Douglas Marland interview

[DRW50]

Perhaps he thought that celebrities were much more in a stratosphere of wide knowledge, whereas back then a lot of people were more likely to only stay loyal to one soap network.

Thanks for the interview. I was struck by the passages regarding the new young characters and how in ten years they would be like Mike and Ed. Little did he realize that in five years, not even ten, all of those characters would be gone, and so would Mike. It just shows how much Gail Kobe and Pam Long destroyed the map he and the Dobsons had so carefully laid out for GL's future. I think Marland was also wise to not suddenly age Phillip and Rick, to save their potential. There was a tiered system of vets, thirtysomethings, teens, twentysomethings, and then the characters waiting in the wings after that. Later on you basically had Phillip lumped into a group with India, and you had Floyd Parker running around as a stooge for characters like Beth who were barely out of high school. This worked for a certain time but when all those actors were gone you had a great big gap.

I do wish that P&G had kept the vets on (Adam, Barbara, Sara), even in a recurring capacity...I think those actors still had more to give.

[Khan]

Not necessarily. A daytime celebrity, IMO, is not the same as a "Hollywood celebrity," or anyone who's as ingrained into the public consciousness as someone like Liz Taylor is. Heck, even as far as soap celebrities go, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to accept Susan Lucci as someone other than SL or Erica Kane if she were to show up on, say, B&B.

I'm not sure, but I think Peggy O'Shea had problems w/ real-life celebrities "crashing" soap towns, too, saying that when Sammy Davis, Jr. asked to appear on OLTL, she wanted him to appear as Sammy Davis, Jr., and not as the fictional character (Chip Warren?) he actually portrayed.

[Khan]

I realize Gail Kobe had an enormous ego BTS, but I really don't lay the blame entirely at her and Pam Long's feet. (Besides, it wasn't as if Long herself didn't leave behind a rich legacy with characters such as Phillip, Rick, Beth, Mindy, Alexandra and even Reva.) As I've said before, I feel it was P&G's decision more than anyone else's to phase out characters from the Marland era (and others') in order to rebuild the show around the Lewises and Shaynes. Jeff Ryder has told me - and I tend to believe him - that Long wanted to do more for the Bauers and Reardons. By my estimation, however, P&G wanted the show to become more competitive w/ GH and the glitzier primetime soaps, and saw them as obstacles toward that goal.

FIXED!

Same here. As veterans such as Charita Bauer (Bert) and Stefan Schnabel (Steve Jackson) were leaving, either due to death or retirement, it was crucial GUIDING LIGHT maintained those ties to its' past. I realize 70+ years of history was/is a lot to honor, but it simply had to be, as much and as often as possible. Expecting Peter Simon - who, himself, had been a recast for a long-running actor (Mart Hulswit) - to maintain those ties was too much for one actor or character to do, frankly.

Thanks for Part 2, Paul!

[DRW50]

I think P&G deserves a lot of the blame, but when the Dobsons made GL contemporary, they still used the Bauers. Marland didn't have them as a dominant presence but they were still there during his tenure. P&G also let Marland shore up the Hughes family even as he continued in the efforts to make ATWT younger through Holden, Lily, Meg. I think that Long and Kobe just weren't interested in the Bauers. Long also didn't do a lot for them when she was headwriter from 87-90. I think Pam Long has a certain type of family which she writes very well - I'm sure she would have done well with the Buchanans on OLTL in their heyday, not the, frankly, gutted out version she faced when she wrote for OLTL - and the idea of the Bauers didn't appeal to her. I think it's the same reason she didn't have any real interest in writing for Trish Lewis, even though she clearly loved the Lewis family. When you have a more conservative character, then you have to write story about how this conservatism leads to self-destruction, or about how they are affected by the explosions of people they surround themselves with. Generally I don't think that Long was interested in this type of writing, perhaps with a few exceptions of characters like Vanessa.

I think she did write more for the Reardons, that was more down to actors leaving and her not having any idea where to go with Nola.

[Mitch]

I think Ryder was full of [!@#$%^&*], or Long was full of [!@#$%^&*] when she told him that. I too believe she had no interest in writing for the Bauers, after she brought on Reva. She truly wanted to center the show around her, so she promoted the family surrounding her over the Bauers..much the same way Wheeler and Kreizman wanted to center the show around Harley, so they promoted the family surrounding Harley over every other family on the show.

However, up to the fall of 85 Long did write for the Bauers, and the Reardons and she wrote them quite well..or it was her associate writer who did (I think Culliton???)

Interesting that she was interested in bringing back Meta, which should have happened with Charita's death, but choose instead to bring back, who else, but Reva's mother in the form of Sarah.

[Mitch]

I agree with part of your post in that P & G brought allowed Marland to build up the Hughes family (which was torn apart by the Dobsons) while Long didnt do the same thing with the Bauers. Which is odd, as ATWT hit number one during that time so you would think that CBS and PG would have forced her hand in strenghtening the core...though to be fair, she did do better by the Bauers during her second tenure then she did during the last half of her first.

However, I think most of the credit to the return of the Hughes family goes to the exec producer at that time, who brought back Nancy and Chris, and reunited Bob and Kim as the new generation core couple. This all happened before Marland and he just tightened things up. I think Pam Long and Gail Kobe were unfortunatly the perfect storm for the Bauers, I think a stronger producer who loved the history could have steered Long into strenghtening them back up. Also I forgot to mention in the above post, but Long seemed to really loose interest in the Bauers after Charita died. It really seemed as if the only Bauer she like was actually Bert (and she did write her as matriarch of the entire town.)

[MichaelGL]

I don't think Long outright hated the Bauers, if I remember correctly didn't she pen the Roger/Holly/Ed/Maureen drama that occurred after Roger's return. Didn't Ed sleep with Holly(or Maureen was under the impression they were having an affair) during Long's second tenure? That was some good family drama for the Bauers.

Then there was Johnny Bauer .....I'm not sure she created the character but she did write for him during her second tenure as well.

I think we all can agree that second time around, Long's tenure was more "Bauer friendly" than her first, which included Alan-Michael's return and the first Bauer BBQ. Maybe network execs were more passive towards Long around this time(or just didn't care since GL was no longer a ratings winner), thus allowing her more room to bring the show back to its roots.

[Paul Raven]

I think bringing back Alan Michael was a mistake in that he was aged too quickly.He should only have been 8 or so and suddenly was late teen.It pushed Hope into an older age group and she was never brought on,which was another big mistake.I would have preferred that Hope returned at that time and she and Alan fight over A-M's upbringing(shades of Alan and Elizabeth and Phillip)Also, Mike could have played a major part in this but both characters were ignored and the Bauer element was lost. Then in the 90's Alan Michael becomes central as a new younger character.

[DRW50]

I think the mistake with Alan Michael was never bringing back Hope. To me, Elvera Roussell kind of played Hope older than she was anyway, so I think viewers could have accepted Hope having a son who was around 18. The show never seemed very interested in writing Alan-Michael as a Bauer. Even in the show's last few years, when they brought back a youngish Alan Michael, why not have Hope come back too? Why not see her reaction to the shambles of the Bauer family by that time?

She didn't create Johnny Bauer. He came in with parents and a sister who was a gymnast. Long wrote all of them out (although I don't know if anyone was upset about that). Then she made Frank, who was supposed to be another Bauer, into a Cooper.

[Khan]

Robert Calhoun (the EP) and Douglas Marland were the dream team for daytime, as far as I'm concerned.

[Mitch]

I agree, Calhoun deserves as much, if not more, praise for putting everything right on ATWT. He went on to GL didn't he and I don't think he had the same magic working with Long (or did he go there???)

[Y&RWorldTurner]

He went to GL in '89 and stayed there until mid-'91. He and Long reportedly butted heads a lot, which was one of the reasons why she [thankfully] left at the end of '90. It was Calhoun who promoted Nancy Curlee and Stephen Demorest to HW's of GL.

He obviously knew talent and his instincts definitely paved the way for GL's last true renaissance era with the Curlee/Demorest promotion.

[Khan]

Calhoun was also the last EP at GL who, IMO, didn't try to "remake the show in his own image," so to speak. He respected GL's core themes and values and adhered to them.

As far as EP's go, I'd rank Calhoun number-one on my short list of favorites, followed by Susan Bedsow Horgan (OLTL, even if I'm not a fan of Michael Malone's), Michael Laibson (ANOTHER WORLD/GL, even if he didn't always have the best HW's to work with), Jacqueline Babbin (AMC) and Joe Stuart (OLTL).

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Frankly, I credit Calhoun for stabling Pam Long's second run at GL, along with Curlee and Trent Jones, more than I do Long.

I don't think Long's second run was all that great or really took off until Roger and Holly returned and brought back a new lease on life for the show with them. Roger/Holly returning was apparently Nancy Curlee's idea, but I think she said it was Calhoun who fought hard for it, and for a lot of her early work to make it on the air.

[DRW50]

I remember seeing transcripts years ago of some of the fairly early Roger/Holly scenes with Roger's return after he started at WSPR, and they didn't seem "fun" exactly, but they were more lighthearted than what would come.

I wonder if that was Long's influence -- not that this is wrong necessarily, I mean, Michael and Maureen were great at these types of moments. I guess in some ways it was brave of GL to, after this, bring up their rape again and keep that as an issue and never go into the temptation of "reforming" Roger.