Guiding Light: Encyclopedia II - Guiding Light

The series was created by Irna Phillips, who based it on personal experiences. After giving birth to a still-born baby at age 19, she found spiritual comfort listening to sermons by a preacher of a church centered on the brotherhood of man. It was these sermons that formed the nucleus of the creation of The Guiding Light.

Guiding Light - The radio years

The radio show's original storyline centered around a preacher named Rev. John Ruthledge (Arthur Peterson, Jr.) and all the people of a fictional suburb in Chicago called Five Points. The townspeople's lives had revolved around him. The show's title comes from a lamp in his study that family and residents could see as a sign for them to find help when needed. Storylines in this era touched on topics rarely discussed up to that point — character Rose Kransky (Ruth Bailey, Louise Fitch and Charlotte Manson) had radio's first out-of-wedlock baby.

During the radio years, succeeding preachers would carry on the work Rev. Ruthledge had started, thus becoming keepers of "the guiding light." The show's setting moved to another fictional suburb in 1947, Selby Flats, in the Los Angeles, California area. From 1947 - 1949, the show was broadcast from Hollywood, but in the fall of 1949 the show moved to New York City where it has remained.

Guiding Light - Early years on television

In 1952, The Guiding Light began airing on CBS television. Episodes were 15 minutes long. With the transition to television, the main characters became the Bauers, a lower middle class German immigrant family. For the first few years of its television run, the show was produced in separate sessions for radio and television. The actors performed the live television version of the show in the morning, and then went to the radio studios and read for the live radio show in the afternoon. In 1956, the radio show was dropped.

The television family was headed by wise patriarch Friedrich "Papa" Bauer (Theo Goetz), who had three children, Bill (Lyle Sudrow), Meta (Ellen Demming), and Trudy (Helen Wagner). Papa Bauer was portrayed as wise and a hard worker, having immigrated to this country from Germany with little more than a dream. Papa Bauer imparted sage wisdom on his children in a folksy tone, commonly splicing in German words. Meta (Jone Allison) had been a major character on the radio version and at one point listeners chose whether or not to find her guilty of murdering her ex-husband, Ted White (Arnold Moss, Bert Cowlan and James Monks), who had let their young son, Chuckie, die in a freak boxing accident. The character faded into a supporting role within the first decade of the TV series.

Bill's headstrong wife Bert (Charita Bauer) and her conflicts with the Bauer clan set the stage for much of the drama in the television show's first decade. Though Bert and her sister-in-law Meta eventually became very close, there was a considerable amount of hostility between them initially. Much of the drama during this period stemmed from Bill Bauer's alcholism and his career difficulties.

Bert was very materialistic during the early days, and wanted to live much more extravagantly than Bill's salary would allow. Other storylines during this period included Trudy's jealousy of Meta's lifestyle (Meta had been a model at one point), Meta's struggles to get along with her second husband, newspaper reporter, Joe Roberts' (Herbert "Herb" Nelson) teenaged daughter, Kathy (Susan Douglas), Kathy's romantic struggles, including being tried for murdering Kathy's first husband, Bob Lang (the jury would bring back a not guilty verdict), Kathy's trouble with her second husband's, Dr. Richard "Dick" Grant, Jr. (James Lipton), family and co-workers and the couple's troubles with Kathy's daughter with Bob Lang, Robin (Zina Bethune), who would grow up to be just as much of a trouble maker as her mother had been to Meta.

After Irna Phillips moved to As the World Turns in 1956, her protege Agnes Nixon took control of The Guiding Light.

Guiding Light - 1960s

Agnes Nixon wanted to see social issues worked into the canvas, and set the tone for much of the 1960s material. One story involved Bert's battle with uterine cancer sent many female viewers to their doctors for the first time in years.

The Guiding Light was also the first show to regularly feature African-American characters (played by James Earl Jones and Ruby Dee). In the 1960s and 1970s, the focus of the show slowly moved to Bill and Bert's children, Mike and Ed. Their lives and loves provided high drama for many years. Other popular characters of the time included Robin Lang Bowden Fletcher (Gillian Spencer, among others). In the mid-1950's, Robin had feuded with her stepmother Kathy; ultimately, in 1958, Kathy was killed when bicycling children accidentally pushed her wheelchair into oncoming traffic. CBS was deluged with protest letters. In 1967 Robin was struggling with her own stepson, Johnny Fletcher, as well as her fears that her husband loved another woman; the group of writers at that time recycled the same story conclusion by having Robin throw herself into oncoming traffic as well, a move that was unpopular with viewers.

Around this same time, the series locale shifted from Selby Flats to Springfield (1966, Nixon would vacate the show shortly after this to begin creating the ABC series, One Life to Live (in a midwest state that is never identified). The Bauers relocated so that Bill (now played by Ed Bryce) could take a lucrative position in Springfield. Bill and Bert's younger son Ed (Robert Gentry) began his residency at Cedars Hospital in Springfield under the tutelage of Dr. Stephen Jackson (Stefan Schnabel). Their older son, attorney Mike Bauer (Gary Pilar), however, had become estranged from his overbearing parents after his young wife, Julie Conrad Bauer (Sandra Smith) had become mentally unstable and later committed suicide, and had moved a year earlier with his daughter Hope to Bay City (the characters crossing over to Another World; they would return to The Guiding Light in 1968). Bert also had to deal with Bill's affair with his secretary, Maggie Scott (June Graham), and Ed's turn to alcoholism when he discovered his father's affair (Bert and Ed would fight over this, when Bert forgave Bill but Ed did not). Maggie had trouble herself when her husband, Ben Scott (Bernard Kates) turned up alive after Maggie had thought Ben had been killed in the Korean War. Maggie and Ben had a teenaged daughter named, Peggy (Fran Myers) whose romantic troubles with first teenage gang member, Marty Dillman (who would end up killed, with his wife and the pregnant Peggy wrongly put on trial but Mike defending her and exonerating her) and later, Johnny Fletcher serving as much of the story in the late 1960s. Ben would die of a heart attack in early 1968, followed by Maggie dying herself from an intestinal ailment a few months later (Ed had operated on her and felt guilty that she had died during the operation). Peggy would end up being treated by Bert as her own daughter.

In 1967, the show first started being broadcast in color. A year later, the show expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

1967 also saw the arrival of Dr. Sara McIntyre (Millette Alexander), the former girlfriend of Dr. Paul Fletcher (Bernard Grant) who was already married to Robin. Sara was a gifted psychologist who was able to help Bert cope with her husband's presumed death in a plane crash, in 1969. Sara seemed to have less luck in her personal life. Though attracted to Dr. Joe Werner (Anthony Call), she instead married the charming Lee Gantry (Ray Fulmer), but Lee and his housekeeper, Miss Mildred Foss (Jan Sterling Douglas) soon began orchestrating a series of events to make Sara believe she was going insane (in an attempt to embezzle her money).

Also in 1969, the rich businessman, Stanley Norris (William Smathers) was introduced. Stanley was divorced from his first wife, and cookbook writer, Barbara (Barbara Berjer) and Barbara was left to raise their three children, Kenneth "Ken" (Roger Newman), Andrew "Andy" (not seen and fighting in the Vietnam War at the time) and Holly (Lynn Deerfield) on her own. Stanley himself would soon divorce his second wife, Kit Vestid (Nancy Addison Altman), when Kit found out that Stanley was carrying on affairs with several other women. Stanley would soon end up murdered, shot to death in his office.

Ed had disappeared from Springfield, back in April 1969, after having a traffic accident while he was intoxicated that sent the other driver Maggie Wexler (Margie Impert) into a coma and miscarrying a child. While he was away, Ed started working at Hastings Electrical Supply (as the company's doctor), in nearby Clayton, and got involved with the company's secretary, Janet Mason (Caroline McWilliams).

Guiding Light - 1970s

In late 1970, the gaslighting of Sara led to a tragedy, when Sara accidentally shot and killed Foss. Eventually in late 1971, Gantry was accidentally killed in a struggle with Joe Werner, and Sara and Joe were married.

Put on trial for the murder was his third wife, nurse Leslie Jackson Bauer Norris (Lynne Adams) (the daughter of Dr. Stephen Jackson), who was discovered by an employee of Stanley's over his dead body. Mike Bauer (now played by Don Stewart) would defend Leslie (as he had Peggy almost two years earlier). In the end, Marion Conway (Kate Harrington) would confess to shooting Stanley because she was deeply troubled that her daughter, Linell (Christina Pickles) had fantasies about her boss, Stanley, divorcing Leslie and marrying her and Stanley treated Linell like garbage. After Marion's eleventh hour confession she would suffer a heart attack and die in the courtroom.

Though they deeply loved each other, Sara and Joe's marriage became strained and Joe began having an affair with Sara's nemisis Charlotte Waring (Victoria Wyndham), who for a time was married to Mike Bauer. Joe soon confessed the affair to Sara, but in the meantime, Charlotte was rushed to Cedars after suffering an apparent heart attack. Joe tried to save her life, but she did not pull through, and he was blamed for her death, catapulting him into a self-destructive affair with the unstable Kit Vested (who'd had an obsession with Joe for some time). Kit, it turned out, had caused Charlotte's death by poisoning her tea, and had also just poisoned Sara. Fortunately, Mike got word of Kit's plans and was able to make it to Sara and get her to the hospital in time. Meanwhile, when Joe discovered the truth about Kit, she tried to shoot him, but in the struggle for the gun, she was shot instead (1974). After Kit's death, Sara and Joe tried to resume their relationship, adopting a son, Timothy "T.J." (who would eventaully be played by a teenaged Kevin Bacon), Joe had a heart attack in (1976) and Sara was once again a widow.

While Papa Bauer ended up being the bearer of the Guiding Light, the religious tones of the light and even religion in general were almost completely lost by the time the show moved to television. Papa Bauer would die in his sleep in February 1973, a few months after Goetz died in December 1972. Religious matters gave way to cementing the bonds of family. In the 1970s, Bert Bauer's two sons fought over the lovely Leslie, a storyline which was criticized by Charita Bauer herself, whose role moved, in time, from Bauer matriarch to the beacon of support for the entire town. Bauer was quoted as saying, "Now [the show's producers] don't really care about the idea of the family anymore. That used to be the main theme of the show, but now it's gone." Though Leslie loved Ed (now played by Mart Hulswit), her marriage to him didn't work, due to his alcoholism, and she became involved with his brother Mike. When things seemed to have finally resolved and she was happy with Mike, Leslie was tragically killed in a hit-and-run accident in 1976, leaving behind her and Ed's young son Freddie (now known as "Rick").

While Mike and Leslie had generally overall an idealic marriage (with the only two problems, besides Leslie put on trial falsely for Stanley's murder, being that Leslie would find out that Dr. Steve Jackson was not her biological father, and Mike being somewhat unsatisfied with Leslie wanting to better herself education wise), Ed, and Barbara and Stanley's children, Ken and Holly's life took some rather interesting twists and turns.

Ed returned to Springfield after learning that his father had supposedly been killed in a plane crash, and Janet soon followed. Unfortunately Janet was to learn that Ed was still in love with Leslie. Then Janet's father, Grove Mason (Vince O'Brien) also showed up in Springfield. When Grove discovered that Ed had been unfaithful to Leslie, with his daughter, Grove confronted Ed at Cedars hospital and collapsed and died from a heart attack. Leslie would then grant Ed a divorce and married first, Stanley, and then later Mike. Ed would be pursued by several women, but Janet cooled things off, still upset about her father's death.

For a while, Ken Norris started a relationship with his former stepmother, Kit Vestid. But later would be attracted to the now available, Janet Mason. It was rather a shock when Ken, who was Mike Bauer's law partner ended up marrying Janet, because Ken was known to be somewhat mentally unstable (but Janet seemed to love the man despite this knowledge).

Meanwhile Holly ended up in Cedars after nearly being run into by a car, and Ed became her physician. After having a series of uneventul relationships, the now 30-year old, Ed was wowed by Holly and agreed to go to Las Vegas with her. Holly not realizing that Ed was an alcoholic got him drunk and then got married to him. When Holly and Ed returned to Springfield everyone was also shocked, none more than his aunt Meta who vehemently took a dislike to Holly. Meta's third husband Bruce Banning (William Roerick) and Bert tried to tell Meta to not interfer, but Holly heard what Meta felt about her and was concerned that Ed might leave her at any moment.

Janet then found out that her mother, Ellen Mason (Jeanne Arnold) had become an alcoholic after her husbands death. Janet asked Ed to help get her mother into Alcoholics Anonymous, and Ken seeing the two of them together started to become pathologically violently jealous. While Kit was going after Joe and Sara Werner, Ken started to become violent to Janet, and forced her to have sex with him so she would get pregnant (which she did and gave birth to a daughter named, Emily). After the birth of Emily, and Ellen started to go to AA, Ken started to seem more mentally stable (Janet had forced Ken to see a psychiatrist) and truly became loving and devoted to both Janet and Emily. But one evening when Ellen had an alcoholic relapse, Ken caught Janet and Ed talking privately to each other and Ken became even more jealous and stopped going to see his psychiatrist (and also went off his medications) and did not tell Janet or his partner, Mike, about this. A few evenings later, while he and Janet were out on a date, Ken who was driving them home had a car accident and drove the car into a tree. Ken and Janet were taken to Cedars emergency room, and although bruised Janet seemed fine, on the other hand Ken appeared to be blind. But none of the doctors could see any reason for Ken's blindness. Of course, Ken was faking his blindness. And then when Janet desperately started clinging even more closely to Ed, Ken became even more jealous. Ken also talked his then pregnant sister, Holly, into believing the worse about Ed and Janet's renewed closeness, with their mother Barbara scolding both of them about how they were treating their spouses. Although Holly seemed to agree with her mother, secretly Ken did not. Then one evening, in April 1975, things came to ahead when Ken (who had secretly bought a revolver) went to Holly and Ed's house and waited outside in front of the house in the bushes. When Ed came home with Janet, Ken came out of the bushes and shot Ed in his right hand. Ed was taken to Cedars, and it would be learned that he could no longer operate with his right hand (in the fall of 1983, Ed would undergo a risky operation that would restore the use of his hand). Ken was taken to a mental hospital and would not be seen from again until 1998 (Roger Newman would return to the role from August 1998 to March 1999). Janet would leave town with Emily and Ellen, and relocate to San Francisco never to be heard from again (although from time to time throughout the remainder of the 1970s, Barbara was said to be visiting them -- off-camera, though).

In the fall of 1975, the "the" in the show's opening and closing visuals was dropped (in an attempt to modernize the show's image), the same year it adopted the harp-and-string-laced "Ritournelle" as its theme song. The serial was still called The Guiding Light by CBS (and the show's staff announcers) until Fall 1981, when the "the" was completely dropped from references and a more upbeat musical theme was adopted. In November 1977, the show expanded to a full hour, meaning even more storylines and characters.

Feeling pressure from newer, more youth-oriented soaps such as The Young and the Restless, Procter & Gamble hired headwriters Bridget Dobson and Jerome Dobson in 1975. The married duo focused on core characters, giving Bert her first real story in years when her husband Bill came back from the dead. (1977). They also shook up the town by bringing in the dynamic, jetsetting Alan Spaulding (Chris Bernau) and his emotionally distant wife, Elizabeth (Lezlie Dalton). Elizabeth doted on young Phillip (Jarrod Ross), whom she believed to be her son. In reality, her baby was stillborn, and Alan had obtained Phillip from an unknown woman. That woman, Jackie (Cindy Pickett) soon followed, and although she was still in love with her former husband cardiologist, Justin Marler (Tom O'Rourke), she married Alan (after he and Elizabeth divorced in 1978) to make sure she was close to her son (Justin had no idea he was a father; Alan had no idea Jackie was Phillip's mother).

Through all of this, Alan also carried on an affair with his office assistant, Diane Ballard (Sofia Landon Geier). Diane, a sometime vindictive but shrewed businesswoman, harbored fantasies of being the next Mrs. Spaulding, but would continually be let down when Alan married two other women.

Also brought to town for a while was Alan's personal attorney, the smooth talking, Dean Blackford (Gordon Rigsby). Dean met the widowed, Dr. Sara McIntyre (who had attempted to romance Justin, but Justin was in over his head dealing with the woman who had broken up his and Jackie's marriage, trashy photojournalist Brandy Shelloe (JoBeth Williams) ), and so Dean romanced Sara and married her. Mike Bauer tried to warn Sara, that Dean was a shady character, and indeed Dean was. He tried to win for Alan sole custody of Phillip, by paying-off a man named, Ramon de Vilar, to falsely testify that Elizabeth had had an affair with him (and this ploy did work for a while, and Alan was awarded sole custody after he married Jackie).

Later it would be learned that Dean would have kept the de Vilar affadavits, that de Vilar had lied in court, and Dean would begin being threatened. De Vilar threatened Dean that he'd admit that he had perjured himself, and Alan told Dean to deal with it as Dean saw fit. Dean then ended up shooting and killing de Vilar. Sara started having suspicions about her third husband, and Dean tried to do away with her (on their honeymoon) in January 1979, but Mike showed up and Dean ended falling to his death off of a cliff. Elizabeth fell in love with Mike Bauer. However, she ultimately could not marry him because, thanks to Alan, Phillip blamed Mike for his parents' breakup and hated him as a result.

For a while Elizabeth married Justin, but Justin was pulled ever closer back to Jackie. Justin learned the truth about Phillip, in January 1980 (after Jackie fell off a ladder while taking down Christmas ornaments off her tree, and suffered not only a concussion, but also miscarried her and Alan's child she had been carrying), and later, in the same year, Jackie and Justin sat Elizabeth down and told her the truth as well. Eventually, suffering a nervous breakdown as a result of Alan's manipulations, Elizabeth moved to Switzerland in December 1980. And before Elizabeth left, she forced a confused, Alan to agree to a joint custody agreement between the Marlers and Alan (Alan would be told the whole truth in the Summer of 1981, when someone else would be blackmailing the Marlers).

The paternity mystery finally exploded in August 1983 when Phillip found out the truth - the ramifications continued to be felt decades later, as Phillip ( then Grant Aleksander) grew up to be a psychologically scarred, controlling man who was shot dead by his own adoptive father, Alan Spaulding.

The Dobsons also created one of the sexiest and most complicated "vixens" in the show's history when nurse Rita Stapleton (Lenore Kasdorf) arrived in Springfield and began working at Cedars, where she immediately caught the eye of the recently separated Dr. Ed Bauer. On the rebound from neurotic Holly Norris, Ed had begun drinking heavily again, but he became infatuated with Rita, and was able to kick his habit, with her help. They becamse even closer when Rita's younger sister Eve (Janet Grey) arrived in Springfield with their elderly mother Viola (Kate Wilkinson), who'd just suffered a stroke. Ed recruited stroke specialist Dr. Emmett Scott (Frank Latimore) (Jackie Marler's father), and the two were able to help Viola make a complete recovery. Ed asked Rita to marry him, but on the same day he proposed, she was arrested and charged with murder. Rita, as it turned out, had a sordid past with bad boy Roger Thorpe (Michael Zaslow) which, unfortunately for her, came out during her ensuing murder trial. Rita was accused of murdering Cyrus Granger, an elderly, rich Waco, Texas rancher, for whom she'd work as a private duty nurse a year earlier. (She could not have committed the murder in question, as she was in the Granger stables with Roger at the time).

This all happened off-camera from August to November 1975, prior to Rita's arrival in Springfield, and during a three month long period where Zaslow was absent from the show, and the story was told largely in flashbacks. She was exonerated, but at the cost of her budding relationship with Ed, who already hated Roger for his affair with Holly (now played by Maureen Garrett) during their brief marriage. (Roger was, in fact the biologial father of the child Holly had while married to Ed, Christina, born in July 1975; the truth about this came out when Chrissy needed a blood transfusion and Holly couldn't provide it because she had had hepatitis as a child. Roger had also at one point attempted to rape Holly's sister-in-law, Janet Mason Norris).

On the rebound from Ed, Rita briefly dated Dr. Peter Chapman (Curt Dawson), but things did not progress, when she realized that he was much more attracted to her nemesis Holly Norris Bauer. For a time, Rita was a subject of a stalker who, pushed her down a flight of stairs, tampered with her breaks and set her apartment on fire (while her blind sister Eve was inside; she barely escaped). The stalker turned out to be Cyrus' mentally derainged daughter-in-law, Georgene Belmont Granger (Delphi Harrington) who, while holding Rita and Eve at gunpoint in their apartment building laundry room in May 1978, would confess to being the real murderer of Cyrus, as well being responsible for her husband Malcolm's (Ed Seamons) death. (Georgene killed Cyrus for fear that he would change his will to leave the bulk of his fortune to Rita, unaware that he had already done so; her husband Malcolm had died from a heart attack in the midst of an argument, where Georgene accused him of having had an affair with Rita). Ed and Springfield Police Chief Larry Wyatt were hiding outside the laundry room and overheard the confession, and were able to overtake Georgene. She was arrested and Rita was then finally able to put the ordeal behind her.

Roger Thorpe had been on the show, in a self-destructive relationship with Holly since 1971, but only when the Dobsons arrived did he become truly malevolent. The badder he got, the more popular he became with viewers. One night, in October 1978, Roger forced himself into Rita's apartment and raped her. By this time, she had patched things up with Ed (the two had become close again), and they were engaged. Rita, afraid to tell Ed, for fear that he wouldn't believe her, remained silent, and they were married. Roger also was involved with Dean Blackford, after Roger discovered the de Vilar affadavits. Dean tried to run down Roger with his car, but Dean didn't succeed. Later after Dean died, Roger stole the affadavits and would blackmail his then boss, Alan with them.

Roger would also take up with Mike and Ed's younger half-sister, Cedars nurse Hillary Bauer (Marsha Clark), who was still reeling from the revelation that Bill Bauer had lied to her for many years about having another family. Zaslow was unhappy with his earlier rape scenes with Rita, which he felt came across as a seduction. The Dobsons crafted a full-fledged marital rape (at the time this was not considered a crime) episode involving Roger and Holly who had recently married (1979). Holly bravely took Roger to court, but Justin's sleazy lawyer brother Ross (Jerry verDorn, Ross would quickly reform and has remained a core character for over twenty-five years), hired by Alan, got Roger acquitted. When she thought Roger was going to take their daughter, Christina out of the country, Holly shot Roger to "death", and was convicted, despite the extenuating circumstances (she had flashed back to the rape).

While she rotted in jail, Ed and Rita raised Christina. Rita felt an enormous sense of guilt at not having come forward when Roger raped her, and felt that Ed also blamed her for Holly's troubles. To make matters worse, Ed seemed to be more concerned for Holly, and then Justin and Ross' younger sister and Cedars patient, Elaine "Lainie" Marler (Kathleen Kellaigh) (who had been a victim of a hit-and-run while training for a marathon), making Rita feel all the more neglected. She started having an affair with a former boyfriend, Dr. Greg Fairbanks (David Greenan), who also was dating her younger sister Eve at the time (neither sister initially knew Fairbanks was seeing the other). (Eve had just divorced her husband, artist Ben McFarren).

Holly was later released from prison, when Sara and Mike showed the court that Holly had indeed flashed back to the rape the day she shot and "killed" Roger. Roger was very much alive, however, and attempted to abduct Christina, but instead, in an Emmy-winning sequence, chased a pregnant Rita through a hall-of-mirrors as the Donna Summer/Barbra Streisand hit "Enough is Enough" played in the background. Roger kidnapped Rita, holding her captive for several days, and causing her to have a miscarriage, when in haste to escape Mike and Ed coming after him, he knocked over a kerosene lantern (the baby would turn out to be a boy and be the son of Ed's, not Greg's as Rita had feared; Kasdorf was also pregnant in real life at the time and later said that she found the emotional scenes were tough to play; the actress would would take several months of maternity leave shortly after filming the miscarriage scenes). Roger would later attempt to kidnap Christina, in Santo Domingo, but instead ended up kidnapping Holly and would lead her into the Island of Lost Soul's jungle with Ed and Mike in pursuit.

Roger fell to another "death" in Santo Domingo on April Fool's Day 1980 - nine years to the day of his first airdate. He would return in 1989 and then leave in 1997 when, in an extremely controversial decision, Procter & Gamble fired Zaslow due to his medical problems. The Bauers' and the Spauldings' lives grew ever-more complicated as Alan married Mike's daughter Hope (Elvera Roussell), and eventually had a wild fling with Ed's wife Rita (who was Hope's aunt) (Kasdorf had returned). When the affair finally was exposed in 1981, Rita left town for good (Kasdorf also left for good; she had been so popular in the role that producers decided against recasting the part).

The Dobsons also beefed up some of the other younger set in Springfield and spiced things up just a bit. The characters of Cedars nurse Katie Parker (Denise Pence) was introduced in 1977 when Roger's first wife (and longtime Bauer friend) nurse Peggy Scott Dilman Fletcher Thorpe (still played by Fran Myers) left town with her teenaged son, Billy Fletcher after learning about the tryst Roger had had with Rita (Peggy would return from time to time in 1978 and 1979, but warned Ed that Roger could become violent).

Katie was the roommate of Hillary Bauer and for a time struck up a romance with Dr. Mark Hamilton (Burton Cooper) who kept putting off marrying Katie. Hillary was also not bereft of suitors after her nasty break up with Roger Thorpe. Katie's younger brother, who was not very well kempt, Floyd Parker (Tom Nielson), showed up on Katie and Hillary's doorstep in the spring of (1979) and took an instant shine to Hillary. Floyd had competition for a while from young attorney, Derek Colby (Harley Venton) who had helped Ross Marler defend Roger Thorpe during the marital rape trial.

Derek helped Mike get Holly's friend and former prison inmate, Clara Jones (Anna Marie Horsford) released from prison; Horsford played the first substantial storyline African-American character on the show and it was proven by Mike and Derek that Clara Jones had not shot her husband, but her husband had been shot dead by some drug dealers that he had gotten involved with.

Hillary though would end up turning both men down (at least for a while, she later became engaged to Derek in 1981) with the arrival in town of young medical student (and Ed's godson), Kelly Nelson (John Wesley Shipp). During 1979 and early 1980, Hillary, Floyd, Katie, Mark and Derek provided much of the comic relief on the show. Floyd would also start dating and romancing, Lainie Marler, until Lainie fell for art museum owner, Carter Bowden (Alan Austin) in 1980. Lainie and Carter would marry on Valentine's Day 1981 with Lainie happily shocking both Justin and Ross by walking again.

Meanwhile, two more characters introduced by the Dobsons were, Amanda Wexler (then Kathleen Cullen) and her mom Lucille Wexler (Rita Lloyd) in 1978. They were introduced via Eve Stapleton and her husband, artist, Ben McFarren (Stephen Yates). Ben had originally been romantically involved with Mike's daughter, Hope, back in 1976. But when Hope found out that Mike and Ben were covering up crimes involving Ben's younger brother, Jerry McFarren, Hope dumped him and left Springfield for a while, until she returned in 1979. Unfortunately as she left town, Eve caught sight of Ben kissing Hope (not realizing they were saying goodbye), and Eve ran out in the pouring rain, tripped and fell, and for a half a year lost her eyesight.

Later in 1978, after Eve underwent a risky surgery, she regained her eyesight and she and Ben married. After they returned to Springfield, from their honeymoon, Ben and Eve moved into the Wexler Estate's small guest cottage. Lucille, an insecure, controlling woman, disapproved of Eve and her friends and family's rather liberal ways, and started becoming suspicious of the McFarrens. Lucille was harboring a secret that confused both Amanda and Amanda's first husband, architect Gordon Middleton (Marcus Smythe), who Amanda left on her honeymoon when she couldn't be intimate with him.

Later, Eve would find out from Gordon, that the reason for Amanda's lack of intimacy stemmed from watching Lucille being raped by a man, when Amanda was a young girl. But Lucille was apparently harboring more secrets than that, because when Ben tried to show his art work at the Binnoker art gallery to raise funds to send Eve to college to fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher (as her mother had been), Lucille secretly burned down the gallery. With no funds to send Eve to school, Lucille hired Ben and Eve to do various odd jobs around the main house at the Wexler Estate, and Ben got a job at Spaulding Enterprises as a graphic artist. Eve and Ben became virtual slaves to Lucille.

Ben also met up with the wild Diane Ballard, who, in her loneliness waiting for Alan, seduced Ben and they had an affair. At the same time Ben got Amanda to put away her dolls and stop acting child like, and restart her dream of becoming a concert pianist. Amanda herself was falling for the wordly Ben, and Lucille started becoming nervous that Ben was going to find out all her secrets and started to find ways to get Ben in trouble, and even kill him. The first thing Lucille did was make sure that in a visit to the Wexler Estate by Diane, Amanda found out about Ben and Diane's affair. A livid Amanda told Eve, which caused Eve to leave Ben, and move out on her own. Eve would first start a relationship with Dr. Greg Fairbanks (who was simultaneously dating her sister Rita) and then surprisingly with Ross Marler. Ross would be hired by Lucille as her attorney, and Ross would fall for Amanda creating a very interesting quadrangle between Eve-Ben-Amanda-Ross.

Meanwhile Lucille continued to find ways to kill Ben, even though Lucille apparently had a debilitating stroke. Then in the fall of 1979, Lucille was summoned by Alan Spaulding's father, Brandon Spaulding (David Thomas) to his "death" bed, and the audience would learn the startling secret that Lucille was hiding that Amanda was actually the product of an affair between Alan and a woman that Alan had known when he was younger, Jane Marie Stafford. When Ben started to become suspicious of Lucille's involvement in Brandon's "death", Lucille continued to find even more bizarre ways to kill her nemesis, Ben McFarren. Of course Lucille couldn't stop Ben and Amanda from eventually marrying in March 1980.

Guiding Light - 1980s

In 1980, the Dobsons were moved to ATWT, and replaced by Douglas Marland. Marland had written for such veteran soap writers as Agnes Nixon and Irna Phillips (the creator of The Guiding Light) and had written on his own, as well as acted on ATWT in the early 1970's. From January 1980 to June 1982 Marland, as head writer, decided he wanted to bring Guiding Light back to its roots and abide by the show's bible as Marland was fond of calling it. To that end he came up with many new characters, but incorporated them gradually with veteran characters. He also added more levels of intrigue and crimes to the show.

In January 1980 the first thing Marland noticed, as new headwriter, was the lack of characters younger than the age of 25. The second thing Marland took note of was the lack of a more lower middle class family (the Bauers who had started out as lower middle class were by now quite well off, with Mike as a lawyer and Ed as a doctor). The second of these issues Marland addressed first by introducing the Reardon family. Beatrice "Bea" Reardon (Lee Lawson) and her second youngest daughter, Nola Reardon (Lisa Brown) were introduced while Roger Thorpe was on the run and trying to kidnap his daughter. Roger disguised himself as a German Professor Schneider who was staying at the Reardon Boarding house. Nola almost turned Roger into the authorities before he kidnapped Rita. The backstory later revealed for the Reardons was that they had always lived in Springfield, and Bea thought her husband Hugh Thomas "Tom" Reardon had abandoned her and their seven children (eight if one count Bea's first child that she miscarried, which Bea did). (It would be revealed in 1983, that Tom Reardon had been killed in 1963). Nola was the only child still at home at the time the Reardons were introduced, although there was always mention of Nola's sister who was the third youngest, Lana (this child of Bea and Tom never appeared on the show).

Nola's introduction would be the crux for the other younger teen characters and teen angst storylines Marland was to introduce. A couple of days after Roger left and kidnapped Rita, Speedo-clad and the well-muscled Kelly Nelson came to stay at the Boarding House. To further the teen angst, Marland brought back on canvas the alcoholic Tim Werner. Tim became friends with Kelly. Although Kelly was now dating Hillary, Hillary would gain competition from both Nola and a totally unforseen force as the year 1980 continued. Nola who had many movie fantasies (Nola championed herself as being the next Bette Davis), incorporated Kelly into her romantic movie fantasies. But Kelly had no clue that Nola had fallen for him.

Meanwhile, in what seemed a totally unrelated story at that time, Lucille Wexler hired as her new housekeeper (with the departure of Eve) the newly arrived in town Jennifer Richards (Geraldine Court). Jennifer had arrived in town with her husband Walter Richards and their teenage daughter, Morgan (Kristen Vigard). Unfortunately when they drove into town Walter and Jennifer were fighting, while Morgan was asleep in the backseat, and Walter didn't see that Mike Bauer's car was about to hit him. Walter died in the accident between Mike's car and the Richards' car. Mike felt guilty for Walter's death (although the courts ruled it an accident and Mike helped Jennifer and Morgan in relocating to Springfield; although Morgan hated Mike for quite a while -- she'd later forgive him in the winter of 1981, when Mike helped Morgan escape the clutches of criminal rapist, Duke Lafferty played by an actor named, Gary Phillips). Jennifer hired Kelly as Morgan's tutor, and tried to set up her daughter with Tim Werner. But it soon became apparent that sparks were flying between Kelly and Morgan (as well as Shipp and Vigard). But Nola wasn't about to sit still and let the younger Morgan take Kelly away (not that Kelly's heart belonged to Nola, either). Nola was about to think of some rather wicked plots to take Kelly away from both Hillary and Morgan. (Brown played the role with such gusto that she received more hate mail than any CBS actor since Eileen Fulton some twenty years earlier.)

In May 1980, Guiding Light won its first Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding Achievement in a Daytime Drama. Although many were surprised that the departing Michael Zaslow (Roger) didn't win an award for Outstanding Achievement as a Lead Actor (Zaslow wasn't even nominated in the category which many people found baffling).

Marland also reintroduced in the first half of 1980, Holly's brother Andy Norris (now played by Ted LePlat), who had become a novelist and had become interested in the intrigue of Alan Spaulding. (Holly herself became less of a prescence in Springfield, and Maureen Garrett opted not to renew her contract in the fall of 1980 and Holly left with Christina for Switzerland. Garrett and Holly would return in December 1988). Andy thought that Alan's story might make a great novel and a wonderful television miniseries. Although Andy didn't seem her type, Katie Parker, after not getting Dr. Mark Hamilton (Hamilton and Burton Cooper would suddenly just stop appearing on the show) to committ, became involved with Andy. Katie was also working as an assistant to Dr. Sara McIntyre, who had become a sex therapist. When Andy discovered that Katie was working for Sara, Andy dumped one woman he was involved with to become involved with Katie, and then decided to steal Katie's keys to Sara's files, copied them, and then late at night broke into Sara's files to find out all the sexual piccadillos of several Springfield residents and started blackmailing them in a disguised voice (one of Andy's many victims was Rita Stapleton Bauer after she started her affair with Alan Spaulding). (Andy would later be arrested in August 1981, when Hillary discovered what he was doing and alerted her half-brother Mike).

The woman that Andy dumped to pursue Katie was also new to the show, the darkly beautiful, but very spoiled Vanessa Chamberlain (Maeve Kinkead). Vanessa arrived in town shortly after her father, Henry Chamberlain (William Roerick; Roerick had previously played, Dr. Bruce Banning), had already done so. Henry and Vanessa were very rich and were Spaulding stockholders. Widower, Henry Chamberlain briefly dated Viola Stapleton, Rita and Eve's mother, but by this time, Viola had become tired of the stress Springfield brought to her life, and moved back to her hometown of Bluefield, West Virginia, before anything could come of it. Henry would go on to date Bea Reardon for a time. The recently divorced, Vanessa had been involved with Ross Marler in their younger years, but had dumped Ross for a rich preppy boy. Vanessa tried to get reinvolved with Ross by coming over to his apartment in nothing but a furcoat, but Ross who was involved with Eve would resist Vanessa's later attempts at seduction. Vanessa also kissed Ross' younger colleague, Derek Colby as a joke, although Derek later developed unreciprocated feelings for Vanessa (Vanessa said she thought Derek was a bore), after Derek saved Vanessa's life when she attempted suicide in the fall of 1980. Between Vanessa and Nola's machinations, Guiding Light as written by Doug Marland was certainly becoming a racy and for many must-see television show.

But Marland didn't stop there. Lucille Wexler soon found out that her housekeeper Jennifer was the long lost Jane Marie Stafford, when she paid a visit to the Springfield Arms hotel and to Jane Marie's older brother, Chet Stafford (Bill Herndon). Lucille, who had continued to drive a wedge between Ben McFarren and her "daughter", Amanda and their new marriage (including trying to still kill Ben who became increasingly more suspicious of his mother-in-law and trying to get Vanessa to seduce Ben -- which backfired royally on both of them, when Ben just up and left Amanda after finding out from Vanessa that Amanda had paid Carter Bowden to show his art work -- making Ben feel emasculated), became increasingly paranoid that someone would find out that Amanda wasn't her biological daughter but Jennifer and Alan's. After Lucille made anonymous threatening phone calls to Amanda (where Lucille would just hang up the phone), Lucille arrived home to find Jennifer playing the piano (and Alan and Jane Marie's favorite song, Misty by Johnny Mathis) and tried to kill Jennifer with a gold-plated letter opener, shouting, "JANE MARIE!". Jennifer quickly whirled around to find Lucille behind her about to stab her, and Jennifer started fighting with the older woman. When Amanda came home with Ross, Lucille had ended up stabbing herself, and on her deathbed at Cedars ER Lucille falsely told Amanda that Jennifer had stabbed her in cold blood. When Mike defended Jennifer of murder charges, with Ross now District Attorney and out for blood, Jennifer wouldn't offer any defense. Jennifer also refused to meet with either Alan or Jane Marie's brother, Chet. In March 1981, after Derek (who was now working for Mike) investigated and found Alan's new private investigator, Joe Bradley (Michael J. Stark) in Chet's hotel room, Mike decided to put Jennifer on the witness stand in her own defense while Derek brought both Alan and Chet into the courtroom. In emotional scenes (interrupted by CBS News reports of the shooting of President Ronald Reagan; the producers later showed these scenes as part of Jennifer Richards' flashbacks due to the amount of phone calls into CBS's switchboard angry with the interruption), it was revealed that Amanda was the biological daughter of both Alan and Jennifer. Amanda suffered a miscarriage (of her and Ben's baby) due to the stress of the emotions of finding out the truth (in 1997, in a major rewrite, Amanda by then played by Toby Poser learned that her father was Brandon Spaulding and Alan was her brother -- a storyline move that was unpopular with many long time viewers).

Shortly after the original reveal of Amanda being Alan and Jennifer's biological daughter, Eve Stapleton started being chased around by a stalker (the suspects were many including Vanessa -- who sent Eve a dead rat through the mail -- and Amanda). But in the end Amanda, upon finding many of her personal items missing from the Wexler main house, discovered that her uncle Chet was the one stalking Eve when Amanda found a shrine to herself in Chet's hotel room. Fearing that something horrible was about to happen, Amanda rushed to the Wexler estate's cottage, and saw Chet pointing a gun at Eve's head. Amanda and Ben provided a distraction, and Amanda tried to talk her uncle to giving himself up, but Chet refused. After releasing Eve, Chet tried to make a run for it, but the police shot him. As Chet lay dying at Cedars, he admitted to Amanda the only reason he was stalking Eve was to protect her failing marriage to Ben, and Chet told Amanda he loved her with his dying words. A grieved Amanda returned to playing with dolls, but Ben gave her the strength again to put away the dolls, and Amanda became a very capable businesswoman working beside her "father", Alan, at Spaulding. Amanda would later grant Ben a divorce, and Ben and Eve would remarry and then leave town in November1982.

While all of this was going on, Nola Reardon was also continuing in her pursuit of Kelly Nelson. To that end Nola used several people, and then would get herself pregnant. First she gave Morgan birth control pills, in case she wanted to take Tim to bed, knowing that would get Morgan in trouble with Jennifer. She then kept plying Tim with alcohol, despite Ed, Sara and Kelly's best effort to keep Tim clean and sober. And then she set up Tim to see Morgan and Kelly kissing, and then set Tim and Kelly against each other fighting several times. Floyd kept being a nuisance to Nola's plan, telling Nola she loved her. But Nola had an idea to use Floyd, especially when her mother, Bea, tried to have Nola see that marrying Floyd might not be the worse thing. Twice Nola plied Kelly with alcohol and put him in her bed nude. Then she went and had sex with Floyd in another room in the Boarding House, with Kelly and Floyd none the wiser. Although one time in the fall 1980, Bea and Kelly's visiting father, Dr. Frank Nelson (Keith Charles), nearly caught Nola in the act of setting this up. She got the ever increasingly suspicious Hillary away from Kelly, by telling Kelly the falsehood that Hillary and Derek Colby were having an affair (with Kelly punching out a confused Derek and calling off his relationship with an equally confused Hillary). Nola finally found herself pregnant shortly after Christmas 1980. She told everyone that it was Kelly's child, even though Nola knew full well it was Floyd's. Hillary and Bea knew that Nola was lying, but weren't sure how to get Nola to tell the truth.

In March 1981, after Kelly and Tim saved Morgan from the clutches of criminal Duke Lafferty, Kelly and Morgan seemed to grow closer -- so Nola reminded Kelly that she was pregnant with "his" child. Then a very unlikely person entered this scenario, when Vanessa started becoming closer to Ed after Rita left Springfield, Vanessa hired Joe Bradley to find Rita to make sure she stayed gone for good. Joe was staying at the Boarding House at this time, when Joe's relationship with Diane Ballard started to grow complicated as Diane and Joe tried to one upmanship in their mutual desire to bring down Alan Spaulding and take over Spaulding Enterprises. When Vanessa visited Joe at the Boarding House she took an instant disliking to Nola (and the feelings were mutual), and Vanessa accidentally caught Nola in one of her lies about the timing of when she became pregnant, and also talking to Tim into getting drunk (which Vanessa knew from her relationship with Ed was the last thing Tim needed). Vanessa thought of Nola as nothing but a gutter snipe, and went to Hillary about her suspicions. Sure enough in a rather violent way, things were about to come to ahead. At their senior prom, Tim (Kevin Bacon by this time had vacated the role, so he could co-star in the movie, Diner and Tim was being played by Christopher Mercantel) was bullied into drinking by some of his classmates who had no clue to Tim's alcoholic past. Tim then got angry with his date, Morgan in the drive home, when Morgan wouldn't deny that she stil loved Kelly. Tim wrapped his car around a tree sending Morgan into a coma for several weeks. That's when Hillary found out from Cedars OB-GYN Dr. Margaret Sedwick (Margaret Gwinver) that something was fishy about the timing as to when Nola became pregnant. Hillary told Bea about the descrepancy, and just before Morgan awoke from her coma, Bea confronted her daughter about who the father really was. Nola finally had to admit to Bea that she was pregnant not with Kelly's baby, but Floyd's. Unfortunately for Nola the admission came out well Kelly, Floyd, Tim and Vanessa were all at the Boarding House. After this Kelly reamed Nola the riot act, and went and married Morgan (after they were married in August 1981, Vigard was let go, and Morgan was recast with actress Jennifer Clarke). Tim finally realized he needed help with his drinking problem, and went to rehab. Later he would marry nurse Trudy Wilson (Amy Steel) who had pined after Tim for a long time. Around this same time, Sara married her longtime friend, Adam Thorpe (Robert Milli), Roger Thorpe's father, and Sara, Adam, Tim and Trudy would all relocate to Oregon, in 1983.

Vanessa considered Nola the town trollope, and Floyd asked Nola to marry him. Nola was tempted to get an abortion, but Nola's older brother, Anthony "Tony" Reardon (Gregory Beecroft) (Bea's third oldest child) came back to town and talked Nola out of it. Nola then decided to marry Floyd, but on their wedding day, at the courthouse, instead of Nola saying yes, instead she said, "I don't", and walked away realizing she wasn't in love with Floyd and didn't want to be trapped in a loveless marriage with a man she didn't even respect. Many in Springfield wondered how Nola was going to provide for herself and her baby, and very soon the answer to that was going to be provided in a most surpising way.

Around this time August - September 1981, then Executive Producer Allan Potter made some major casting changes that didn't necessarily sit well with many viewers of the time. Besides changing the red-haired Kristen Vigard out with the blonde haired Jennifer Clarke, Potter also changed Mart Hulswit who had played Dr. Ed Bauer since 1969, with a slightly younger actor named Peter Simon. It did take a while for many viewers to relate to Simon, but eventually they did, but in the fall of 1981 it was rather jarring. It didn't help matters that at the same time Maeve Kinkead, who played Vanessa was pregnant and Potter granted Kinkead a rather generous maternity leave, until February of the next year. Kinkead was replaced temporarily with actress, Anna Stuart right while the relationship between Vanessa and Ed was heating up and Vanessa was lying many times to Ed. Vanessa as played by Stuart even did the same thing to Ed, she attempted with Ross Marler, and went over to Ed's house clothed in nothing but a furcoat. Also around this time, Procter & Gamble changed the opening of Guiding Light to keep up with the more youth oriented ABC soaps, from the opening used since 1975 of a tree with sunlight shining through to a disco opening (with scenes of characters or group of characters in several action shots) with a theme from Jack Le Bont. This opening was also jarring for many viewers and didn't seem to go over well, it would continue to be the opening theme for the show until June 1983.

In the fall of 1981 Doug Marland wrote a grand murder mystery revolving around two characters that would involve half the canvas of the show, and would be the introduction of two storylines involving characters who ended up being not who they seemed to be. Shortly before the fall of 1981, Ross Marler ended his relationship with Eve Stapleton McFarren, seeing how Eve was now back with Ben McFarren or at least working on their relationship. Ben also quit as the graphic artist at Spaulding Enterprises, and helped Diane Ballard find another graphic designer. The choice that Ben and Diane came up with was a woman from Milwaukee named Carrie Todd (Jane Elliot). Elliot was a popular soap opera actress that Marland had known from his days writing for ABC's General Hospital (which was the number one rated soap at that time). Elliot moved from California to New York with the promise by Marland of a fabulous storyline for the character of Carrie. Carrie was introduced to Ross, and it was love at first sight. Carrie was the total antithesis of Ross' character. Whereas Ross was very strict, even to the point of what many would say was "uptight" and didn't really relate to a healthy lifestyle; Carrie was into being carefree (or so it seemed) and led a very healthy lifestyle of eating vegetables, doing yoga and other exercises. Ross never met a woman like Carrie, and the two hit it off with Ross adopting many of Carrie's lifestyle choices (or at least trying to). (Jerry verDorn and Jane Elliot also seemed to hit it off). Very soon Carrie and Ross moved into together, and then got engaged.

Unfortunately as is usually the case, on most soap operas, things weren't really that rosy between the two of them. Ross was let on to the secret that his brother Justin Marler and Jackie Marler (now being played by Carrie Mowery), who had gotten remarried after Elizabeth Spaulding left the country, were actually the biological parents of Phillip Spaulding. Ross had also used Amanda to further his career, and Diane Ballard knew that Ross still carried a torch for the still emotionally fragile Amanda. Diane also was still after getting control of Spaulding, and started threatening not only Justin, Jackie and Ross, but also Alan (Diane had gotten from Roger Thorpe's apartment the affadavits from de Vilar, and an audiotape that Roger had made detailing his blackmailing of Alan). Diane tried to force Alan, and Ross to remove Phillip from Alan's will. Diane also was blackmailing Henry Chamberlain about the fact that he had an affair with a woman named, Stephanie Ryan before he married Vanessa's mother, and that Henry and Stephanie had a son named, Sean Ryan, that Henry had lost track of and had no idea where he was (Diane would tell Henry she knew where Sean was, whether she did or not is questionable). Diane also had tried to seduce Andy Norris before he was arrested, and while Andy was being set up by Alan and Mike Bauer to be arrested, Diane stole all of the information that Andy had in his possession including the fact that Alan and Rita had an affair, and that Vanessa had Rita's supposed new address in San Francisco (although Joe Bradley might have given Vanessa a false lead). Diane had broken things off with Joe, and she found out some unidentified information about Joe that could ruin his private investigation business. Diane would use the information against Henry and Vanessa, and also the fact that Derek Colby had expressed interest in Vanessa, to have Derek force Henry and Vanessa to sign over their stock in Spaulding to her, or Diane would go to Alan and let him know that Henry had signed a deal with Jocelyn Electronics that would benefit Henry and his daughter over Alan's family. And unbeknownst to everyone else in town, Carrie and Diane had a past, that Carrie and Diane were mortal enemies. Everything came to ahead when Alan fired Diane, and Diane threatened Alan that she'd let it be known how Alan had "bought" Phillip as his son and that Phillip wasn't really a Spaulding. Diane had also gotten access to enough stock to force Alan out of his own company. Unfortunately for Diane, before she could oust Alan, she was killed by a blow to the head when she was pushed into her fireplace mantel. (In a gruesome scene Vanessa as played by Stuart came to see Diane and found her body {or Landon Geier's body} strewn against the fireplace mantel her head bludgeoned).

Right away it was known, by the audience, that Joe had stolen all of Diane's blackmail items out of her apartment, and Joe tried to blackmail Alan in turn. Also the affair between Rita and Alan came out when the pregnant Hope Bauer Spaulding (who had overheard an argument between Alan and Henry about the affair) ran her car into a tree and gave birth prematurely to their son, Alan-Michael Spaulding. Joe, in trying to go around Mike and the police to investigate Diane's death, let it be known in flashbacks told to the audience not only was he in Diane's apartment the night she was killed, but so was Henry and Vanessa Chamberlain, Justin and Jackie Marler, and Alan Spaulding. But Joe was confused, because although he had thrown Diane against the fireplace mantel, she was still alive when he left her apartment. As Joe was leaving the crime scene he saw a mysterious woman in a beige overcoat come to Diane's roped off apartment and when Joe finally realized who the woman was (it was Carrie), it was too late. Carrie followed Joe to his hotel room in the nearby town of Clayton (he had since moved out of the Boarding House), where Joe was typing up a further blackmail note to Alan, and as would be learned later Carrie and Joe ended up in a struggle over both the blackmail information from Diane's apartment and Joe's gun. Joe would end up on the losing end of this struggle, and Mike and the police found Joe's body, face down, with a bullett through his chest (a gruesome scene replayed several times with a bloody chested Michael J. Stark, along with Diane being thrown against the fireplace mantel, yet again, by Carrie, into the end of January 1982).

Mike and the police immediately assumed that Alan was Joe's killer, and Mike followed Alan, Hope and Alan-Micheal on a honeymoon trip to the island country of Tenerife, in October 1981, where some mysterious one-eyed man (the other eye had a patch over it) was trying to kill Alan, but almost killed Mike (Alan saved Mike's life, when Alan realized he couldn't let his father-in-law die) and returned to Springfield, where eventually he'd be arrested and sent to prison for his role in covering up Roger Thorpe's "death" in June 1979.

Back in Springfield, it would be learned by Ross that Carrie was the murderer of Joe and Diane, when Ross found all of Diane's blackmail information in Carrie's apartment. Ed also found out about Vanessa knowing about Rita's new address when he overheard a conversation between Vanessa and his supposedly soon to be brother-in-law, Derek Colby, about Vanessa letting Ed know the truth. Vanessa then mysteriously left town (Stuart also left the canvas). Carrie also mysterious disappeared only to show up in Chicago hitting up Jackie's father, Emmet, for money, so she could have parties and dance all over town. Ross followed Carrie to Chicago and brought her back to Springfield, where Ross defended Carrie in a murder trial (showing how Marland continued to not always have every character know every other character, in town, had one of the jury members be Bea Reardon). When the truth about Diane and Carrie's past in Milwaukee came to light (the short story, Diane and Carrie Anderson had worked at a firm named, Laird & Sogard, and so did the first man that Carrie married, Todd MacKenzie. When Diane found out Todd was cooking the books, she started blackmailing him. A pregnant Carrie found out, and when Todd committed suicide, Carrie blamed Diane for his death. And she gave the baby boy up for adoption). Carrie then told the court that when she went to Joe's hotel room she tried to get him to turn in the information he had to the police, but Joe refused, so they got into a struggle where Joe's gun accidentally went off and he was killed. Carrie was exonerated when the jury declared both deaths an accident. Shortly after Carrie and Ross married on Valentine's Day, 1982. Ross took Carrie to Seattle, for their honeymoon, where it turned out that Ross had a surprise for Carrie that her son with Todd was adopted by a couple named Howard and Betty Long. Carrie and Ross seemed to be finally happy, but Marland had other things in store for this couple. Ed would also find his true love (and fourth wife) when Bea's second child, Maureen Reardon (Ellen Dolan) came to Springfield, and after some personal struggles, Ed and Maureen (or Mo as she was called) would be married in March 1983.

Nola continued to look for work (to support her and the unborn baby that she continued to deny was Floyd's), and stay with her somewhat ditzy friend and hairdresser, Gracie Middleton (Lori Shelle). Nola tried to get a job to replace Diane Ballard, but the Spaulding Enterprises' human resources took one look at the punk hairstyle Gracie talked Nola into getting and said an affirmative "no" to Nola. But Marland would soon have Nola paired with the man who she did get employed by, as his house manager. Ultimately, Nola reformed, and had a popular romance with the mysterious archeologist Quinton "Quint" McCord (Michael Tylo). (Nola as a fan of old, classic movies, and her storyline with Quint was written to echo the film Rebecca.) Quint was later revealed to be the half-brother of the spoiled Vanessa. (Sean Ryan that Diane Ballard had blackmailed Henry over.) Quint in 1983, after he proposed to Nola and also fought off one of his archeology rivals, the evil Silas Crocker (Benjamin Hendrickson} who was killed in a cave-in in Tanquir, changed his last name to Chamberlain.

Nola would give birth to a daughter named, Kelly Louise Reardon, shortly after New Year's Day 1982. Nola would try and continue to pass off the child as Kelly's, but Floyd continued to pester her about the child. Dragged into this unwittingly was Hillary Bauer and Derek Colby. Nola's brother, Tony knew Derek from high school, and wasn't particularly happy that Hillary (who Tony had taken a shine to) was engaged to Derek. So a few times, Tony roughed up Derek. Vanessa picking up on some rough patch between Hillary and Derek, and wanting to get Nola in trouble, wrote Derek a letter that Vanessa forged Nola's signature to where she detailed an affair between Hillary and Tony. Derek got mad and left town, after confronting a confused Hillary, never to be seen from again (this was the first of three unpopular cast departures, in the late spring, early summer of 1982, this one for Harley Venton). Tony confronted an equally confused Nola about the letter, at Kelly Louise's christening, in June 1982, and it all came out about the baby being Floyd's biological daughter, and not Kelly's. Nola and Quint would later change Kelly Louise's first name to Anastasia (or "Stacey" for short) for one of Nola's favorite motion picture characters, and the Louise was kept because of Katie and Floyd Parker's mother. Quint would forgive Nola, but Floyd continued to pester her, even though Floyd seemed to find some happiness with new Cedars nurse Lesley Ann Monroe (Carolyn Ann Clark), and especially after Floyd's dreams of a rock star career came to a screeching halt after, Floyd found out about Lesley Ann being pressured by new in town oil businessman Joshua "Josh" Lewis (played by Robert Newman who has held the role of Josh off and on from October 1981 to the present day in 2005 and very possibly into 2006) about Lesley Ann's past as a prostitute in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Floyd punched out Josh.

While not focusing on the working-class Reardon family he so loved, Marland brought in a disco set, with Nola and Maureen's brother, Tony, opening up a nightclub known as "Wired For Sound", with many muscial guest stars (Neil Sedaka), (Ashford & Simpson), (Bee Gees), (Bertie Higgins),(B-52's), (Judy Collins), (and Floyd's rock group, Sour Grapes), etc. Marland also introduced some of Josh's other family, including Trish Lewis (Rebecca Hollen) (actually shortly before he'd introduce Josh in 1981). Trish had originally been married to Andy Norris (and Andy had been very physically abusive to her; Trish helped Mike, Alan and the Springfield police capture and arrest Andy) and then in a romance with Tony Reardon, but later would be in an affair with Alan Spaulding, after Alan was released from prison, she'd also hook up for a while with Ross Marler in 1983 - 1984. Josh and Trish would talk about their father Harlan Billy Lewis I (later played, starting in 1983, by Larry Gates who had previously in the 1970s played a District Attorney named Ira Newton) (who had found their oil company) that both Alan, and the company Josh, Amanda and Ross founded, Los Tres Amigos both wanted to have working with them, and also talked about their older brother Harlan Billy Lewis II -- known as just Billy (later played, starting in 1983, by Jordan Clarke, who had played in the 1970s a doctor Tim Ryan who had been involved with Rita Stapleton before she hooked up with Ed).

As it turned out, Carrie Marler's problems were due to her having a multiple personality disorder. As one of the split personalities known as Carrie Anderson (or Carrie #2 for short), Carrie seduced Josh Lewis into her bed, seduced the next door neighbor boy, Ron Kennedy to lose his virginity to her, and also put herself in bed with Justin (which both Jackie and Ross both found out about) and Carrie #2 falsely accused Justin and herself of having an affair. Carrie #1 or the original personality, Carrie Todd Marler came to, she was very confused and outraged at Ross' accusations. Things came to ahead in May 1982, when Carrie #2 came to Josh's office and screamed hysterically, at Josh that he had promised to marry her once she divorced Ross. Derek Colby overheard this, and Carrie #2 came out and kissed Derek on the cheek (which totally embarrased Derek, especially when Ross showed up and Carrie #2 ran off; Derek had apparently felt slightly guilty about this kiss when he confronted Hillary about the letter supposedly from "Nola" about Hillary's "affair" with Tony Reardon). Josh would also have an affair with Morgan Nelson, whose modeling career Josh was funding, which would later lead to the break-up of Morgan and Kelly's marriage. Later in the month, Carrie #2 would attempt to kill Ross with a pair of sewing scissors, but luckily before Carrie #2 could do so, Carrie #1 came to, and Ross got her to go to Dr. Sara McIntyre for treatment. Unfortunatly Sara didn't know if she had enough resources to make Carrie whole, but did get a third personality, Carrie McKenzie (or Carrie #3) a childlike personality, to give her strength to Carrie #1 to help her heal, and then Carrie was sent off to England for treatment with a specialist. Carrie also called Jackie, to apologize, before she left (Jackie had went off to stay with her father in May 1982, after "discovering" the "affair" between Justin and Carrie), and Jackie began making her way home to Justin, Phillip and their recently born (also September 1981) daughter, Samantha Marler, but Jackie would be killed in a plane crash before she could make it home.

These storylines sent Guiding Light 's ratings on an uptick. But Marland quit in 1982 due to a dispute over treatment of his friend Jane Elliot, when the Carrie multiple personality disorder storyline didn't carry Guiding Light's ratings to #1 ironically above its rival, General Hospital (where Elliot had been taken from to play Carrie). Elliot was fired by Allen Potter, and Marland decided to end storyline for both Derek Colby (Venton wanted to go to California, anyway, to persue acting jobs for the upcoming 1982 - 1983 primetime season) and also Jackie Marler, by killing her in the plane crash (although her body has never been recovered). Also before Marland quit, Guiding Light won its second Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding Daytime Drama, for the 1981 - 1982 television season, and despite Marland's departure things looked very well for this long time CBS drama.

But all was not well. After Marland's departure, Procter & Gamble brought in a rapid succession of three head writers, with only the last of the three seeming to reach out to what the audience really wanted to see. Guiding Light's ratings themselves seemed to go into a nose-dive and the show fell out of the top five in the ratings of the soaps on the air. From June 1982 to November 1983 many of the stories shown became overcontrived and some very convoluted to many audience members. The first two headwriters brought in, Pat Falken Smith and L. Virginia Browne tried to make a close to many of the storylines that were started late in Marland's term as headwriter. But many of these stories seemed to take very bizarre twists and turns.

Vanessa Chamberlain was put into an odd relationship with the lower middle class, Tony Reardon, when her friend Trish Lewis recommended Tony to help with some repairs in her apartment. Tony would break up with Vanessa, after Nola and Hillary let Tony know about Vanessa's role in getting Derek Colby to leave Hillary.

Nola and Quint would marry in a very romantic ceremony (although Nola would have to catch a ride in the back of a fire engine when she was almost late to the ceremony), and then during their honeymoon Nola and Quint were caught up in an oddly written ghost story during their honeymoon (Nola would also give birth to a son, in May 1984, the producers at the time had the audience get caught up in a baby naming contest, and the name that won was Anthony James Chamberlain. But in 1995 - 1996, when Nola and her son made a return appearance in Springfield, the name of the SORASed son was just, "J" Chamberlain).

The affair between Alan and Trish became more convoluted and when it came out during the time Browne was writing the show in the summer of 1983, it would lead to Hope Bauer Spaulding becoming an alcoholic as her uncle Ed and grandfather had been. (There were some great scenes with Elvira Russell during these episodes, but the writing was considered flat). Hope would take Alan-Michael out of town, to New York City, in November 1983 (the first of several Bauers that would soon leave the show).

Floyd Parker lost all his money and prestige as a rock star, after staying for a time in the Spaulding mansion while Alan was in prison, after punching out his manager Josh Lewis But Floyd wouldn't stop seeing Lesley Ann Monroe. Lesley Ann started to find herself attracted to Cedars Hospital administrator Warren Andrews (Warren Burton). Warren was put into place as administrator (after Adam Thorpe, who'd previously held the position, left Springfield), by a health care organization, and immediately butted heads with Dr. Ed Bauer, the longtime Cedars chief-of-staff. Warren would even end up hiring Ed's wife, Maureen, as the vice administrator, after the writers decided to have Maureen miscarry their child (a child Ed at first said to Kelly he felt too old to have). Also Hillary and Katie went very underused as characters.

But probably the most bizarre storyline revolved around the mystery of the men that Marland had set up to kill Alan back in the fall of 1981. The whole mystery seemed to revolve around a man named, Samuel Pasquin, who would turn out to be really Spaulding employee, Mark Evans (Mark Pinter) who got Jennifer Richards to marry him, but then had an affair with her and Alan's daughter, Amanda Spaulding. In the end, in April and May 1983, this storyline would be convoluted to the point of dragging in both Nola Reardon and Quinton Chamberlain. Mark would end up falling to his death taking another woman along with him, as he was about to kill both Amanda and Quint.

Near the end of Browne's tenure as headwriter, there was a new story born that used the returning Bill Bauer (for about a week) and Tony finding some mysterious film in a camera that his father owned. This storyline would introduce to the canvas both H.B. and Billy Lewis, as the mystery of a certain picture developed by Tony deepened. Tony met the love of his life during this story, English professor, Annabelle Sims (Harley Jane Kozak). But Annabelle's father, navy man, Eli Sims (Stephen Joyce) was another matter. For the whole storyline focused on the fact that Eli had not only killed his wife and therefore Annabelle's mother, Annie (Kozak in a dual role), back in 1963, but had also killed Tom Reardon (Gregory Beecroft in a dual role) when he caught not only Tom, but also H.B., Henry Chamberlain, Bill Bauer and Alan's father, Brandon Spaulding (played in these flashbacks by John Wardell), carrying on with Annie during a fishing expedition just outside of Springfield. After Eli was caught, with him almost blowing up half the town (or at least half of the show's canvas of characters), with Ross Marler saving everyone, the mystery of Tom's disappearance and death was cleared up. For a while Bea was mad at Henry for keeping the mystery a secret, but later forgave him. And the Reardons welcomed Annabelle into their family, with Tony and Annabelle marrying in May 1984.

Warren and Lesley Ann would also marry in the spring 1984, but only after a jealous Floyd told Warren all about Lesley Ann's past and Lesley Ann nearly committed suicide, but Katie and Floyd stopped her from doing so.

Despite the meandering and convoluted plots in the calendar year, 1983, the casting of the show was excellent, and before Allen Potter was forced out as Executive Producer, in the middle of 1983, and replaced by Gail Kobe the characters of Rick Bauer (Michael O'Leary) (Ed and Leslie Jackson Bauer's son) and Phillip Spaulding (Grant Aleksander) were SORASed (another name for Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome) reintroduced as older teenagers, and brought on was the character of Beth Raines (Judi Evans) and the Lewises were made prominent with the success of the primetime show, Dallas and the cancellation of Procter & Gamble's soap, Texas, by introducing Billy's vivacious daughter, Melinda Sue "Mindy" Lewis (Krista Tesreau). Beth was living in an abusive situation with her stepfather, Bradley Raines (James Rebhorn), and with her mother Cedars nurse, Lillian Raines (Tina Sloan, who has been with the show since her introduction in May 1983). Phillip, Rick, Mindy and Beth would go through high school together, and then college. They would affectionally be known as the Four Muskateers. Bradley though, with Mindy's unwitting help, would find out the truth about Phillip's birth and tell him before Alan and Justin had a chance too, and for a while Phillip refused to accpet both men back in his life. He'd forgive Justin before the end of 1983, but not Alan. Beth would also be raped by Bradley, which would halt the romance building between Phillip and Beth.

A permanent replacement headwriter was finally found in Pam Long (who originally started writing in fall 1983 with Richard Culliton). Long was an actress who had appeared on the recently cancelled P&G soap Texas and, in an unusual move, was given the headwriter reins in its last months. Along with executive producer Gail Kobe, she refocused the show around Rick Bauer, Phillip Spaulding, Mindy Lewis and Beth Raines, with Phillip and Beth running away to New York City to escape the dangerous Bradley (who would end up in prison for the rape), Beth and Phillip & then Rick and Mindy nearly became seperate married couples (until Billy found out that Mindy was pregnant with Phillip's child and Billy forced Mindy and Phillip to marry. Mindy shortly after miscarried the child and both Phillip and Mindy, divorced and then tried to get back to their first loves, Beth and Rick, but both of them had since moved on).

Trish was gradually phased out and the character and actress left in 1985, with occassional visits afterwards. Josh went from a cad to a brooding young hero. Billy "tamed" Vanessa and in retaliation, and in jealousy Alan brought Billy's ex-wife Reva (Kim Zimmer) to town to break them up. Reva soon fell back into the arms of her true love Josh ("Bud"), but along the way managed to marry or sleep with a variety of men, including Josh's own father! (Zimmer would win the first of three, Daytime Emmy awards for her portrayal of Reva, in May 1984).

In 1984, Long also created the regal Alexandra Spaulding, and the show scored a casting coup by landing Beverlee McKinsey, who had a memorable run as Iris on Another World and Texas (TV series). The storyline of the Four Muskateers proved so popular that Guiding Light managed to dethrone then-powerhouse General Hospital from the top ratings spot. Also in 1984, two other popular characters created by Long, were Brandon "Lujack" Luvonazcek (Vincent Irizarry), who started out as a leader of an unruly gang called the Galahads, but then it was discovered that he was actually Alexandra's long lost son, that her father Brandon had her give up, and Alexandra's bratty former stepdaughter, India von Halkein (Mary Kay Adams) who would blackmail Phillip into marrying her after Phillip and Beth broke up. Lujack would later gain much respectability, after some future run-ins with the law, and after Phillip and Beth broke up Lujack and Beth would become popular lovers. Also introduced during this time was, temptress, Dr. Claire Ramsey (Susan Pratt, who would play the character from mid-1983 to the end of 1986 and reprise the role from 2000 to 2002), who would end up having a one-night stand with Ed Bauer, and having their child, Michelle (later played by Rachel Minor, Rebecca Budig, Joie Lenz and Nancy St. Alban) who was eventually adopted by Ed and Maureen. The success was short-lived though, as Long chose to write out or kill off nearly every Bauer (Hillary and Mike) and replace them with yet more new creations. When Charita Bauer died in February 1985, the show had never seemed more out of touch with its own roots. (Bert Bauer was said to have gone to stay with her sister-in-law Meta, when the actress first became ill; the character's death occurred off-camera in March 1986.)

The only positive thing around this time, was the change of openings from the LeBont opening to a slowed down version of the disco opening to one using a theme that became popular with much of the audience, My Guiding Light. This slow opening was used, with several different changes, from June 1983 to early in January 1991, and incorporated action or beauty shots of the characters in action or scenes.

From the spring of 1984 to the spring of 1985, several stories seemed to get even more convoluted and bizarre (mercifully many of these had very short term story arcs), yet again (even with Long still writing for the show). Such storylines as the Dreaming Death (that killed off the popular Lesley Ann Andrews, and meant that Alan Spaulding and his portrayor, Christopher Bernau departed, until 1986), the mystery surrounding the hauntings of Annabelle and Tony Reardon's cottage next to the Spaulding mansion (that near the end would bring in, Alexandra finding out that her father, Brandon was not dead after all -- as what Lucille Wexler was lead to believe, but was living in Barbados with an entire new branch of the Spaulding family), Vanessa giving birth to her and Billy's son and then getting hooked on a variety of different type of prescription drugs (a storyline and character point later revisted in a much better way in 1987), and finally Phillip being involved with a criminal named, Andy Ferris (Victor Slezak), who would end up blowing up a nightclub being built by Floyd Parker (who ended up winning the lottery in January 1984) and Lujack, that the explosion blinded Beth for a short time and then Andy being killed by being shot at Alexandra's Valentine's Day, 1985 party (with Lujack being arrested and imprisoned for a shorttime, and Floyd Parker being the one who shot Ferris, but only found out after he kidnapped India who knew the truth, and both Katie and Floyd Parker being written out), did not endure the audience to the show as it had under both Marland and in the early days of the Four Muskateers.

Another character introduced during the "Dreaming death" storyline was newspaper reporter, Fletcher Reade (Jay Hammer, Hammer had dropped his first name, Charles, and had written previously for the show, and was married to headwriter Pam Long, although a short time later Hammer and Long divorced, although Hammer would stay with the show until 1999). Near the end of this time, 1985, the Reardons were also nearly totally written out, with Bea coming back in the second half of 1986 (but leaving again, in 1987) and later, in fall 1986, the creation of Chelsea Reardon (Kassie DePaiva) (the youngest of Bea and Tom's children) helped somewhat, but the writing was on the wall when the ratings dropped, yet again.

Long left the show for a time, and the show went through a number of writers (and uneven stories such as the "Sampson Girl" pageant, the "Infinity" brainwashing story, the introduction of Vanessa and Ross' long lost love child, daughter, Dinah Marler who was found in a carnival as a roadie, and the "Paul Valere" murder story) until she returned in the summer of 1987. With the departure of Long, the stories became even more convoluted, but fortunately the casting of the show was still top-notched, with some of the characters and actors cast becoming favorites of much of the audience. Some of the characters introduced during this time were: Kyle Sampson (Larkin Malloy, coming off of playing popular Sky Whitney on the cancelled, Edge of Night). Kyle, was another Tulsa, Oklahoma businessman (Sampson, Industries) who would turn out to be the son of former prostitute, Miss Sally Gleason (Patricia Barry) from an affair she had with a Catholic cardinal, John Malone. Miss Sally also turned out to be the true biological mother of Billy Lewis, when it was revealed that unlike Trish and Josh's mother being "Miss Martha" (H.B.'s deceased wife), instead H.B. and Miss Sally had an affair that produced Billy.

Kyle got involved with Reva Shayne during the time that Josh left Springfield, and they both tried to help Reva's sister Roxie (Kristi Ferrell) and her boyfriend Rick Bauer, who had gone to Canada after Roxie had lost her memory. Roxie also brought back a Canadian citizen, who Rick almost had arrested for being in the U.S. illegally, Kurt Corday (Mark Lewis) who would end up marrying Mindy Lewis.

A little later, Reva and Roxie's father, Hawk Shayne (Gil Rogers) would show up in Springfield to help Miss Sally break up the budding romance of Reva and Kyle's, after Reva divorced H.B. But in an odd move, instead Miss Sally used an old family friend, and Springfield Journal newspaper editor, Maeve Stoddard (Leslie Denniston) to breakup the couple. A matter of fact, Maeve would find herself pregnant with Kyle's son (later named, Ben, who would later be played by Gregory Burke and much later by Matthew Bomer), and this would cause Reva to try to committ suicide. Reva would develop a relationship with Fletcher Reade, until Kyle learned that Fletcher was writing anonymous newspaper stories based on Reva's life.

Phillip (played during this time by John Bolger) had caught on to all of India's schemes to stay married to him, and he slowly got her out of his life (he would later become a novelist, and started redating Beth shortly before her supposed death in the summer of 1986). India then became involved with a magician named, Simon Hall (Shawn Thompson) who was using India to get to his true mark, Alexandra Spaulding. After Lujack was killed in an explosion, Simon showed up in Springfield and tried to pass himself off as the long lost uncle of Lujack and therefore Brandon's son and Alexandra's half-brother (Alexandra would later learn that Simon wasn't related to the Spauldings at all). Also introduced, around this time, was Calla Matthews (Lisby Larson, who was the sister of Lillian Raines) and her daughter, Jesse (Rebecca Ann Staab). Calla got re-involved with her high school sweetheart, Ross Marler, and Jesse lobbied for them to marry. Jesse would later get involved with Simon, despite her mom's protests, because Calla was hired as Alexandra's personal assistant. Calla though resisted both Lillian and Jesse's attempt to marry her off to Ross, and Ross and Vanessa at first suspected it was because Jesse was their long lost daughter, but later it would be revealed that Calla had contacted from her first husband a sexually transmitted disease.

For a while Claire would become Rick's medical school teacher at Cedar's, and nearly flunked him when it became apparent that Ed and Mo wouldn't comply with Claire's demands to give Michelle back to her. Claire would end up getting involved with the new marriage between Kyle and Maeve (as Maeve's doctor, but Fletcher would watch her every move not to hurt more of his friends), but in the meantime so did India, when India figured out that Kyle was paying for Reva's new house. Near the end of this time period, in the summer of 1986, Alan Spaulding (Christopher Bernau until the summer of 1988 and then played by Daniel Pilon until the winter of 1990) would come back to town and get involved with India and get her involved in an art forgery scam (Alan would later try and come between Vanessa and Billy, and much later with Reva and Josh, again). Alan had tried to convince Reva that the child she was pregnant with was really the departed Kyle's, but Reva would find out later that someone had doctored the paternity test results (this would be after Reva was briefly in a coma). It would also be learned that Claire's problems with others stemmed from her having a brain tumor, until a specialist named Mark Jarrett (Keir Dullea) entered the picture and operated on her and removed successfully the tumor. Claire changed Rick's grade back to an "A", and then left town for a long time with Dr. Jarrett, as Mrs. Jarrett.

In the fall of 1986, Grant Aleksander was brought back as Phillip Spaulding and briefly got engaged to Chelsea Reardon.

Long returned in the summer of 1987, and created several more substantial stories for Guiding Light, including, Vanessa's second bout of having a drug addiction problem, the creation of the Cooper family (a true lower class family) with the first two Coopers introduced being Harley (Beth Ehlers) and Frank (Frank DiCopoulos) (Alan had attempted to smuggle illegal drugs through Frank's garage), Ed's cousin, airline pilot Johnny Bauer (James Goodwin) having cancer, and then going in remission with Reva's sister, Roxie becoming mentally ill and being taken to Switzerland, when Roxie who was in love with Johnny and didn't know that he had gone into remission. Long also brought back a SORASed Alan-Michael Spaulding (then played by Carl Evans, later by Rick Hearst, Michael Dietz and currently by Michael Dempsey) who parachuted into the 1987 July 4th Bauer barbeque. Roxie and Reva's brother, Rusty Shayne (Terrell Anthony) who was a policeman, got into a relationship with Mindy Lewis (after Kurt Corday was killed in an oil-rig explosion) and later, Rose McLaren (Alexandra Neil) (whom he married). Fletcher adopted Kyle's son with Maeve, Ben, and then married her, only to have Maeve die in a helicopter crash.

Long also began writing the dramatic story of Josh's wife, psychiatrist, Soni Carerra (Michelle Forbes) and her alternate personality Solita . The story featured a strong performance by Forbes, although the 1988 writer's strike caused the plot to go wildly off course. Soni would also get involved for a while with Alan.

Long plotted a storyline (before the writer's strike) where Phillip tried to use many people in Springfield (including Reva, Henry, Alexandra and Alan-Michael) to oust Alan as President of Spaulding Enterprises (this story was reminiscent of many of the real life business scandals taking place at the time; this was also Christopher Bernau's last huge storyline before his departure). There were some wonderful scenes presented where Phillip was able to successfully take down Alan for many of his past crimes, but afterwards Phillip started feeling guilty and didn't know how to handle finally being near the top. A little while later Reva followed Alan (Daniel Pilon) to Venezuela to track down Soni, but met up with the character of Blake Lindsey (at the time played by Elizabeth Dennehy, a little later played by Sherry Stringfield and much later played by Elizabeth Keifer; although Keifer was to play the character the longest from July 1992 to the present day), who at first seemed to be working for Alan. But when Blake was introduced to Phillip, Blake turned into an agent provocateur. Just as Soni's multiple personality disorder storyline had gone off course during the writer's strike, so did the story involving Blake. During the writer's strike it was revealed that Blake was the SORASed Christina Thorpe, Holly's daughter with Roger. Holly returned to Springfield, followed by the resurrection, in 1989, of Roger Thorpe. For a while, after Alan was sent to prison for nearly killing Blake and Phillip, at their first aborted wedding attempt, Roger would get involved with Soni Carrera (after she was supposedly "cured" of her multiple personality disorder).

In the last year of the 1980s, it would be revealed to everyone how dangerous the man who had originally helped Soni, covered up her multiple personality disorder was, and also doctored Reva's paternity test results (to keep Josh and Reva apart, so Soni and he could go after the Lewises' money), fellow psychiatrist Will Jeffries (Joseph Breen) when he first kidnapped Marah Lewis (Ashley Peldon); Reva's daughter with Josh (and tried to set up first, Elise played for one day by Calista Flockhart who was Marah's babysitter, then Soni and then his mother as the culprit), then he killed Rose McLaren Shayne and finally tried to kill Mindy, after he married her, until Will ended up falling off a cliff to his death (almost taking Mindy with him, but she was saved by Soni and Josh). Soni would leave Springfield (and Forbes the show) shortly after this, when Soni realized that Roger was not healthy for her continuing recovery.

One other storyline that intrigued viewers during 1989 was one that started during the writer's strike, but Long seemed to flesh out a lot better after the strike. In the fall of 1988, Rick Bauer met, got engaged and then married Fletcher Reade's sister and fellow doctor, Dr. Meredith Reade (Nicolette Goulet, the daughter of Robert Goulet). Somehow though, during a time when Phillip was questioning his relationship with Blake and also Harley Cooper getting involved and about to marry Alan-Michael, Phillip and Meredith ended up having romantic tryst. Meredith ended up pregnant with Phillip's child, but told Rick (when he became suspicious that it wasn't his child) that the child was some man she met at a medical conference. Later Rick discovered the truth, when Meredith miscarried the child (out of guilt), and Rick and Phillip, whose friendship was severely tested, ended up having many fights about this (wonderful scenes between O'Leary and Aleksander). Later after Meredith left town, Rick started to become concerned for Phillip's sanity when Phillip became convinced that Beth Raines was still alive (after Phillip had married Blake, this time for real and without Alan and Roger's interference). Of course in the end, Rick and Phillip would make amends when it was revealed that Blake and Roger were trying to cover up Beth really truly being alive in an attempt to keep Blake and Phillip's marriage alive (Blake briefly had Phillip placed in a mental institution).

Long also introduced in 1989, the first fully realized African-American characters, on Guiding Light of Gilly Grant (Amelia Marshall) who worked at WSPR-TV with both Holly and Roger, and a friend of Billy's, former professional football player Hampton Speakes (Vince Williams), and also introduced the illegitimate son of Billy and Reva's, Dylan Lewis (Morgan Englund), who had an affair with Harley, earlier, that produced a child named Daisy, who was adopted by the LeMays and renamed Susan (Susan and her adopted father, Jim played by Brittany Snow and Anthony Addabbo would become part of the landscape at the end of the 1990s).

Long penned Reva's assumed death (she drove her car into the Florida Keys in a postpartum depression after delivering son Shayne) but had a clash with CBS and Proctor & Gamble executives who resisted the introduction of the Weiss family, a Jewish family she had hoped to introduced by mixing fashion designer Matt Weiss with the characters of Harley Cooper and Mindy Lewis. Long left the show in early 1991 and was replaced by a triumvirate of writers, including headwriter Nancy Curlee and James Reilly, who would go on to write Days of Our Lives and create Passions.

Guiding Light - 1990s

By the early 1990s, the Bauers, Spauldings, Lewises, and the Coopers had been established as core families in the fictional midwestern city of Springfield. Added to the Coopers (Harley and Frank) were Buzz Cooper (Justin Deas) who had abandoned his wife Nadine (Jean Carol) and two children, Harley and Frank after his experiences in the Vietnam War. In the fall of 1993 added to the Cooper's would be Buzz's other child, Lucy Cooper (Sonia Satra), who was his child with a woman he met and later "married" in Arizona, whose name the audience only knew as Sylvie (who was identified as being from Sweden, and a nurse Buzz met at a V.A. Hospital). Lucy would get involved and later marry, Alan-Michael Spaulding (who had previously been married to Blake Thorpe -- as had Phillip Spaulding -- and then Harley Cooper and then Frank's eventual wife, Eleni Andros, a Greek immigrant played very well by a young, Melina Kanakaredes and later by, Jennifer Roszell).

The Reardons also returned, somewhat at this time, in the guise of Bea Reardon's second son (younger than her son Dr. Jim Reardon played by Michael Woods, who had been involved in the Dreaming Death and the Barbados Spaulding storylines and then left in February 1985; but older than Tony), Sean Reardon's children, Bridget Reardon (Melissa Hayden) introduced and living for a while with Ed and Maureen (Bridget would also have the first child that was a grandson of Roger Thorpe's, Peter Lewis Reardon; Roger's long lost son, Hart Jessup -- played by Frank Grillo and others was Peter's father -- Peter was adopted for a while by Billy and Vanessa Lewis), and also Matthew "Matt" Reardon (Kurt McKinney; Bridget's older brother) who would end up having a May - December romance and then marriage with Vanessa after Billy was sent to prison for attempting to murder Roger, in 1994. Chelsea Reardon though would leave in early 1991.

In January 1991, the opening was changed again, as the opening tune changed from My Guiding Light to Hold On to Love. The first new opening showed a lighthouse. Inside of the beams of light from the lighthouse were clips of characters from the show. These scenes changed as characters, actors and actresses came and went. And there were both jazzier versions of the theme, as well as slowed down and vocal versions of the theme song played at various times up to the spring of 1997. In the spring of 1997, especially with the departure of Michael Zaslow, it was decided to get rid of the scenes and just show a short excerpt of the lighthouse, with a much shorter version of Hold On To Love. The final version of this opening that started in 1997 would stay with the show until the fall of 2001.

The realism of the early 1990s was in stark contrast to the mid-1980s, when self-described "Slut of Springfield," Reva Shayne (played by Kim Zimmer) was Guiding Light's central character and storylines tended to be more campy. In fact, executive producer Jill Farren Phelps believed the show was so good without her she didn't approach Zimmer to return even though Zimmer was available. For a time, Phelps was right; the show had become much more of an ensemble piece, with several key players.

Before Long departed as headwriter, in January 1991, she presented a couple of storylines and reintroduced two characters, that appealed to Phelps' vision of an ensemble piece. Katell Plevin was introduced as a character named Dana Jones who pretended to be Beth Raines (during the time when Rick thought Phillip was losing his sanity). Later Dana got involved with Rick, but Rick dumped her when he found out her role in supposedly "playing" Beth. Dana then got involved with Frank Cooper, and they even got engaged. Around this same time Chelsea Reardon and Johnny Bauer got engaged, and Chelsea's college friend, and teacher, Rae Rooney (Allison Daugherty) came to Springfield to be Chelsea's matron of honor. But then Chelsea started to pick up a stalker (originally thought to be crazed fan of Johnny's, due to Johnny being a talk show host and singer on WSPR-TV). Chelsea nearly lost her life, two times (once due to someone trying to kill her with a pair of gardening shears in a park gazebo and once by poisoning her food). Dana Jones became chief suspect when Rick caught her impersonating Chelsea (Chelsea was a news anchor at WSPR and Dana just wanted to be like her). Later when Dana paid a visit to the control booth at WSPR she caught Rae about to kill Chelsea, again, and so it was Rae who was the stalker. Rae shot Dana, and Dana ended up in a coma at Cedars. Chelsea, Rick, Johnny and now private investigator, Frank Cooper, weren't sure who was the stalker. Then Rae paid a private visit to Dana's hospital room, and the shock of seeing Rae in her room caused Dana to die of shock. Eventually, in April 1990, Rae would get Chelsea alone in Chelsea's apartment and nearly kill her. It was revealed that Rae despised Chelsea for supposedly leading-on with romantic overtures her baby brother who was mentally ill (Rae's brother, Bobby, had also committed suicide). Rick, Johnny and Frank would save the day, and Rae would end up going to prison. Shortly after this, Chelsea and Johnny would be written out, when Johnny left to go to be with Roxie Shayne in Switzerland, and Chelsea left to go on tour as a singer herself.

Reintroduced to the show was first a SORASed, Samantha Marler (Suzy Cote) (who got involved with Dylan Lewis, and ended up being severely injured and for a time in a wheelchair, when she threw herself out of the car Reva would end up driving off the bridge to her supposed death), and then Dr. Justin Marler (now played by Chris Pennock) who returned from India to help both his daughter and his brother, Ross. (Although Pennock would leave in the spring of 1991 when Justin was cured of his malaria that he had picked up in India).

Blake played both ends against the middle with both Alan-Michael Spaulding (pretending to be pregnant and then pretending to have suffered from a miscarriage), Alan-Michael's older adopted brother, Phillip Spaulding, and her lover from her college days, Gary Swanson (William Bell Sullivan) who tried to kill at various times in 1990, Alan-Michael, Phillip and Blake, kidnapped both Alan-Michael and Blake, and also killed the man who brought an alive, Beth Raines (now played by Beth Chamberlin) back to Springfield, architect, Neil Everest (Patrick O'Connell) and tried to set up Phillip as Neil's murderer and almost succeeded, until Roger, Ross and a briefly returned to town, India von Halkein figured out his and Blake's plans (Alan-Michael would dump her, and Blake for a while would blame both her parents and Ross for doing this). Gary would end up going to the same prison as Alan was put in back in the summer of 1989.

After Long left, Holly and Roger were featured at the forefront, along with Roger's contentious marriage to Alexandra, which would culminate in a memorable scene where McKinsey's Alexandra decimated Roger in public. Holly would get involved (after suffering from migraine headaches), and almost marry for a short time a dangerous man who almost killed her and Harley Cooper, Dr. Daniel St. John (David Bishins) (who originally arrived in town with Justin and helped to make Samantha walk again) who killed his former sister-in-law, Jean Weatherill (Jennifer Harmon) who he killed by knocking her in the head with his own name plate that Holly gave him as a gift, when Jean threatened to go to Holly about the truth that Daniel had killed his wife and Jean's sister, Carol, and then let Blake discover Jean's body that was floating face down in the Country Club pool, and also shot Roger in the shoulder (but Roger shot Daniel dead), at the Bauer cabin. Samantha Marler, and Cote, who had clued in Harley about Daniel's rage would end up leaving shortly after this to go to law school and it would be later revealed off-camera that Samantha had become a lawyer like her uncle Ross. Holly instead of turning to Roger, as many people (including Roger) thought she would, instead ended up getting engaged to Ross.

Blake, who still blamed Holly for her divorce from Alan-Michael, plotted to steal her mother Holly's fiance, Ross Marler, but ended up falling for him, and became somewhat "reformed" (Blake and Ross would marry in a very memorable wedding in June 1994, with even Roger agreeing to except this union). Holly ended up for a time becoming addicted to pain relievers and alcohol and nearly accidentally killed herself. Harley Cooper, fresh from heartbreak with Josh Lewis, fell for cop AC Mallet (then Mark Derwin) and the two married (A.C. would later have an affair with an unnamed woman and the two of them would divorce with both Beth Ehlers and Harley coming back to the show in 1997; A.C. would return but with a different actor playing him in 2005).

Ross Marler also ran for the U.S. Senate, in the fall of 1992, but in a story that nearly mirrored Bill Clinton's problems in the Presidential election that year, Ross would have to contend with someone blackmailing him over his love life with the unpredictable Blake (in a surprising move this blackmailer turned out to be a clean and sober, but very angry Holly -- still angry at Blake taking Ross away from her -- , not Roger -- although Roger took the pictures of Ross and Blake in bed). On the election eve, 1992, episode, Ross had a very interesting dream where he couldn't even buy a vote from anyone in town, including the women characters he had formerly been or currently involved with still on the show (Vanessa, Holly, Nadine and Blake). This dream sequence from Ross was apparently well appreciated by the audience and is one of the things still discussed a great deal on the internet.

Also presented by then headwriter Nancy Curlee was a great story that still showed the capability of the acting of Maeve Kinkead, when Vanessa charged and rightly so, a fellow businessman, Jack Kiley (Tom Tammi), of attempted rape and sexual harassment (this was shortly after Anita Hill had charged Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas of nearly the same crimes). Maeve spoke great lines, from Vanessa, to Billy about the unfairness still existing in many businessplaces about the "good old boy" network that secluded many otherwise hardworking, well-educated and capable, especially married women or women with children or older family members they needed to take care of. This brought Vanessa closer to Holly, since Holly urged Vanessa to continue to press charges against Kiley. Curlee, Reilly and others also introduced to Springfield several other new African-American characters that interacted with several characters including already established by Long characters, Gilly Grant and Hampton Speakes, amongst those was Gilly's brother, David Grant (originally played by Monti Sharp, later by Russell Curry and much later by Terrell Tilford), who started out as a criminal but later "reformed" into a private investigator, and Hampton's daughter, Katherine "Kat" Speakes (Nia Long) who had a relationship with David, until she went to school in Europe.

Phelps herself was a controversial figure among Guiding Light fans. Actress Beverlee McKinsey played Alexandra Spaulding, Alan's older sister, on Guiding Light during the Pam Long years, and executed an option in her contract that, combined with vacation time she had earned, allowed her to leave the show without giving the show notice. This was a great loss to the show, as McKinsey was part of a triangle of sorts, as the interfering party between her newly found son, originally named Nick McHenry (Vincent Irizarry who would end up being the twin of Lujack; and also was a newspaper reporter who would later be ensnared to be involved with the corporate intrigue at Spaulding, Enterprises) and his new girlfriend Mindy Lewis (Kimberley Simms). (Eventually, veteran actress Marj Dusay would take over the role of Alexandra.) It is widely believed that Phelps didn't read McKinsey's contract and thus allowed the show to lose the legendary actress. Another move considered a blunder by fans was the death of Maureen Reardon Bauer, played by Ellen Parker, since 1986. Phelps' decision to kill off the character of Maureen was based largely on input by focus groups; however, Maureen's death removed the "tentpole character", which Guiding Light has not had since.

After these two strong stories were either derailed or stopped in their tracks, the show lost its momentum, although into the first few months of 1994 things seemed to be okay, although not great, as such events as Nick's former girlfriend from the fictional island of Cambrai, Dr. Eve Guthrie (Hilary Edson) went insane and tried to kill Mindy (played during this time by Ann Hamilton and later by Barbara Crompton), until Eve went to a mental institution and when she got out started a relationship with the lonely Ed (Eve and Ed would later marry, but Eve was killed off from an undisclosed disease in May 1995). Of course Ed didn't get off the hook for the way Mo had died, for it turned out that Mo had discovered that Ed had an affair with her best friend, nurse Lillian Raines, when Lillian had a breast cancer scare, and Mo accused Holly of the affair (since Holly and Ed had an affair back in the first half of 1989), until Mo discovered a letter that Lillian had written to Ed right while Mo was cleaning her kitchen (Ed had apparently dropped the letter near the sink while he was trying to repair some pipes). After Mo died, headwriter Curlee presented a wonderful and powerful scene where Roger Thorpe visited Mo's grave, because Mo was the only one who treated Roger with any sympathy. But later when Roger had decided to fire Holly at WSPR television station, and hooked up with an English woman, and former jewel thief, Jenna Bradshaw (Fiona Hutchison, who at first claimed she was another daughter of Henry Chamberlain's and later got involved with and had a child with the re-married to Nadine, Buzz Cooper), it would be Holly who would become the sympathetic character as she helped Michelle through her first period, and later found out from Ed that he had an affair with another woman (which totally shocked Holly and isolated the two of them, from each other, for a great while; Holly would later find herself falling for and marrying Fletcher Reade and they would have a Down's Syndrome daughter named Meg). (Roger and Jenna married in the summer of 1993 in a rather gothic setting, with a divorced Jenna later telling Vanessa that she was the "Bride of Thorpestein"). Roger also saved Ed's life, in almost a reversal of what happened in April 1980 when Ed nearly fell off a cliff at a hideaway that Michelle and Holly were staying at. (Of course the person who set this up to happen was, Roger himself). And a little later, in November 1993, Roger threatened Jenna not to leave him while she was pregnant with his child (a child she'd later miscarry), Roger would crash Nick and Mindy's engagement party (with some great scenes of Alexandra and Roger going after each other, vocally, at the Country Club ballroom). And a little later a great mystery would be had, when Roger was shot, and left for dead (he later showed up back alive after getting Holly to treat his wounds and coercing Eve Guthrie to attend to him), at the Country Club's potting shed (this would later be revealed to be, Billy Lewis at the time being played by Geoffrey Scott, after Clarke had been arrested for drunk driving in Florida, and then fired by Proctor & Gamble; Clarke would return in 1997). One other actress who later became famous that was on during this time, was one of the Spaulding's maids (originally started out as Jenna's), who played comic relief on the show, Ginger (played by Allison Janney -- later, C.J. Cregg of The West Wing fame) with one of the other Spaulding maids, Donna.

But by the spring of 1994 storylines aimlessly wandered, many revolving solely around characters played by new hires who were close friends to Phelps (several episodes featured nothing more than Justin Deas yelling on a rooftop). In spite of their talent, some of these actors, such as Marcy Walker (Tangie Hill; formerly a ward of Roger Thorpe's), Scott Hoxby who would later change his name to Derek Hoxby (Detective Patrick Cutter), and Veronica Cruz (Gabriella Lopez Grant; who married David for a short time to not be deported), were enormously unpopular with viewers. The storylines themselves were often stagnant and silly, such as Alan's (by then played by Ron Raines) return from prison involving his hiding his face at all times and effecting a fake Japanese accent (he was pretending to be a foreign businessman so he could regain his company), Nick becoming more and more distracted by the power of Spaulding, Enterprises, Alan shooting and wounding Alan-Michael (and Tangie acting as Alan-Michael's nurse, but caught in a romantic triangle between the father and son), Matt and Vanessa keeping their romance a secret from family and friends, and Alan and Jenna using a look alike of Ross' named Howie or "Hoss" (Jerry verDorn in a great dual role) to get to Blake's shares of Spaulding stock. Finally, after early 1990s headwriter, Nancy Curlee departed and was replaced by Megan McTavish, Procter & Gamble forced Phelps to bring Zimmer back for a limited run, but the story (Reva's ghost tormented Josh and his new love Annie Dutton played by Cynthia Watros) was panned by fans and critics as one of the worst in Guiding Light history.

In spring 1995, with rumors of cancellation growing stronger Michael Laibson succeeded Jill Farren Phelps, and brought back Kim Zimmer's Reva character for good, who had supposedly killed herself five years earlier in a bout with postpartum depression. Reva was revealed to be an amnesiac living as an Amish woman. Under headwriter Megan McTavish, huge chunks of airtime focused on the psychotic Brent (Frank Beaty), who had raped Buzz's daughter Lucy and was then presumed dead. Lucy soon befriended a dowdy woman named Marian. Marian was actually Brent in drag! The storyline garnered much attention due to some controversial twists such as Marian switching Lucy's AIDS test results to make her think she was HIV-positive, Marian killing Nadine Cooper when she found out the truth and then throwing Nadine's body in the river, killing Det. Cutter while on a "date" and beating an HIV-positive woman, Susan Bates, into a coma. Beaty's bravura performance carried the show along for months, but unfortunately he was not able to finish the Brent/Marian storyline and the role was recast toward the end. After the Brent/Marian storyline finished, new storylines started. One memorable storyline involved Blake thinking that her twin babies had two different fathers, Rick and Ross (Blake later discovered that Ross sired both.) Dinah Marler, Vanessa and Ross' love child was brought back with Wendy Moniz now in the role. Dinah had become penniless after partying her way through Europe and being kicked out of college (for failing grades) in Europe. Dinah tried to extort money out of the trust fund set up by her grandfather, Henry Chamberlain by setting up her own kidnapping (which went awry, with her mother's boyfriend, Matt Reardon saving the day). Dinah also tried to seduce Matt, but it backfired royally. Later, Dinah got involved with and married Roger Thorpe to gain access to her inheritance, with no one showing up to the wedding. Many of these scenes turned into Dinah becoming very agitated and yelling at many of the other characters. Matt and Vanessa did marry in a memorable wedding ceremony, in October 1995. In spring 1996, several months after the Brent/Marion storyline ended, Zachary Smith (Brody Hutzler) was introduced as a mysterious man trying to repair the lighthouse (which had caught fire several times before this), and later it appeared as though he was an angel who got involved with Michelle Bauer. Gilly Grant would find out that the man she thought was her biological father, wasn't, and then ended up having a brief relationship and nearly sexual (although this was stopped by her mother) with the man who was her biological father. Brought back in 1996 was (after leaving when Phillip married Beth in 1991), Grant Aleksander. But McTavish apparently couldn't write for the character's return and wrote him into an awful story where Phillip tried to figure out the mystery of who the "A. Spaulding" was who set him up to have to perform community service back in 1991, in Arizona (also underused was Alan-Michael Spaulding and his new bride, Lucy Cooper Spaulding and their wedding ceremony at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida was roundly critized and panned by many viewers). Roger was written to be gaslighted and drugged by his new wife, Dinah, and the recently returned to town Roger's son, Hart (although to their credit, Michael Zaslow, Jerry verDorn and Maureen Garrett gave some great line readings during this awful storyline). Amanda Spaulding returned as a former madam, in California, and one of her high priced call men was none other than Matt Reardon. Nola (Lisa Brown) and Quint (Michael Tylo) were also brought back, separately, but mostly ignored by the writers, and Quint would leave town in January 1997. Ratings hit even new lows, resulting in Laibson and McTavish's firings.

Paul Rauch began producing the show in late 1996 and was joined by writers James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten in 1997. The story zeroed in on Josh Lewis' rocky marriage to Annie Dutton. Annie had once been a sweet nurse (and, at one point, Rick Bauer's wife; although this marriage would be later ruled to be illegal, as was the one with Josh, when it was revealed Annie had never even divorced her first husband, Eddie Banks) but had become a pill addict. Annie became a raving lunatic who got artificially inseminated to keep Josh at her side, and pretended to be Reva's long-lost sister to guilt her into staying away. When that didn't work and she also lost her baby, she pushed herself down a flight of stairs at the Spaulding mansion, framing Reva for the death of her fetus. A high-stakes murder trial led Annie to have a meltdown on the witness stand, after which she dramatically collapsed and was rendered barren. This somewhat campy material was bulldozed through by actress, Cynthia Watros, whose performance astonished viewers. Annie, with Alan Spaulding's help, then tried to manipulate Reva's real sister Cassie (Laura Wright) into breaking up Josh and Reva. Watros left the show in early 1998, after Annie was arrested for her past misdeeds at her and Alan's aborted wedding (and also having her attempting to be defended by another recently new character, attorney and also Ross, Justin and Lainie Marler's half-brother, Ben Warren played by Hunt Block), leaving a big hole in a show that had been largely centered on the Josh/Reva/Annie storyline.

In 1996, feeling the show needed a matriarch, Ed's aunt, Meta Bauer (who, though referred to occasonally in recent years, had not been seen since the character left the show in 1974) returned to Springfield. Soap legend Mary Stuart was cast in the role, adding a bit of a connection with soap history. The move was seen as an attempt to reclaim longtime fans of Guiding Light, as well as Search for Tomorrow, on which Stuart had starred for three decades. The character left in 1999 when Stuart suffered a stroke. She eventually returned in late 2000, remaining until the actress' death the following year. During the January 1997 60th anniversary episodes, Mike Bauer (Don Stewart) returned for a couple of days which also delighted many long time fans.

Another storyline during the first year of Esensten and Brown's writing revolved around the return of Jenna Bradshaw (Fiona Hutchison), who had secretly given birth to Buzz' son, Henry Coop Bradshaw (later given the last name of Cooper and going by the name of "Coop"), and Harley Cooper (Beth Ehlers), who had left in September 1993, and who had divorced A.C. Mallett. This storyline involved Jenna's return to being a jewel thief, but now being coerced by the criminal Jeffrey Morgan (played by Ramy Zada). To break up the couple and get the goods on Jeffrey, Harley pretended to be a prostitute named, Starla and her pretend boyfriend was Phillip. (Showing great chemistry together, Aleksander and Ehlers were written into having a full blown romance, for Harley and Phillip, after Jeffrey was arrested). Later Harley and Jenna (working undercover, together) would help Reva and Josh find out from Annie that Alan was working with her to keep the whereabouts of Cassie a secret. Jenna though would end up pregnant with Jeffrey's child, and Harley and Phillip would have to contend with the return to town of Beth Raines (Beth Chamberlin) who would drag her daughter with Phillip into killing the man who Alan had set Beth up with, in Arizona, who would turn out to be very abusive named, Carl Stevens (Joseph Murphy). Rick got involved with a hearing impaired woman named, Abigail "Abby" Blume (Amy Cox Ecklund, who was hearing-impaired in real life), and later marry her (but they would divorce early in the next decade when both character and actress received cochlear implants and regained hearing.)

Other less well-received storylines in 1997 included Nola's stalking of Buzz (Lisa Brown left in January 1998), Vanessa's pretending to be dead (and briefly running off and hiding in a convent in Switzerland), and Michelle's finding of the recipent of her deceased mother's heart, Jesse Blue (Paulo Benedeti) , and then falling in love with him.

In 1998, Esensten and Brown wrote a hotly debated storyline. Reva, who was believed to be dead a second time, was cloned at the request of her grieving husband Josh (Robert Newman). When Reva was found alive, the lonely clone (who, ironically, was named Dolly, like the sheep) committed suicide by drinking too much aging serum. As she lay on her death bed (actually a couch), Josh fumbled with a cure that would have reversed the effects of the aging serum. Unfortunately, he dropped it behind the couch and it was too late to save Dolly.

Emboldened by the attention the clone plot elicited, plots became more outrageous. Blake started carrying on a relationship with Ross' half brother, Ben Warren. When one day Ross arrived home and it appeared as though Ben was trying to rape Blake, Ross tried to shoot Ben with a gun he had bought—but accidentally shot and wounded Blake (with Liz Keifer in a wheelchair for several months). Blake also falsely accused Ben of attempting to rape her, but her guilt would get the better of her, and for some time Ross and Blake seperated -- although they'd have a daughter, Clarissa, in December 1999. Holly became an alcoholic after Roger and her husband Fletcher abandoned her, and as the "Nursery Rhyme Stalker" and was partly responsible for the death of the popular Jenna Bradshaw Cooper when Jeffrey Morgan came back to town and Holly let it slip that Jenna's youngest son, Rocky, was really Jeffrey's son and not Buzz', she then kidnapped the children of Springfield. Annie returned with a new face (Signy Coleman), but after an initial impact, the recast proved unsuccessful and Coleman was written out a year later. Susan Lemay was turned into a teen terror for a while, and was responsible for burning down her grandfather, Buzz Cooper's Fifth Street Diner. Reva's time away from Springfield was explained: she had been living in the island country of San Cristobel and was "Princess Catherine". And in a snowstorm in the mountains of San Cristobal, Beth Raines, Jim Lemay (who was getting romantically involved with Beth) and Phillip Spaulding were stranded on a crashed airplane, and despite Phillip being married to Harley (and Harley pregnant with his child, a son they would name, Zach), he and Beth made love (Beth would also give birth to a son, they would name James -- although in the last few years James has hardly been seen).

Guiding Light - 2000s

At the turn of the century, a large segment of the show revolved around San Cristobel, as Cassie married Richard and Richard's evil brother Edmund (David Andrew Macdonald) plotted to keep them apart (the island became a democracy with Richard as president, was then overthrown in a coup by Edmund, and finally Richard gave the monarchy to his heretofore unknown brother Alonzo (Jim Davidson). The other segment focused on the Santoses and the Mob, specifically Michelle Bauer's mobster husband Danny (Paul Anthony Stewart), his sister Pilar and cousin Tony, and his sociopathic mother, Carmen (Saundra Santiago). Much of Danny and Michelle's story was fighting against the evil Carmen, and this story repeated several times until the character of Carmen was injured during a fight with Michelle in 2002, and went into a coma. Most of the veteran characters, save Reva, had few if any storylines, and ratings went on a gentle decline. Much-acclaimed writer Claire Labine took over as headwriter in 2000, but her stories focused on character development and clashed with Rauch's plot-heavy style. Labine's team lasted barely a year amidst rumors that she was being sabotaged backstage. She was replaced briefly by Lucky Gold (who created a split personality for Beth and started the road to a romance between Harley and Labine's creation, sexist FBI agent Gus Aitoro (Ricky Paull Goldin), who would later turn out to be another of Alan Spaulding's illegitimae sons. (Many longtime fans speculated as to whether Gus' mother would turn out to be Rita Stapleton, thus resolving decades of speculation as to whether Rita was pregnant when she left the show in 1981, but the writers instead made Gus' biological mother Phillip's nanny, whom Alan had had an affair with before he arrived in Sprinfield.) Reva went on a time-travel misadventure, proving unpopular with viewers.

Millee Taggart took the writing reins in 2002, and Taggart's run had some critical acclaim, breaking away from the organized crime and royalty which had dominated Guiding Light over the past few years. Taggart tried to focus on more traditional storylines, including Reva pulling the plug on a critically injured Richard. During this time, Guiding Light also tried to reinvigorate the role of Alexandra Spaulding by casting Dynasty star Joan Collins in the role. Not all of Taggart's stories were a hit; she was also remembered for an unfortunate sequence in which Marah (Lindsey McKeon), reacting to a rape attempt from boyfriend Tony Santos, stripped to her underwear and taunted him to force himself on her.

In 2003, veteran producer John Conboy and Ellen Weston took charge of the show. Weston had acted on Guiding Light as a teenager, and was a writer with several prime-time movie credits as well as a brief writing stint on Capitol (TV series), but had never been a headwriter for a soap. Conboy's first move was to relegate several veteran performers to recurring status, including Maureen Garrett, Beth Chamberlin and Elizabeth Keifer. History was re-written when the characters of Billy, Josh, Ed, Alan, and Buzz were revealed to have been the cause of the death of a young girl, Maryanne Caruthers, when they were young men in 1977. The storyline was roundly criticized for its plot-holes, such as the fact that only two of the characters (Ed and Alan) were even on the show in 1977 (and they were so involved with their own respective storylines at that time, that it's unlikely they would have had the time to become involved with Maryanne Caruthers, and Alan wasn't even introduced until November 1977, the main plot of the storyline supposedly took place in October 1977); the plot wildly contradicted existing character histories. The storyline was also substantially similar to the 1983 Annabelle Sims storyline, which featured H.B. Lewis (father of Billy and Josh), Bill Bauer (father of Ed), and Brandon Spaulding (father of Alan) in a murder mystery similar to the one their sons were involved in, which was met with some backlash due to rewriting character histories. The goings-on so annoyed longtime actor Peter Simon (who played Ed Bauer for much of the 80s, left in 1996 and returned in 2002) that he quit the show and refused all offers to return. Other stories featured during the "Wescon" regime included Cassie falling in love with a "reformed" Edmund, Reva discovering her psychic abilities, and her daughter Marah fell in love with Sandy, a loner who talked to a sock puppet who was initially thought to be Reva's son and Marah's half-brother. A particularly unpopular story featured longtime character Ben Reade (Matthew Bomer), being revealed out of nowhere as a serial killer and victim of child molestation. The story culminated with Ben committing suicide. The show lost around over a half-million viewers at this time.

Conboy and Weston were in turn, fired. Ellen Wheeler of Another World fame became executive producer in the spring of 2004. Her regime addressed unresolved plots including that of the characters of Roger and Dinah (Gina Tognoni), revealed Sandy was posing as Reva's son (her real son, Jonathan played by Tom Pelphrey, was a more toxic and dangerous version of a young Reva - he deflowered his own cousin Tammy out of pure spite) and had a protracted "who killed Phillip?" mystery. Wheeler and writer David Kreizman won much critical praise, and Guiding Light was named Best Soap by many, including TV Guide. David Kreizman won the Writers Guild of America Award for best written daytime serial in 2005 and the show was the only one nominated. But the show still seemed unfocused at times, ratings continued to stagnate and in early 2005, it was revealed that Procter & Gamble had ordered Guiding Light to take a large budget cut. The actors themselves would also see a reduction in salary, and long-time stars Michael O'Leary, and Marj Dusay were taken off contract. The show also learned that it would be moving to the old As the World Turns studios on the West Side of Manhattan (as opposed to their more lavish current studio on the East Side of the city).

By 2005, the show fired some of its popular actors including Stephen Martines (Tony Santos), Doug Hutchison (Sebastian Hulce), Paul Anthony Stewart (Danny Santos), Nancy St. Alban (Michelle Bauer Santos), David Andrew Macdonald (Edmund Winslow) and longtime veteran Jerry verDorn (Ross Marler). In addition, Daniel Cosgrove (Bill Lewis III) and Laura Wright (Cassie Layne Winslow) quit the program. Both Wright and verDorn jumped into different soaps in the fall with Wright joining rival soap General Hospital and verDorn joining One Life to Live. Cosgrove was cast in a midseason prime-time series.

On November 14, 2005, Guiding Light had a show "make-over". In the new opening sequence, the first few scenes are presented in widescreen and then followed by a new opening theme song with new video clips, a new logo, and a new musical tune. Also, the show has gone into the 21st century by being heard later in the day as a podcast on ipods, with many of the actors and actresses at the end of the show urging viewers to take the "Light" with them.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Guiding Light - History

Guiding Light - History: Encyclopedia II - Guiding Light - History

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Guiding Light: Encyclopedia II - Guiding Light - History

Guiding Light - History

Guiding Light - The radio years

Guiding Light - Early years on television

Guiding Light - 1960s

Guiding Light - 1970s

Guiding Light - 1980s

Guiding Light - 1990s

Guiding Light - 2000s

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Guiding Light - History

Guiding Light - History: Encyclopedia II - Guiding Light - History

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Guiding Light: Encyclopedia II - Guiding Light - History

Guiding Light - History

Guiding Light - The radio years

Guiding Light - Early years on television

Guiding Light - 1960s

Guiding Light - 1970s

Guiding Light - 1980s

Guiding Light - 1990s

Guiding Light - 2000s

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