Guiding Light discussion thread

[MichaelGL]

I wish the episode of Daisy being born on screen was available online somewhere, I've always heard about it in recaps and wonder how it would've been executed on screen with AM and Dinah crashing into a pregnant Harley. 

Were Dinah and Harley close friends? Interesting how AM was with Dinah, and then ended up with Harley....I wonder if there was any drama from that. 

[Contessa Donatella]

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Not what you want, but close.

Edited September 25, 2024 by Contessa Donatella
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[Mitch64]

Dinah tried to make friends with Harley, but hard edged Harley wouldnt have any of it...eventually Harley kind of used her to get closer to AM, (but then Dinah left) I do remember when Ehlers came back for the anniversary they had Harley say, "Wow, Dinah Marler sure changed," but we didn't get to see the interaction (and I don't think they ever interacted after that, except for Harley being part of Cassie's mean girl squad against Dinah.)

Ehlers was great when she first came on the show, natural and totally the tough girl who was hurt inside..(her first few days she would walk around with sunglasses on no matter what) Its too bad what her acting eventually became and they turned Harley from bad girl, to spitfire, to everday woman..which was great..but when she became the skinny blonde who every man must love it was too much.

[MichaelGL]

This story seems similar to Cricket/Nina/Philip on Y&R which was happening at or around this time. Nina giving up a child, and later setting her eyes on the wealthy Philip Chancellor, and Cricket trying to help Nina. I wonder which story came first, I'm assuming Bell was first. 

I agree! I could at least tolerate Harley up until 2003/2004 (in1997 she seemed like almost every blonde on the show we supposed to root for until B&E left). I don't think Conboy gave Harley much to do, other than react to Gus's drama. The Harley Hour didn't amp up until Wheeler and Co. and it was downhill from there. 

[anthonymolchan]

Not sure if anyone commented on it, but KJB’s Marah did meet Jonathan when she returned for a day. 
 

In retrospect, I wouldn’t have asked her to return. She looked way too young to be the Marah that effed Jeffrey. Major ick factor. 
 

 

[Mitch64]

God...sorry Countess..but really, another big mistake of Wheeler's was to turn the show into the Harley Hour and by extension, the Super Dooper Coopers,,(not enough they have to stink up Company and the Boarding House, but they had to move into the Bauer house for a bit? Get your own damn house and set Coopers...)

 

I forgot about that.. having Jeffery bang Marah (and then marry Reva...god she became such a hillbilly) or anyone was just gross. Remember him banging perpetally horny Beth..over the Spaulding desk and then showing Alan eating the breakfast they screwed over. What was up with that? Now that I think of it, all of the production people and whoever wrote that crap deserve to be unemployed for the rest of their lives!!!!

[Contessa Donatella]

Do you really think it was Wheeler who made the Cooper family front & center? It seems to me that had already started before Wheeler. 

That was so disturbing. There were reasons not to like Jeffrey.

[P.J.]

So many things about late era Beth were disturbing.....

[chrisml]

I liked McKeon as Marah. I think she would have been excellent if they had given her better material. When they did give her stuff to do, she did a first rate job. 

Never got Bradley Cole's appeal, or why the show kept having to force him into storylines where didn't need to be. He was almost as annoying as the gum-smacking waitress from Labine's time on the show.

[Contessa Donatella]

I don't know if you know it or not but at GL they shot down every thing she pitched. After, she remarked that Mae the Cigarette girl was the only thing she got to write that she enjoyed at all. Give how awful Mae was, I think that really says something.

[Mitch64]

I think McKeon got that "early aughts" vibe down...disinterested in everything and so annoyed with her family..(when they let her be.)

Cole must have learned from Kimmer to have a steady club of fraus ready to write in. Supposedly Conboy and Weston were at one of those bad GL fan things and Cole had a "concert" where the fraus were rocking out to Bradley's tunes...and they decided they had to write him back in...(I don;t know how true that is but it sound s like much of the decision making during that time.)

Never got Labine..didn't she have a character who talked to a bird on another show? I heard Mae was supposed to be Stacey Chamberline, which would have been cool if she was played by a better actress...(remember, the gum chewing was just a cover for being a fed undercover.)

[Contessa Donatella]

1. Totally loved Labine. She is one of my 15. 2. You're suggesting that it was Claire who wrote that parrot for Todd? I know nothing, at all about that.

[chrisml]

Yeesh. That's a sad commentary on her work at GL. Mae was a disaster. The only other thing I remember from her time on the show is the way Patti D'Arbanville was inexplicably written out. I remember D'Arbanville blaming Labine for it and accusing Labine of being dishonest with her. 

[DRW50]

That was Labine who wrote the parrot, yes.

That was a mess. IIRC both Patti and Anthony Addabbo (RIP) blamed Labine in the press, which threw me as I'd rarely seen two actors go that far at the same time. I wondered and still wonder if Rauch set that up to try to get Labine out (which eventually worked).

I do think some of the stories of her era actually were hers - Blake became Lucy Coe, and the mob violence was so specific to her (there had been mob violence before and after her but some elements, like the shootout in the Bauer kitchen, felt much more like some of her choices like the shootout in Luke and Laura's home on GH).

Edited September 26, 2024 by DRW50

[Contessa Donatella]

I know that she specifically pitched a love story between Holly & Olivia & personally I think it could've been amazing. And, unlike Otalia they'd have had plenty of time to tell it. I think Rauch's treatment of her & of Eleanor & Matt was appalling! The man fired her & her family members & then, for whatever reason he couldn't get anyone to come & HW the show SO HE CALLED HER & ASKED them to come back - and, amazingly, she said they would & they did. What they received from P&G & Rauch was really some of the sorriest treatment I am aware of in soaps!!!

@DRW50Thanks for the info about the parrot. Didn't know. I do know she wrote some of the story at GH for Lila's dog, so she does have experience writing animal characters. I've temporarily blanked on the dog's name, but you know who I mean!

I don't remember that. But, being dishonest with an actor certainly does not sound like Labine.