Interviews from AFTRA magazine at the time of cancellation
Ellen Wheeler Executive Producer Time with GL: Five and a half years
On her decision to shoot on location: "I was told, 'Don't think of it as a soap opera. Re-imagine it as if it were a brand new show and if you could make it anything you wanted it to be how would you make it?' We talked about Irna, studying her and the history of soap operas. She's part of it all. To her, it wasn't a stagnant thing. It wasn't, You do it this way and you don't change it,' otherwise she wouldn't have made the change from radio to TV."
On GL's legacy: "I do think that ' Guiding Light' has reflected back to America since before World War II. We've been here for generations We were there before World War II; when man walked on the moon; during the Vietnam War; when AIDS became part of the scenario. We've been telling those stories and reflecting some of the emotion that goes along with the history. I think that's the hardest part - it's very sad to see that sort of chronicled reflection lost.
Grant Aleksander (Phillip Spaulding) Time on GL: Off and on over 27 years
On working an AFTRA-covered program: "I think of the union as the entity responsible for looking out for your best interest. The most practical application of that, in my experience, was anytime something involving physical danger took place. I've had a lot of stunts to do over the years. There had been one time where they were burning a building down or car wrecks, invariably ( AFTRA rep) Jerry Rutkowski would be there to ask ' Do you feel O.K.? Has everything been explained to you?' in a way where you would feel O.K. saying, ' No, I'm not comfortable.' And he would pick up the ball and make sure everything is addressed to make you feel comfortable. We all want to say yes. Actors never want to say no. So having somebody like Jerry being there and looking out for our interests and being the bad guy when we needed a bad guy has always been tangible of how our union looks out for our interests."
On GL's legacy: "It was an excuse for a grandmother, a mother and a daughter to spend an hour together during the day. It was a real tool to bring people together."
Tina Sloan (Lillian Raines) time on GL: 26 years
On Lillian's trials and tribulations: "I did the first breast cancer story line on 'Guiding Light'. When she had breast cancer she fell in love with Dr. Ed Bauer. who was her best friend's husband. That brought on Maureen Bauer's death — she skidded off a snowy cliff because she was so distracted when she found out Lillian and Ed were involved with each other.
On the last day of shooting: "I went to every scene to say goodbye to every group — from the lighting directors to the cameramen. It was too important not to. It's been their life too. When you get divorced, you don't lose your family. Here you got divorced and lost your family. My last line was, ' How lucky we are to have each other. All of us.' And I smiled and walked off in a puddle of tears."
Jordan Clarke (Dr. Tim Ryan 1974-76 and Billy Lewis) Years on GL ( as Billy Lewis): 26 years
On Billy Lewis: "He's always been the goodhearted, blustery guy. Family is his whole thing. He's kind of a maverick and he's been that way and fought his battles and taken on people and he's loyal. Billy's been hypnotized, he's been an alcoholic. He's a little headstrong. He's made bad decisions. He was there for Reva, been in love with Vanessa. The character's really wonderful."
What he'll miss: " I don't have brothers in real life, but I have Robert Newman (who played his brother, Joshua Lewis) and we have a familial relationship. I had a lot of fun with these people and now I've been unceremoniously bereft of a family. I'd like to see them every day. It's like office people you've worked with for 15 years — you see them every day and you have intimacies and well- honed communications and working abilities over the years. We had a lot of good working relationships."
Frank Dicopoulos (Frank Cooper, Jr.) Years on GL 22years
On the last day at shooting: I didn't know how I was going to take it. Being on the show for so long, I didn't know how the last few days would go. I didn't cry. I didn't get emotional. It was bittersweet. These are my friends. These are a great group of people. We had a fair amount of time to wind it down. There were tons of parties and functions like at the Paley Center ( New York) It was kind of a long mourning but it was very helpful. By the last day we were working so hard, so many hours-the last scene came and we said, ' OK, ready to relax.
On GL's legacy . "A lot of other shows are copying us. There are more and more location shoots and a lot more handheld cameras We became the standard and everybody starting mirroring us and that's flattery. But it shows we were on to something."
Robert Newman (Joshua Lewis) Time of GL: 24 years ( over a 28- year period)
His proudest GL moment: "The 70 th anniversary was my proudest year ( 2007). We did a year of volunteerism. We took a trip down to New Orleans for the week to work on three different houses that had all been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. We recorded a documentary piece that we aired during our regular air time that educated people on how volunteerism worked. We worked with people on a program called ' Hands On,' where once a month, fans signed up to volunteer side- by- side with their favorite actors. We basically got about 2,500 people involved in volunteerism. That had never been done before. That was actually one of our best moments. A lot of good came out of that."
Julie Poll Writer, " As the World Turns" and unofficial " Guiding Light" historian
On lrna Phillips and GL's legacy. Irna is the mother of soap operas. When it was on CBS Radio and TV, she had to fight for that. The executives didn't want to put it it on TV. They didn't think anybody was going to watch. They thought the housewives who listened to the radio while they did their ironing and housework weren't going to watch They didn't think television was going to last .The actors had 45 minutes to run from one studio to another. First they did the TV program and then they did the radio ,program, and there wasn't any budget back then for clothes and makeup because TV was a new thing. So they had to wear their own clothes. When you talk about the legacy of the show. I think it started there.Then they really started the legacy of what soaps have become known for doing focusing on medical and issue- driven storylines."
James Lipton (Dr. Dick Grant and later, a head writer) Time on GL: 1952-62; head writer 1966-68 and briefly in the early 1970s.
On his character's quick metamorphosis: " I was brought on the show to be Kathy Robert's love interest. It was a two-week run. I was the high school basketball star, Dick Grant, even though on my very best day and my highest heels I didn't grace 510". To Irna, it didn't matter. She played it fast and loose and was brilliant in that way. lrna would watch the show. If she liked the character on screen, she would immediately make plans. As a result, I dutifully jilted Kathy and I left. Less than a month later, the door bell rang at Kathy's house, and there I was, Dr. Dick Grant. Within a month, I had graduated from high school, completed four years of college courses and at least three years of medicine and done two or three years of an internship, and now I was a top resident. It was probably the fastest making of a doctor in the history of the world. Irna didn't care and, interestingly, neither did the audience. I was now the surgical resident with famously golden hands."
On writing his first storyline: "It was the first abortion story. Irna was always on the cutting edge in that way. She was very insistent in looking for new directions. We weren't allowed to call it an abortion. It was called an illegal operation."
Why do I think that Lipton exaggerated the Dick Grant story?
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Paul Raven ·
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