1937 –The Guiding Light starts to air under creator and first head writer Irna Phillips. GL begins life as a fifteen minute radio drama on NBC Radio in Chicago. Phillips also introduced organ music scene transitions (organ players were cheaper than a live band, but more expressive and versital than a pre-recording) and concluding each episode with a cliffhanger. [Jan. 25]
Today is Guiding Light‘s original birthday as a 15 minute radio soap opera. I have been working on retyping this article for quite awhile and saved it for today. I should mention that the original articles DOES have quite a few black and white photos. I’m still debating whether to scan them or not. If I decide to go ahead I’ll link the post here.
Soaps The History Part 1 Guiding Light
Back before the internet was a thing, specialized information about long term stories was hard to get. Often people would struggle long and hard and have to be lucky to get the right sources to produce histories of how things came to be. Now, on my blog alone, you can get a good idea about Guiding Light and how it came to be, but it used to be that such resources weren’t around. However, printing presses were. Access to a printing press used to give such a power to create and even though it’s now easier to create, it’s also less special and often less specialized. One soap magazine, Afternoon TV, would periodically do a special issue. This particular issue tells the history of soap operas.
Soap history can be a tricky thing, especially pre-roughly mid 1990s when people started to record what happened each day online. So much happens that it can be an easy thing to over simplify or miss a detail that’s important to the over all story or that particular plotline whether the forgetting is either knowingly or not. For instance, both Phillip Spaulding’s adoptive mother and the love of his life are named Elizabeth. [The head writer who created Beth didn’t know that Phillip’s adoptive mother even existed much less knew her name and apparently didn’t think to ask.] Do you tell the history of how Henry Chamberlain came to town with his own company (what we saw happen) or the history that Henry Chamberlain had worked with Brandon Spaulding to build up Spaulding Enterprises and Carmen Santos envied their social position (what they told us happened later)? Do you say that Alan Spaulding moved to town and bought a house (what we saw happen) or that the family lived in the house where Alan AND Alexandra grew up (what they told us happened later)? So that being said any soap opera history is going to have issues. I do not personally stake that this one is a correct account of the first roughly 35 years of Guiding Light history, but this is what they told us the history was in 1983. The article spells the Rev. John Ruthledge’s name as Rev. Rudledge. I confirmed it in the book he “wrote” that Ruthledge was correct. I added quite a few notes correcting some things and explaining why I did others a certain way.
The Guiding Light
The Guiding Light first made its debut on the radio on January 25, 1937. The Fifteen-minute show, created by Irna Phillips, had as its central character the Reverend Ruthledge, a minister who tended his flock in a place called Five Points, USA. Reverend Ruthledge soon became a most beloved figure in homes throughout America, and a book of his Good Friday sermons is reputed to have sold over a quarter of a million copies. [See Note 1] The good minister did not survive the transition to TV and remained Five Points. [See Note 2]
The legendary Bauer family, which forms the core of the show did not make their appearances on the radio show until the late forties. [See Note 3] In those early days, the family was composed of Papa Bauer, played by Viennese actor Theo Goetz, Mama Bauer, and their three children; Bill, Meta, and Trudy. [See Note 4] Mama died soon after the Bauer clan joined the show and shortly thereafter Bill married Bertha or Bert as she was to be affectionately known by millions of devoted viewers. The role was acted at first by an actress named Ann Shepard, but she left after a year and Charita Bauer replaced her. The year was 1950. Man people believe, quiet erroneously, that the Bauer family name was inspired by Charita‘s. In reality the fact that her name and that her character are identical is strictly coincidental.
The Guiding Light was first telecast on June 30, 1952. Like all the early soaps, it had a 15-minute format and it was broadcast live and in black and white, During the many years it was presented to the public, born on radio and television. The actors and the story lines were identical. The local was changed to Selby Flats, and then to Springfield. [See Note 5]
Theo Goetz played Papa Bauer until his death. He was for many years one of the most beloved characters in daytime drama. When he died, millions mourned his passing. Of his children only Meta and Bill continued in the show. Trudy was quickly phased out of the story lines after the show went on television. Meta, who was a strong, self-motivated character, survived for many years. She began her scandalous career by running away when she was young to become a model. Soon however, she became pregnant and was forced to marry. The marriage didn’t last very long and she ended by divorcing her husband. [Note 6] The child [Chuckie] that was born of that unhappy union was tragically killed and Meta murdered her ex-husband whom she blamed for the death of her child. A newspaperman called Joe Roberts helped her get acquitted, and later on they were married. Joe had a daughter called Kathy, and she and Meta did not get along. The friction between them worsened when Joe died and both women fell in love with the same man, whose name was Mark Holden. Mark eventually married Kathy, and they had a daughter named Robin. Both Kathy and Robin were to become very important to the show’s story line and when Kathy died in 1958 audiences flooded the studio with their expressions of grief.
By 1959 the cast included the following characters and actors:
- Theo Goetz.……………………Papa Bauer
- Charita Bauer………………….Bert Bauer
- Ed Bryce…………………………..Bill Bauer
- Ellen Denning…………………Meta Bauer
- Bernard Grant…………………Dr. Paul Fletcher
- Whitfield Conor………………Mark Holden
- James Lipton……………………Dick Grant
- Lynne Rogers…………………..Marie Grant
- Abigail Kellog………………….Robin Holden
- Les Damon……………………….Bruce Banning
- Joan Gray………………………….Ann Fletcher
- Pat Collins…………………………Billy Bauer [aka Ed Bauer as an adult – ed.]
- Alice Yourman………………….Laura Grant
- Joe Campanella……………….Joe Turino
In the beginning of the show Bert was a domineering wife and an interfering mother, but she softened with the passing of the years. She and Bill had two sons, Mike, the oldest, and Ed. Mike was played as a child by a young actor named Glenn Walker, who was to become the film star Christopher Walken. The name Michael Bauer was chosen for the older Bauer boy because Charita Bauer had just had a son whom she had christened Michael. She asked the show’s producers to name her TV son after her own child, and they agreed.
In the course of the years Bill Bauer developed a drinking problem and caused a great deal of sorrow to Bert, especially when he had an affair with a woman called Maggie Scott. [Note 7] But he eventually broke up the relationship and became cured of his alcoholism. [Note 8] His son Ed, who also became an alcoholic, was helped by Bill in his struggle against alcohol. By the time Bill died, he was a model husband and father. [Note 9]
Mike and Robin Holden had a love affair which was met with much-opposition from Bert. Bill interceded on his son’s behalf which caused a great deal of friction between him and his wife. Even Meta, who had every reason to oppose the match, tried to keep Bert from interfering, but without much success. All the tensions and problems surrounding the relationship proved to be more than the young lovers could handle, and the romance eventually hit the rocks. Mike left Robin and went to Law school, and Robin married a real cad by the name of Alex Bowden. Mike also married the wrong woman, a neurotic character named Julie Conrad. [Note 10] They had a daughter whom they named Hope, but their marriage began to deteriorate due to Julie’s increasingly mental instability. She was eventually committed to an insane asylum where she later died. By this time Mike had graduated Law school and decided to leave Springfield with his daughter Hope. They somehow ended up as characters on Another World. [Note 11] The invalid lawyer who was to be Mike’s first law partner was called John Randolph and Mike found himself immediately attracted to Randolph’s wife Pat. In order to avoid creating a rupture in the Randolph’s marriage, Mike decided to return to Springfield.
By this time, Ed had become a doctor and had married the daughter of his chief at the hospital, Dr. Steve Jackson. The marriage between Leslie Jackson and Ed Bauer was never successful. Ed’s frequent bouts with alcoholism led him to abuse Leslie physically at times. Slowly she lost all her love for him. When Mike returned to Springfield, he and Leslie were thrown together and the inevitable happened, they fell in love. This created a very popular and sizzling story line which involved practically all of the characters on the show. The viewers immediately took sides and most of them favored a union between Leslie and Mike. Their wishes were eventually granted, but not right away. To begin with, Leslie became pregnant by Ed, and for the sake of her unborn child she decided to give her ailing marriage a second chance. Mike was crushed by her decision, and married on the rebound. His new wife, a nasty character by the name of Charlotte Waring, caused him a great deal of grief, not the least of which was her ill treatment of Hope. After much pain and soul searching and some very complicated story lines, Mike left Charlotte. She was later killed by a psychotic called Kit Vested, who worked as a volunteer in the hospital where Ed worked. She connived to implicate Dr. Joe Werner in Charlotte’s death. Charlotte and Joe had been having a love affair, and Kit, who was in love with Joe, sought in this manner to punish them both. Joe Werner was discharged from the hospital where he worked as Chief of Staff. He was eventually phased out of the show.
Mike and Leslie were finally able to get married and their union was celebrated with much fanfare in Bert’s home. Ed, on the other hand, sought help for his alcoholism and was eventually cured. [Note 8 AGAIN!]
New characters kept flowing in and out of the story lines. The Norris family, composed of Stanley, Holly, Ken, and, Stanley’s ex-wife, Barbara, made their appearance during this period. Holly fell in love with a character called Roger Thorpe. [Note 12] Both Ken and Roger fell in love with another character called Janet Mason. [Note 13] Barbara, on the other hand, became involved with Roger’s father Adam, who was played by Robert Mill. [Note 14] In a series of complicated twists, Stanley was murdered and Leslie was implicated in his death. Mike defended her at her trial and got her acquitted, Holly continued to pursue Roger, who continued to pursue Janet, who was really in love with Ken. In the end Ken and Janet married, but their marriage was always threatened by his excessive jealousy.
By 1981 the cast had more than doubled, even though many of the original characters had been phased out of the show. New names mad their presence be felt in Springfield, names like Alan Spaulding, Tony Reardon, Carrie Todd, Ross Marler, Vanessa Chamberlain, Amanda McFarren, and an archvillainess called Diane Ballard. [Note 15] Also, added to the cast was a mysterious archeologist called Quinton McCord who soon took the show by storm.
The plots and subplots continued to multiply, romances continued to be ill-starred, marriages broke and then mended, people were murdered and innocents were accused of the murder, all very much in keeping with soap opera style.
Around this time the multiple plots went something like this. Ross Marler, a sneaky, conniving schemer, falls madly in love with super sweet Carrie Todd, whose gentle ways transform Ross into a decent, sensitive human being. [Note 16] All looks peaches and cream for the pair until the spiteful and vicious Diane Ballard gets into the picture. It seems that Diane, who makes it her business to know all the skeletons hidden in Springfield’s closets, also knows enough about Ross’ unsavory past to try to blackmail him. Carrie finds out about Diane’s plans and goes to her house to try and dissuade her from her Machiavellic plans. Diane laughs at Carrie’s pleas to spare Ross and mocks her anguish. Carrie jumps at Diane and the two women begin to struggle violently. In the midst of the fight, Diane slips and falls down and hit her head on the stone fireplace. She dies instantly. Carrie is terrified at the accident and flees the scene, but not without taking with her a briefcase full of tapes incrimination Alan Spaulding, someone Carrie is very fond of. Of course, Diane had many enemies, and a lot of people become suspects in her death, including Ross and Alan. But in the end Carrie confesses the truth to Ross and then tries to commit suicide. She survives the suicide attempt and later on Ross marries her.
In the meantime Alan Spaulding is having big troubles of his own. The head of wealthy Spaulding Enterprises, Alan has climbed all the way to the top the same as Ross did, by lying and cheating. Like Ross, Alan meets a woman who changes him into a new man. this woman is Hope Bauer. Very much against Mike Bauer’s wishes, who hates and distrusts Alan, he marries Hope. But his unsavory past caught up with Alan and when Hope finds out the truth, she decides to leave him, even though by now they have a small son, Alan-Michael. After a complicated storyline, where an assassin tries to kill Alan in the desert, he escapes and is finally caught by the police and sentenced to two years in jail. Hope, who by now realizes she loves her husband above all things, decides to stick with him. Even Mike Bauer begins to soften towards his son-in-law, who has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he has turned over a new leaf.
In other subplots, Nola Reardon gives birth to Floyd Parker’s baby with the reluctant help of Dr. Kelly Nelson, with whom Nola is really in love. But Kelly is married and although he and his wife Morgan are having martial problems, it doesn’t look like Nola is about to see her dreams of a marriage with Kelly come true. [Note 17] Besides, the mysterious Quint McCord seems to have rather sinister plans to change Nola’s life. If he succeeds in his intentions Nola may never be the same again. In any case, after her baby’s birth, Nola becomes the snoopy household supervisor for Quint McCord. Quint and his foreboding housekeeper, Mrs. Reinfield share secrets involving his profession and some women in his past.
By 1983, some of these plots had been more than entangled than ever. The cast of characters which had almost quadrupled since the soap’s debut, now looked like this [Ed. note: I published this list as a separate post.]
As the Quint/Nola story line unfolded, it soon became obvious that Quint was in love with Nola and meant to make her his wife. This however doesn’t happen so fast in soap operas. Love has to be tried and tested. This proved true also of Quint’s love for Nola. To begin with, there is a mentally unstable woman called Rebecca Cartwright with whom Quint was involved at one time. He doesn’t want her anymore, but Rebecca refuses to buy that. She’s out to get Quint one way or another. Her scheming leads to a car crash where Quint nearly loses his life. While he’s still at the hospital Nola learns that he’s really Henry Chamberlain’s son. This doesn’t please Quint at all.
When Quint and Nola reveal their plans to marry, the furious Rebecca tells Nola that Quint had once thrown Rebecca off a cliff causing her to have a miscarriage and be disfigured. She proposes re-enacting the scene at the same cliff, but while she’s there she changes her mind and reveals that it was her husband, Mark Evans, who tried to kill her. She further reveals that Mark’s real name is Samuel Pasquin while hers is Mona Enright. Rebecca/Mona then goes completely crazy and tried to push Amanda Spaulding off the cliff. Mark/Samuel is able to save Amanda, but is shot by Rebecca and falls to his death. [Note 19] Rebecca jumps over the cliff after him, all of which suit Quint and Nola just fine, even if they are too noble to admit it to themselves. After some other minor complications, they finally get married and take off for a romantic honeymoon in Ireland.
Meanwhile, Kelly Nelson and Morgan continue to have marital problems and even a marriage counselor can’t help. To make things worse, Morgan becomes deeply infatuated with Josh Lewis and finally decides she wants a divorce.
Hope and Alan Spaulding are also having marital woes. He’s now out of jail and back in business. He begins relying more and more on Trish Lewis’ advice and even consults with her on the redecoration of his house. Hope reacts to the situation by immersing herself in alcohol. [Note 18]
A mysterious woman called Annabelle Sims shows up around this time. She becomes romantically involved with Tony Reardon. They both become obsessed by a photograph depicts four men and a girl who bears an uncanny resemblance to Annabelle. As this interesting story line unfolds we learn that the woman in the picture was Anne, Annabelle’s mother, who was killed by someone during a boating trip. Annabelle, who was a witness to the tragedy, had blocked the whole thing from her conscious mind, but now begins to having a series of blackouts. To make the situation more perplexing, someone begins to murder the men in the photograph. One of the first victims is Bill Bauer, whose murder is made to look like a suicide. Then several attempts are made on other people’s lives, including H.B. Lewis. Finally, Annabelle begins to remember begins to remember and the murderer, who turns out to be Eli Simms, takes her back to the river where he killed Anne, and once there tries to kill Annabelle also. Luckily Tony happens to be in the vicinity and saves her life. Very convenient and very lucky for Annabelle. In the meantime, Eli falls from the boat and is shot dead, presumably by H.B. Lewis.
All the untimely demises and cancelled story lines that shook Guiding Light in 1983 were the result of Allen M. Potter, the show’s Executive Producer, being replaced by Gail Kobe. As soon as she was installed in the Producer’s chair, Ms. Kobe grabbed the proverbial axe and proceeded to decimate the show’s plots and cast. [Note 20] This caused a great deal of confusion and demoralization among the actors who managed to survive the devastation. Also, part of the show’s brush with disaster was the prolonged illness that befell Charita Bauer, the beloved matriarch of the Bauer clan. She was away from the show from summer through fall, first with pneumonia, and then with blood clots and diabetes. It is still uncertain whether or not she still will return to the show. If she doesn’t, Ms. Kobe will have to make some further and even more sweeping changes. Whatever happens, we hope that the fans of Guiding Light, some of whom have been faithful followers of the show for more than three decades, will continue watching.
NOTES
As I mentioned in the introduction I’m not sure what material was used in piecing together these histories. The memory doesn’t always pull up a complete story especially if you started watching after a certain event. I’m adding these notes below to correct information from the magazine as I know it.
- Ruthledge’s book, published under the title The Guiding Light, appeared in 1938 as a promotion for the show. It purports to be a history of Five Points written by the character of Dr. John Ruthledge. A good part of the text is a collection of his sermons presumably those used on the radio show. He was fairly isolationist in 1937 which is a bit of a shock for people on this side of World War II history. I don’t know how many copies the book sold or if it was offered as some kind of premium, but I CAN tell you that you fairly trip over used copies in second hand book sellers.
- The loss of the actor who played Rev. Ruthledge and the fact that his story and his family’s had been thoroughly explored, actually caused the move to Los Angeles. The Guiding Light only came TV after it had already been set in Five Points and Selby Flats before it moved to Springfield. The TV version has always been set in Springfield.
- The radio show started in 1937 and the Bauer family was introduced in 1948.
- Mama Bauer died soon after they joined the show and they either never said her first name, or nobody remembers it. She is only known as Mama Bauer.
- The article mistakenly calls Selby Flats, Silkly Flats. I fixed it.
- They hit all the major parts of Meta’s story, but they put them in the wrong order. Meta had an affair with Ted White, got pregnant, gave the boy, Chuckie, up for adoption, regained custody, married Ted, decided to get a divorce, Chuckie is fatally hurt taking a boxing lesson that Ted insisted he take, Ted realizes his mistakes, Meta kills him, and Meta is cleared of murder.
- The text has it Maffie Scott, which would have been a more interesting name, but sadly which is incorrect. I fixed it. It should be Maggie Scott.
- You cannot be “cured” of alcoholism, not even in Springfield. It means Bill entered recovery.
- Except Bill was presumed killed in a plane crash. Once he learned everyone thought he was dead he ran off to Canada where he apparently had an affair with a woman years before. Her real husband had just died so he married her and became “step-father” to the product of this affair his daughter, Hillary. He will return to Springfield years later to make amends and ended up being murder by Annabelle Simms Reardon’s psychopathic father Eli Simms as part of the famous mysterious photo storyline that kind of unbelievably tied in a lot of older men around the canvas. However, it was much better written than the sorry attempt of a carbon copy Maryanne Curthers storyline which didn’t make a lick of sense towards the end of the show.
- I missed a trivia question on the year I went to the real life BBQ about which Bauer died in a mental hospital. It was in fact, Hope’s mother, Julie Conrad, But the way it was phrased I didn’t get it. I really don’t think a short term unhappy marriage that ends in your death really makes you a Bauer. But on the other hand she WAS Hope’s mother. What do you think?
- Another Irna Phillips created soap, Another World took its name as a play off of As the World Turns. Originally it was planned to be a bookend with ATWT. CBS didn’t want the soap though so it instead sold to NBC and most links between it and the CBS soaps were dropped except the kickstart of Mike and Hope.
- The article is called Roger Dawson for some reason. An odd mistake to make since he was such an important character. I don’t know if he came into town with a fake name, but from the description it’s 1000% Roger Thorpe and I fixed it in the article.
- Ken Norris completely dropped out of the story after he was committed to a sanitarium. He returned to the show in 1998 reforming close connections with his sister Holly and niece Blake adopting a very protective attitude to them. However, he acted as if he didn’t know or still love either Janet Mason or their child. In between appearing as an actor he joined the show’s writers including being part of the team that won a Daytime Emmy for writing.
- Roger’s father and Holly’s mother, Adam and Barbara, developed a relationship. They married and despite their eventual divorce seemed to keep a warm relationship. I saw a clip and thought it must have been pre-marriage from their interactions and, nope, it was after.
- I fixed Diane Balland to Diane Ballard.
- I fixed Ross Marlen into Ross Marler.
- Kelly and Morgan weren’t married, they were just starting their relationship when Nola moved in on them. They married afterward.
- Hope and Alan are my second favorite soap opera couple of all soaps and all time and I’ve written about them before. This is hardly a fair depiction of their terrible fate, but I will just clarify that Hope’s job was as an interior decorator so to have Trish involved in designing Hope’s own home over Hope’s choices was awful.
- Mark Evans and Amanda Spaulding were romantically involved – married? – that’s why Amanda was dragged into it. Apparently whatever other crap he pulled Mark truly loved her.
- A lot of upcoming issues with the lack of Bauers in the Bauer family can be traced back to Ms. Kobe’s decisions. Having taken over, she was determined the actors realize that no one was safe under her and hers was the will of God. So she took out Hope Bauer and other mainstays quickly began to fall.
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