The iconic, amazing soap opera GUIDING LIGHT filmed it’s last episodes today. Something very important is slipping away as well.

Replacing it, as if it ever could, will be……wait for it…..You guessed it. A GAME show.

Reality TV snuffs out yet another creative outlet. The age of Andy Warhol fifteen minute celebrities who are famous because they are famous, not because of any real gifts, has reached it’s zenith.

Gone today was one of the best of the fun escapes, one of the best of the american telenovelas….. so important in giving a little mirror to our times.

Are they trying to kill them all?

If so why?

There are loyal fans who tune in regularly. In an age of millions of outlets and channels this number of “faithful” to any show is important. Is their any gratitude for all the long suffering fans? Where do they get their pay-off?

AMC, with Susan Lucci is moved to LA and that means OLTL, with super star Erika Slezak and a great cast of real actors, and all my great friends, at least get a bigger studio,for that I am grateful, but AMC moving to LA? Hope they give them a real chance…..

OLTL, GH, ATWT, and GL were my stories, my chance to escape for a little while. With the loss of GL and only because of Crystal Chappell returning to play Carly, I will start watching DAYS OF OUR LIVES…. that is the only good news to be able to follow this great and talented lady to another soap and root for an amazing character brought to life and given magic by this amazing actress.

I am gonna let it shine, folks. For me, that fabulous show deserted by CBS and a Proctor and Gamble label in search of it’s soul, will live on triumphantly.

Just when we need stories of people, and family, and unity and a place to show the “morals” and the “prejudices” of our times played out with their stunning effects and repercussions on so many, they go and literally TANK a show… one of the most involving, one of the best written and one that always took arm loads of awards home. People just recently, in a phenomena really, were starting to tune in to the show that dared to present TWO FEMALES who fell in love slowly, OTALIA the couple Olivia and Natalia, deliciously played by Crystal Chappell and Jessica Leccia.

No gratuitous groping, but a LOVE story that took almost a full year to reveal. Now what?

It was a great civics lesson, a place to learn about people and their interactions in a “safe” environment and fanciful stories to escape the horrors of war and hatred and murder and mayhem that makes up the world today, and that’s just the nightly news!!!. We get that even if we don’t want it.

A place for the lonely to have friends, those in NEED of romance to feel as if they have access to it, and forget for a while “our” difficult lives.

It takes it’s leave in the same month that the last real “non agenda” reporter took his leave. Walter Cronkite actually just collected the stories, the events and TOLD THEM TO US.
No slants, no left wing, right wing propaganda. He got us information and let us make up our own minds. How rare is that…… and how sad it doesn’t exist today. So much real is leaving being replaces by the “reality” show mentality which is all PLANNED.

My good friend, the Princess Verne’s daughter, gorgeous Leslie O’Hara shined on “Guiding Light” in the late sixties and early seventies…. God bless her and them both, lights in my life.

I refuse to say good bye… thank you for your great talent, professionalism, smarts, loyalty, and ability to make us care. The formidable cast and expert crew that offered such fabulous support and all the writers over the years that offered stories of families, and generations of families, like in real life, not just “pretty” and “youth” like most do now. You will never be forgot…..

Job well done. You deserved better than you got, as you gave you all.

Shame on those without imagination that let a 72 year old friend slip away like this.

Guiding Light…… we will keep watch for you, and remember you, and like family, there will always be a place at “our” table for you.

Start of the week, accessing the last few months. Mind wanders over so many things.

This family is so amazing. Could they be any more interesting and wonderful.

Such a fascinating and truly interesting person. I want this outfit.

The Russians apologize to the little dog, “Laika” in Bronze. Sent into space with no hope of coming back, the first and most accurate view of man’s appalling me first attitude towards our animal kingdom friends.

What makes advances for us worthy of their agony? Rabbits and monkeys’ and mice in lab studies submitted to a LIFETIME of agony. How we treat our livestock, curious word isn’t it? LIVE stock.

Laika, dear heart, at least remembered.

Seems like yesterday that Luciano was doing what he did best. The world of opera is so much less without him.

And finally, my very favorite dashing, Antonio Sabato, Jr. returns to ABC’s GH in the nighttime soap opera “Nightshift” on Soapnet.

He was the fuel for so many childhood dreams of mine, of that fabulous knight in shining armor coming to sweep you off your feet.. Dashing is putting it mildly.

Okay, so I follow the soaps. I have been blessed to know a lot of accomplished people on them, in front of the camera and behind.
This one, Genie Francis, along with the glorious Erika Slezak and Tony Geary, and Kassie Depaiva mean the most to me.

“Laura” as played by Genie Francis on GH was the reason I started watching soaps. They married Laura to a blue eyed, Blonde haired Kin Shriner who played “Scotty” and I swear I looked for my Scotty. He was something to behold, and they were young perfection. Then in walked Tony Geary as Luke. Their chemistry was off the charts.

Yes, on that November day in Los Angeles,when they had thirty million people, just as wild as me, tuned in to make it the most watched show in the history of daytime serials- it was also the year I came to New York to join the Met. Nov.16 they married. Nov. 22……. I arrived in New York,in a blistering snow storm. Knowing no one, really.

I watched the daytime lineup growing up….they were like family. God bless this talented actress who filled up many lonely days for a young fresh kid from Los Angeles just out of High School.
She is a fabulous actress and made it look too easy. Finally, as Etta James sang so well, “At Last” she got her Golden Lady for her mantel. You deserve it dear heart. Brava and thanks!