amazed me - and which meant I did a little of everything, from managing the company and acting to hoisting scenery and driving the truck."

Both Miss Adams and Mrs. Major had wanted her to change her name from Ellen Weber (she had already dropped her first name, Betty, and was using only her middle name, Ellen). Demming was her great-grandmother's name and both women thought it would look better on a theatre program.

Ellen's name on special interest because of something that happened right after Hal met her and began to think seriously of marriage - which seems to have been not later than five minutes after they were introduced! Almost immediately, he began to speak of her a great deal to his family, and his mother asked if Ellen Demming was a stage name or her real one. "I had to admit that I didn't know," Hal says, and he laughs as he remembers his own confusion. "I could only say, 'Well, that's her name, the only one I know.' It had happened so fast to both of us. Ellen assumed I knew all about her, I guess, and I knew that what I already knew was enough to make me know that she was the only girl for me."

It had happened fast. In six weeks, Ellen and Hal were formally engaged. Then they begged off for the rest of the stock-company season so they could meet each other's families and plan a wedding in New York, where they were married on September 14, 1946.

It was a lovely wedding, and everything went beautifully, except that they had no apartment. It was the time of the most acute housing shortage, and they had to settle for a heatless, cold-water flat in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City. They shared a bathroom with other tenants. Hal's first birthday present to his bride was a portable canvas bathtub.

Fortunately, by the time Erica was born, the Thompsons had settled down in the charming apartment in which they presently live, in one of New York's big garden developments, where there is a playground, and a sandbox for Erica to dig in, a pool for splashing about on hot days, and lots of grass and trees.

Perhaps because they waited so long for it, their present home has a rather special feeling of comfortable living, of quiet and of peace. The living-room walls are a soft shade of deep green, restful and cool. Ellen designed the stunning high cabinet and shelves which dominate one wall, and Hal made it to her specifications, with the help of their friend Peter Birch, painting the wood to match the wall. A deep sofa, in gold-colored fabric, faces the television set, on which stands a glazed jardiniere with big white leaves forming a huge bouquet against the background of green wall. There are comfortable chairs and convenient tables. The rugs are beige cotton pile. Lamps and ornaments make color notes here and there. The adjoining dining portion forms an L to the living room and is furnished with dark green wrought-iron table and chairs.

Their home is a restful background for two busy grownups and one extremely busy little girl who has to keep up with all her picture books, besides taking care of her extensive family of dolls, and still find time for all her little playmates. Part of Erica's summer is being spent on a side live - and there will be a visit to Ellen's family in Schenectady.

"If I didn't have such a fine maid, who loves Erica, I couldn't possibly leave her as I do for rehearsals and broadcasts," Ellen explains, looking serious. "But I do think that it's a good idea for every wife and mother to have some outside interests. I just happened to be an actress who wanted to continue my work, but if I wasn't doing that I would try to find something else which would be stimulating and bring me home to my family with more to give than when I left. It wouldn't have to be paid work. It could be community work, following a hobby, or promoting a cause that does good."

Actually, Erica gets little chance to miss her mother, because there are so many hours when they can be together, Ellen's are mid-day programs and she is home quite early. She and Hal have most of their evenings free, except when she does something special, like a dramatic television show at night.

She was doing an ingenue role on the Robert Montgomery program when she got her chance to play Meta Roberts - and almost missed it. Jan Miner had recommended Ellen to both the producer and the director of The Guiding Light, but it was generally felt that Ellen felt that Ellen looked too young for the part. "I don't know whether any of the powers-that-be on Guiding Light saw me that Monday night doing an ingenue role on the Montgomery television show, but I hoped they wouldn't. I was supposed to look young and I had worn my hair down, very girlishly. It was the day after that telecast that I was supposed to read for the role of Meta.

"What a transformation I tried to make! I slicked my hair up, under my most sophisticated hat, and chose a tailored suit, and did a complete turnabout from the ingenues I'd been playing. I got the part.

"Each day I feel closer to Meta. I think that now I look more mature when I'm playing her, because I think of her as an emotionally mature woman, secure in her overcoming of many difficulties. I admire her, knowing that another woman less strong than she might have grown more frivolous and unstable during the period when she was going through such grave ordeals. I have been proud of the poise she has gained, and of her her ability now to help others who are confused and unhappy. Like her step-daughter, Kathy, for instance, for whom she has such tenderness and compassion."

How interesting and real Meta is to other women, as well as to Ellen, is frequently demonstrated by incidents like a recent one. Ellen was shopping at her neighborhood grocery and a woman recognized her. "You're Meta," she said. "On Guiding Light." Her face brightened. "It's wonderful to bump into you today of all days, because I had to miss the program and I have wondered what happened."

Ellen filled in the day's events, and that led to a discussion of Kathy and her problems. "You know," the woman told Ellen, "I have a mixed-up daughter myself, so much like Kathy, and it helps me greatly to see how you help Kathy. It makes me understand my own child better, and I am really grateful to you."

Hal Thompson is apt to smile a little indulgently at the diversity of names by which his wife has been known. He puts it this way: "When the telephone rings, and I answer it, and it's for my wife, I can always tell from exactly which part of her life the caller comes. IF a voice asks for Betty, then I know it's someone from home, or at least from her early days in Schenectady. If someone asks for Ellen, then the call is from the theatre or New York portion of her life. An d if they say, 'Mr. Demming (instead of Mr. Thompson!), may I speak to your wife?' well, then I know it's probably someone from radio or TV."

As the husband of Betty Weber - Ellen Demming - Meta Roberts, he's more than satisfied. Erica may have two wonderful mothers. Hal Thompson has three wonderful wives, and he loves them all.

[Khan]

Thanks for the article with Marland and L. Virginia Browne! Such an awesome read!