Her heart broken by an affair ended badly, she never married. Instead she imagined a world outside her own dreary one in Chicago and parlayed it into a blockbuster entertainment vehicle.
In 1937, Irna Phillips used the seductive power of radio to pioneer a new idea. With potboiler story lines and melting-pot characters, Phillips’ “The Guiding Light,” a 15-minute sins-and-sermons soap opera, premiered on NBC radio. Its brand of chicken fat and brimstone proved the remedy for Depression-weary listeners.
It went something like this: Organ music swells. Sponsor–“White Naptha Soap”–is announced. Every episode finds ordinary people in the clutches of dilemma and the good Rev. Dr. John Ruthledge preaching his brand of what-goes-around-comes-around spirituality to the all-too-corporeal families of Five Points, Ill.
Some 15,600 episodes and 105 fictional marriages later, “Guiding Light” (“The” was dropped in 1977) now celebrates its 60-year anniversary. On CBS since it moved to television in 1952, it has run longer than “Meet the Press,” twice as long as Johnny Carson, 20 times longer than the original “Star Trek.” And its fictional locale has moved from Five Points to Selby Flats (in the late 1940s) outside Los Angeles to Springfield (1966) in the Midwest.
The cornerstone of this year’s festivities is a live, hourlong radio broadcast Thursday on 16 stations nationwide, as well as on-line at www.cbsradio.com, at 6 p.m. Chicago time. It features the current cast members dressed in 1930s-style clothing, re-creating one of the show’s earliest scripts. A taping of the broadcast will become part of a permanent exhibit at New York City’s Museum of Television and Radio.
Alas, the episode will not be aired in Chicago, the city where “Guiding Light” was launched and based for its first four years, because WBBM-AM 780 opted not to broadcast it. Champaign’s WDWS-AM 1400 is the nearest radio station that will air the re-enactment.
The 1937 episode might seem tame next to “Guiding Light’s” current incarnation. “In the early days, if a man had an affair, he did not end up happily,” says Julie Poll, author of “Guiding Light: The Complete Family Scrapbook,” due out in April.
“In the ’40s and ’50s, families stayed together. Divorce was a tragedy. When the show went to an hour in 1977 (after nine years as a half-hour production), mysteries, murders and fantasies were added (to fill up the time). You needed more story, so you had more extramarital affairs. Fridays became cliffhanger days: `Oh, we need to have someone fall into a well!’ “
Trying to woo a young audience, the drama has gone through as many writers and producers as stud Frank Cooper (played by Frank Dicopoulos) has gone through lovers.
“When writers come in and try to make it their own, the ratings (invariably) go down,” says Robert Newman, the actor who plays rich and handsome and terminally lovestruck Josh Lewis. “It’s the history that defines us. There are people who have watched the soap literally 45 years. I’ve been on when it’s No. 1 and when it’s No. 10.” The show these days occupies the lower tier of the 11 soaps.
“Now, more than ever, I feel that responsibility (to longtime viewers). I don’t want to lose what this show has to offer. I don’t think the format has changed over the years. We’re going back to what works,” Newman said.
That would be welcome news to “GL” addicts, as current head writer Pam Long and executive producer Paul Rausch are trying to set the soap back on course.
Also, Fiona Hutchison (Jenna) has just returned to the cast after a three-year absence, and Mary Stuart (who was with “Search for Tomorrow” for that soap’s entire 35-year run) has joined the show as Meta, a character not seen on “GL” since 1974.
To be fair, this venerable soap has done better than most over the years in focusing on great dialogue and fleshed-out characters, the hallmarks of auteur Phillips’ style.
One of 10 children from an impoverished family of German-Jewish immigrants, Phillips conjured an entire universe filled with deeply flawed yet ultimately lovable characters. Besides “Guiding Light” she also created “As the World Turns” (which debuted in 1956), “Another World” (1964) and “Days of Our Lives” (1965).
Before she died in 1973 at age 72, she had influenced future soap masters Agnes Nixon (ABC) and Bill Bell (CBS).
It wouldn’t hurt for “GL’s” current brain trust to take some tips from the master:
– Be patient; sometimes the bad guy gets it in the end. The first time Bill Bauer cheated on wife Bert, she forgave him. The second time, after Bert found out he wasn’t dead, just living in Seattle with another woman, she was happy to find him alive–and divorced him. The third time, somebody pushed him out a window.
– You can’t always get what you want: In 1959, Phillips killed off beloved character Kathy in a car crash in 1958 and would not bring her back even after thousands of viewers protested.
– Love conquers an insanity plea: In 1958 Meta is put on trial for the murder of her husband, Ted. Phillips tried her hand at “interactive” TV, allowing viewers to pick Meta’s fate: If guilty, she would be written off, if not guilty (by reason of insanity), she would stay. Viewers mailed in the verdict: not guilty.
From radio to one-camera black-and-white TV sets to the current multi-camera, on-location scenes, love has been soap operas’ greatest conceit. And “GL” has been a beacon of ever-pending, obstacle-ridden, unconsummated romance.
For nearly 15 years, Josh has been coupled with and torn apart from “the slut of Springfield,” the now-reformed Reva (played by four-time Emmy winner Kim Zimmer). “Romance is key to their chemistry,” Newman said. “It’s not about sex, and viewers even forgive the ridiculous story lines. Nobody cares what Josh does for a living or if he’s tied to a chair with a bomb about to go off.
“I think Josh and Reva have probably had five or six bedroom scenes in 10 years. I don’t think they’ll ever fully get together. It’s a no-win situation. That’s how life works.”
Said Poll, “The wonderful thing about a soap story is that you can tell it in real time. You get to see people really change over the years, grow up, get married. There’s always been the core of family in “GL.” People bonding together, helping each other.
“It’s a good message and one that is comforting to young people. You don’t have to (have studs) to pull in a young audience.”
But it certainly helps. As “Guiding Light” points toward the future, producers are seeking guidance from viewers. The show now has its own web site (www.cbs.com/daytime) where fans can e-mail their two bits on story lines and characters.
Even so, “GL” still remains true to the world that Phillips first daydreamed in a Chicago storefront apartment: Man, woman and the headaches they cause each other.
In Josh’s current storyline, he and his wife Annie are a codependent couple dealing with her alcoholism. Newman describes this drama as “incredibly universal. It’s a story of abandonment and how it causes pain in people’s lives, how it breaks down people’s dreams and hopes.
“And that’s tragedy.”
`GL’ KEEPS THEM TOGETHER
It’s not what keeps ’em apart, it’s what keeps ’em together. Here’s a brief history of “Guiding Light’s” Josh (Robert Newman) and Reva (Kim Zimmer), whose relationship has been on-again-off-again since 1983.
After falling in love at age 6, rich Josh and wrong-side-of-the tracks Reva finally express their mutual attraction when they are twentysomething. But instead of wedding Josh, Reva rings his brother Billy’s bell. They marry, then divorce.
Later, Reva marries Josh’s father, H.B. But after Josh is paralyzed from the waist down in car accident, the still-married Reva jumps into bed with him. And Josh regains the feeling in his legs. (And today, Josh walks without so much as a limp.)
Reva disappears to Texas. (Newman leaves the show).
In 1986, Josh returns. He and Reva are about to marry, but when Josh’s ex-wife reappears (only it’s the twin sister of the ex-wife), the marriage is off.
In 1989, the couple are joined in wedded bliss until Reva (Zimmer has decided to leave the show) drives off a bridge. Newman leaves the cast again.
By 1997, Zimmer and Newman are both back on the soap. Josh has married alcoholic Annie, and Reva (who had amnesia in an Amish outpost) returns to Springfield. Discovering Josh has remarried, she weds someone else.
A ”GUIDING LIGHT” TIME LINE:
– 1937: One of the first episodes begins: “There is a destiny that makes us brothers/None goes his way alone/All that we send into the lives of others/comes back into our own.” Dialogue was peppered with “gosh, gee, golly.” There were about six characters. A new car cost $585.
– 1952: GL premiered on television (the soap ran simultaneously from 1952-56 on radio). Actresses and actors wore their own clothes, women often in aprons and men in suits with pocket hankies. Coffee was the beverage/prop of choice. Characters, shot in black and white by a single, stationary camera, stand and talk at the kitchen sink. A typical bedroom scene: husband and wife fully clothed sitting on twin beds smoking cigarettes.
– The ’60s: GL began broadcasting in color and expanded to a half-hour from 15 minutes. There were fewer marriages. Divorce started losing its taboo.
– The ’70s: “Guiding Light” dropped “The” from its title and picked up on eroticism as a theme. Music by popular artists was incorporated into characters’ everyday lives.
– The ’80s: More comedy, fantasy … and teenagers.
– The early ’90s: Families were torn asunder. More hunks and babes were added to the cast in reaction to focus groups.
– 1997: Buzz (married to Reva) and Jenna (who has secretly had Buzz’s baby and is now back in town) are reunited on some four-poster bed in some state of undress. Unlike the ’50s, smoking is verboten. Young couples find the World Wide Web awesome. The cast numbers 35 to 40 people.
