Guiding Light (1937–1949)

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Guiding Light
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The Guiding Light (TGL) was a long running radio series which became the longest-running American television soap opera.[1]

Contents


[edit] Show development

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, which began as a radio show. From 1937 to 1946, the show was broadcast from Chicago.

From 1947 to 1949, the show was broadcast from Hollywood, but in the fall of 1949 the show moved to New York City where it has remained.[2]

In 1943, The Guiding Light and two other Phillips-created soaps (Woman In White and Today's Children) were aired for a season as a programming block known collectively as The General Mills Hour, with Guiding Light cast member Ed Prentiss acting as master of ceremonies. Major characters made crossover appearances between the three shows, and at one point during this period, Phillips considered the experiment of running the individual program segments longer or shorter than the then-traditional quarter-hour. However, the Hour was disbanded before Phillips could proceed further with the idea.[3]

[edit] Major characters

The Ruthledges/Holdens[2]

The Bauers/Roberts/Whites[2]

Other characters[2]

[edit] Plot development

The radio show's original storyline centered on a preacher named Rev. John Ruthledge 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 refers to a lamp in his study that family and residents could see as a sign for them to find help when needed. Early ongoing storylines contrasted Ellis Smith (nicknamed Mr Nobody from Nowhere) with Rev. Ruthledge, the former's cynicism often acting as a foil to the optimism of the latter. Rev. Ruthledge's daughter Mary also embarked on a secret romance with her foster brother Ned Holden. Ned and Mary would eventually marry in a 1941 episode of the soap with Rev Ruthledge's blessing, but not before a series of complications arose, such as the return of Ned's parents, Frances and Paul Holden (a storyline which resulted in Frances shooting Paul dead when he made his plans to extort money from Ned known) and Ned's marriage to and subsequent divorce from lounge singer Torchy Reynolds (who later ended up in a relationship with Ellis Smith). Storylines in this era also touched on topics rarely discussed up to that point — for example, the character of Rose Kransky had radio's first out-of-wedlock baby.

During the radio years, succeeding preachers carried 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. The Bauers became central to the storyline in 1948.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ About the show "Guiding Light" at CBS.Com
  2. ^ a b c d Lackman, Ron. "The Guiding Light". The Encyclopedia of American Radio. New York: Checkmark Books. p. 123. ISBN 0816041377. 
  3. ^ Dunning, John (1998). On The Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 299–302. ISBN 0195076788. 

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