The Soapgeist - Sept. 14/09

> PLAY: Guiding Light: It’s the characters, stupid! By Mimi Torchin http://www.mimitorchinphotography.com/

I’ve been in denial about Guiding Light’s demise since I heard the news. I know it’s crazy, but even after it became obvious that — despite the mobilization of the fans and all our hopes for a GL future beyond and away from CBS — the show would not be moving to another venue, I did not fully accept this. I am a grown up, a journalist and a realist (at least most of the time) and yet I’m undone by the cancellation of a television show, an always-unhappy event that I have lived through at least 200 times during my life (Does anyone else miss Surface? Well, probably not). Lets face it: Guiding Light is not just a television show. It’s the longest- running television show in history. Furthermore, it’s a soap opera, the genre I have been intimately involved with as a professional journalist for more than a quarter of a century.

But although it might compromise my standing as a journalist (or confirm my membership in the human race?), I was never objective about Guiding Light. I tried to be, and, on occasion, actually managed it. But in general and through good regimes and bad, I have loved this show unabashedly. I have a sentimental streak a mile wide, and Guiding Light, for most of the nearly 30 years I’ve watched it, has been the most sentimental of soaps. There are those who feel that sentiment is a four-letter word, and I’ve never understood that. Sentiment triggers an emotional response, and emotion is, at the core, the heart of all daytime drama. Sure in 57 years on television (and 15 on radio), there have also been hundreds of tales of intrigue, serial killers and psychos of every stripe and aberration, adventure, science fiction and wild fantasy, just to name a few of the detours from everyday sentiment. Some of them have been sensational in a really good way and others have been gigantic missteps. But what we came to Springfield for and what we took away from it and held in our hearts was the epic love, the pain, the joy and the timeless generational stories of family and friendship.

I haven’t the space or the inclination to try to recap or recount Guiding Light’s greatest hits. The high and low points (even low was high to me) of the show have been covered in great tributes (60 Minutes) and shoddy ones (The Daytime Emmys, though Michael Fairman’s original concept was wonderful. Poor GL, its time just keeps running out). Every major news outlet has written about the sad end of the line for this iconic serial, this show of shows. Too bad they didn’t pay more attention to it while it still had a pulse, but that’s show biz. As my former Soap Opera Weekly art director, who started her career at the Star, used to say, “Death sells.”  Well, I guess death is at the end of the line for everything and everyone (though we can’t really be sure about that 100 per cent, can we?). Forgive me for stating the obvious but what isn’t the point is that we die; what matters is how we live. And Guiding Light lived full throttle every day. It never withheld, it always gave more than it got in return. It stumbled and fell, but always got back up, brushed itself off and threw itself headlong back into the game.

Here’s a story on myself that those of you who have been listening to me speak my mind (or ramble on endlessly, some of you might be mumbling) over the years may have heard. If you have, now would be the time to check your email or read a blog post. It’s called how I almost wrote for Guiding Light. And it goes like this.

When Pam Long took over the show as head writer in 1983 she wanted to have some of her own, loyal staff, as do many new head writers. We had become friendly after I did a profile of her she loved for the quarterly soap magazine that I wrote and edited in its entirety, Soap Opera’s Greatest Stories and Stars. From humble beginnings … Anyway, Pam asked me if I was interested in writing for the show. “Would I, would I!” said I (anyone know that joke? OK, I digress). A major obstacle was that I had never written for a soap, so I had to write a sample script. The show they gave me to write (as a dialogue writer, not breakdowns; I’m more of a “talker” than a storyteller) was Mindy’s arrival in Springfield, among other storylines, of course. I remember how much fun it was, as a Texan, to write for the Lewis clan and I was very proud of my reference to Billy or H.B. pouring themselves a “bourbon and branch.” Anyway, I was a playwright and dialogue is kind of my thing, so the script was OK, but it moved things along too quickly as a play that ends in two hours will do rather than have to leave every life possibility open to change, as with a soap. I worked for about a month or so with the head of writer development (yes, there was actually such a thing back in the dark ages), wrote another script and Pam was happy with it.  All that was left for me to do was have a brief meeting with the also new producer Gail Kobe. Longish story (no pun intended), new paragraph.

This was basically a done deal, so I wasn’t as nervous as I should have been, I guess. I went to the studio and met Kobe who got right down to business: “So what are your favourite soaps?” she asked. Well, duh, Guiding Light (I didn’t even have to lie). What else did I like? “Well, All My Children.” I answered. “Yes!” she agreed. “A great show. Why do you think it’s so great?”(I didn’t even have to think) “The characters. The show has the greatest characters,” I responded. “NO,” she said. No? “It’s the stories,” she corrected me. Now at this point, a normal person with some thought about her future and money for her old age and retirement would have hit herself on the forehead and said, “Oh, ha ha. Did I say characters? Ha ha, no, of course, I meant to say STORIES. Ha ha.” Well, we all know how normal I am, so instead I said, “No. It’s the characters. All the best story comes out of character, of course.” One beat later, Kobe had her hand out to shake mine as she said, “Well, thanks for stopping by.” The end. That’s why my name will not be found on IMDB as a writer for Guiding Light. And really, that’s fine because then I never would have been around to start Soap Opera Weekly and coin the acronym SORAS. Everything happens for a reason.

The point is that I truly believe that what has made Guiding Light endure for 72 years is the richness of its magnificent, complex characters and the stories that flowed from them. The show filled us with the lives of others, lives that we shared, friends who asked nothing in return for sharing their lives with us but that we show up one hour a day, five times a week, and open our hearts to them. I for one would have been showing up until I was old and grey. I showed up until I was grey, anyway, and for those characters, I think all of you would have done the same. Maybe next week I’ll be more specific about these amazing characters and the splendid actors who portrayed them. And maybe not. I don’t know what I will be moved to write for my last column ever about Guiding Light, or even if I’ll be able to write at all.

Anyway, we have five more days to show up, and I know each precious day will be filled with beautiful, loving memories that will be added to the many, many other glorious memories we hold dear. They will have to last us a lifetime.

—To purchase Mimi Torchin’s photography click here.