Rick Bauer (Guiding Light)
Dr. Frederick Bauer | |||||||
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Guiding Light character | |||||||
First appearance | August 18, 1970 | ||||||
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Dr. Frederick "Rick" Bauer, MD is a fictional character in the town of Springfield on the CBS daytime drama, Guiding Light. Rick was born (on screen) August 18, 1970. This was revised to 1965 when he graduated high school in 1983.
He is currently played by actor Michael O'Leary.
Rick is a doctor at the free clinic in Clayton, a doctor at Cedars Hospital in Springfield and the former Medical Examiner at Cedars. He currently resides with his friends Gus and Harley. Formerly, he resided at the Bauer family home. He is married to Elizabeth "Beth" Raines Spaulding.
Actor history
- Albert Zungalo III (1970 to 1971)
- Gary Hannoch (1972 to 1976)
- Robbie Berridge (1976 to 1978)
- Phil MacGregor (November 1982 to May 1983)
- Michael O'Leary (on contract, May 26, 1983 to December 26, 1986; July 3, 1987 to February 20, 1991; March 31, 1995 to August 27, 2005; Recurring, August 28, 2005 to June 2006; Contract, July 2006 to present)
Character history
Named after his great-grandfather, Fredrick Bauer was raised by his mother after his parents' divorce when he was still a baby in 1970. However when Leslie married the wealthy Stanley Norris a year later, Ed refused to let Freddie be raised in the Norris home and took custody of the boy. When Stanley died shortly after, Leslie regained custody of Freddie in 1972. In 1973, a young Freddie was on hand to witness the wedding of his mother and his uncle, Mike. A happy child, his life was shattered by the death of his mother in 1976 when he was only 6 years old. Though his stepmother, Holly, tried to fill a void in his life, he received a lot more comfort from his grandmother, Bert. With the support of the Bauer family, Freddie grew up to be a kind generous man, and in 1978, he left to attend Lincoln Prep School, around the time his father Ed married his third wife, Rita Stapleton.
When Freddie first appeared as a teenager in Springfield in 1982, after being thrown out of Lincoln Prep, he quickly paired up with his "partner-in-crime", lifelong friend Phillip Spaulding when Phillip covered for Freddie when he was pulled over for speeding and didn't have his driver's license. Meanwhile Phillip was hanging out with a rough crowd for a couple of weeks. When Phillip and Freddie were nearly involved in an accident Phillip and Freddie realized that perhaps the crowd they were hanging out with really weren't their friends and they stopped associating with them. In 1983, Freddie, now called himself Rick, began dating the innocent Beth Raines, while Phillip got involved with Mindy Lewis. In the fall of that year, Rick decided to follow into Ed's footsteps and become a doctor.
2006 began as a quiet year for Rick, who concentrated mostly on his work. The spring of that year, Rick was on hand when Beth collapsed at Company and treated her. Later he shocked her by revealing her diagnosis--she was pregnant! Then in April, an event would occur that would lead Rick's world to fall apart--Ross's was involved in a plane crash. Since no bodies were recovered, the FAA ruled there were no survivors. Unbeknownst the Rick, the police found evidence that the crash may not have been an accident but sabotage. Alan-Michael became the prime suspect since Ross had several meetings
Later is was revealed that Phillip was alive (as Alan stated over a year prior) and hiding out. Ross must have found out hired a PI to locate him in the hopes of convincing him to return home. However, Phillip didn't want to be found and had someone pay a mechanic to sabotage Ross's plane. Although the plan never included Ross's death, things went awry when Ross apparently refused to switch planes. When it came out that Rick had lied about the body in the coffin being Philip, Rick confessed that he did it to protect his son. Philip has sworn to him that if he did this one last favor for him, that he would stay away from Rick's son.
Rick experienced a lot of friction between himself and his wife Mel, including her failure to support him in his reinstatement hearing and his affair with Beth Raines. Rick struggled with his ideas about the friendship's he'd formed as a teenager and wondered if he was stunted in some ways by his romanticized ideas about the "Four Musketeers."
The affair with Beth also got Rick on Alan's bad side, as she was married to him at the time. It also greatly strained his relationship with his daughter, Lea.
Beth tried to lure Rick back but he insisted that he wanted to work on his marriage and offended Beth by stating that what they had was not "real". Believing that Rick didn't belong with Mel anyway, Beth pulled some strings and arranged for Rick to be transferred to the clinic in Clayton--with her as his boss. In the meantime, Mel continually rebuffed Rick's attempts for them to reconnect and finally she asked for a divorce. When Rick begged her to reconsider, she stated that she would think about it. In 2007, Rick treated Lizzie for postpartum depression, unaware that she was faking. At one point, Lizzie begged him to help her win her husband back but Rick tried to convince to that she needed to find a man who loved her as much as she loved him. In the meantime, Alan unexpectedly divorced Beth and proposed to the District Attorney, Doris Wolfe, in exchange for being cleared in the death of Tammy Winslow. Then Alan was shot at his wedding, with Rick being only one of many Springfield residents to have a strong hatred for him. However, Rick is not considered a strong suspect at this time.
Crimes Committed:
- Spent the night in jail for his involvement in the melee at the Lakeland Country Club. [February 14 - 15, 1984]
- Destruction of property; trashed the Galahads` garage [June 1984]
- Took drugs while in medical school [1986]
- Assaulted Phillip Spaulding [[[May 12]], 1989]
- Fraud; involved in faking Phillip's death. [August to December 1990]
- Covered for his father's crime of disconnecting Eve Guthrie's life support [May 1995]
- Broke into Blake Marler's medical records to learn the parentage of Blake's unborn twins [[[May 16]], 1996]
- Assaulted the hospital administrator [[[March 18]], 1997]
- Falsely accused Jesse Blue of attacking Abby [[[August 25]], 1997]
- Paid someone to call Danny Santos, to get him away from the lighthouse, with a fake bomb threat at Carmen's house [[[June 18]], 1999]
- Sent two men to abduct Michelle Bauer Santos from the lighthouse [[[June 18]], 1999]
- Committed his sister, Michelle, to the mental ward at Cedars under false pretenses. [June 19 - 29, 1999]
- Helped Phillip cover the fact Phillip & Beth made love [Late 1999 to mid 2000]
- Helped Michelle Bauer Santos escape from prison [[[March 15]], 2000]
- Hid Jesse Blue's EKG results to hide that Jesse really didn't have a heart attack [[[March 20]], 2000]
- Produced a phony EKG result, for Jesse Blue, to show Drew Jacobs, to make Drew believe that Jesse really had heart attack [[[March 22]], 2000]
- Failed to report the whereabouts of an escaped convict: Harley cooper. [[[May 27]], 2005]
- Lied about the results of his exhumation of Phillip's crypt; lied that Phillip was dead. [[[August 19]], 2005 to May 17, 2006]
- Indirectly caused Ross Marler's death by paying a mechanic, at Phillip's request, to tamper with Ross's plane to keep it on the ground. [early April 2006]
Memorable Quote: Rick Bauer to his girlfriend Roxie Shayne at Bert's, memorial service on March 7, 1986. Roxie has just expressed regret that she never knew his grandmother.
"You would have loved her Roxie. She had a way of, uh ... making everyone feel real special. Like you could be whatever you wanted to be."
Family & relationships
Parents
- Ed Bauer (father)
- Leslie Bauer (mother, deceased)
Sibling(s)
- Michelle Bauer Santos (paternal half-sister)
Marital status
- Married -- Beth Raines Spaulding (married; July 5, 2007–presently)
Past marriage(s)
- Meredith Reade (divorced) [1983-1984]
- Beth Raines (divorced) [1985-1986]
- Annie Dutton (divorced) [03/1995-01/1996]
- Abigail Blume (divorced) [06/1997-08/2000]
- Mel Boudreau (divorced) [05/2002 - 07/2007]
Children
- Jude Cooper Bauer (son, with Harley Cooper)
- Leah Bauer (daughter, with Melissande "Mel" Boudreau)
- Elizabeth "Lizzie" Spaulding (stepdaughter)
- James Spaulding (stepson)
- Unnamed child (stepdaughter; currently believe to be his's child but it's Alan's)
Other relatives
- William Edward "Bill" Bauer, Sr. (paternal grandfather; deceased)
- Bert Bauer (paternal grandmother; Deceased)
- Stephen Jackson (maternal Adopted grandfather; deceased)
- Roy Mills (biological maternal grandfather; deceased)
- Victoria Ballenger (maternal grandmother; deceased)
- Friedrich "Papa" Bauer (paternal great-grandfather; deceased)
- "Mama" Bauer (paternal Great-grandmother; deceased)
- Elsie Miller Franklin (paternal great-grandmother; deceased)
- Robert Santos (nephew)
- Hope Santos (niece)
- Mike Bauer (uncle & stepfather)
- Hillary Bauer (aunt; deceased)
- Trudy Bauer Palmer (great-aunt)
- Meta Bauer (Great aunt)
- Alma-Jean Miller (Great aunt; deceased)
- Otto Bauer (great-great-uncle; deceased)
- Hope Bauer (Cousin)
- Alan-Michael Spaulding (first cousin once removed)
- Mary Bauer (first cousin twice removed)
- Jack Bauer (first cousin twice removed)
- Johnny Bauer (second cousin once removed)
- Lacey Bauer (second cousin once removed)
Flings & affairs
- Beth Raines (divorced)
- Mindy Lewis (engaged)
- Muffy Baxter (dated)
- Tanya Peterson (dated)
- Claire Ramsey (lovers)
- Roxanne "Roxie" Shayne (engaged)
- Amber Novack (dated)
- Dana Jones (dated; deceased)
- Rae Rooney (engaged)
- Blake Marler (one night stand)
- Harley Cooper (engaged)
- May Merisi/Mary Murto (dated)