TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, Kim Zimmer made television history on Guiding Light as Reva Shayne Lewis by stripping down to a slip in the town fountain and baptizing herself the slut of Springfield.That scene (just five minutes long) has since been acclaimed as one of the best in soap history, and watching it today on YouTube, you can understand why.
Almost three decades later, Reva has married multiple times—as befits any true soap heroine—has been presumed dead at least three times, had amnesia that first led to her becoming princess of an island nation and then an Amish woman. She’s been cloned, she’s traveled through time, she’s fought cancer and Springfield villain Alan Spaulding (to whom she was briefly married) and been accused of murdering her ex-husband’s wife’s unborn baby. But there’s one battle that even Reva Shayne Lewis Lewis Spaulding Lewis Cooper Lewis Lewis O’Neill can’t win: the ratings battle.
So, after 72 years, over the course of a run that has included the entire history of television and a good chunk of radio, Guiding Light will air its final episode on CBS on Sept. 18. And although most dilettante soap viewers remain loyal to the ABC shows (All My Children, General Hospital, One Life to Live), I’ve remained a dedicated—if occasional—GL fan my entire life. When the holiday traditions of fictional characters become part of your own traditions, you know you’re hooked. And for millions of viewers over the years, the annual Bauer Fourth of July barbecue, where one could expect some familial drama as well as delicious eats, was as essential to the day as their own get-togethers.
Things like that, the special annual episodes, are one of the reasons I’ve always remained fond of Guiding Light, even as head writers came and went with shocking speed, lingering just enough to introduce outlandish new plot twists and characters (at one point, citizens of this Midwest town were jetting off with astonishing regularity to tropical island San Cristobel). But more than most soaps, GL used its long and varied history in its storylines. Nothing ever seemed to be forgotten, and the writers frequently made reference to past highlights and characters. So when troubled teen Jonathan sat in the Springfield town fountain and whined to Reva that she didn’t know what it was like to be an outcast, longtime viewers experienced a little frisson of delight that their own memories were being recognized.
Early last year, Guiding Light went under a dramatic makeover. Gone were the cardboard sets and flattering lighting, replaced by more location work and handheld cameras.
Some of the changes worked better than others, but GL kept itself relevant. Or tried. Unfortunately, the changes were frequently too severe, resulting in cheap-looking production values that turned off both longtime viewers and those who might have tuned in for the first time.
Still, there was always the legendarily star-crossed soap couple Reva and Josh (Robert Newman), Machiavellian Spaulding (Ron Raines) and the dry and down-toearth Buzz Cooper (Justin Deas). When I first moved to New York for college, I frequently arranged my classes around the show so I could keep up. Eventually, annoyed by the increasingly ridiculous plots (I accepted the cloning storyline with nary a whimper, but Reva traveling through time was just too much), I drifted away.
But the thing about soaps is that you can always tune back in and pick up the narrative thread.Years later, I was hooked again, going in to work late five days a week just so I could cry for an hour in the mornings as Reva hid her battle with cancer from her friends and family. (She lived.)
Now I have no doubt that I’ll be crying again when Guiding Light finally goes dark. Not just because over the years the characters have become a bizarre, murderous second family. But so much of my memories are tied up with the show. Gasping on the phone with my friends when cross-dressing Brent killed fan favorite Nadine (who later came back as a ghost).Talking about Blake becoming pregnant with twins by two different men for years afterward. Becoming improbably absorbed in Reva being cloned, as Josh tried to teach the teenage clone to like okra. Submitting a “hit of the week” about the burgeoning relationship between unlikely couple Bill and Ashley as part of an interview to work at Soap Opera Weekly. And even after years of interviewing celebrities, Kim Zimmer is the only one to make me tongue-tied.
So
the show is ending, to be replaced by yet another game show reboot, and
hundreds of actors, stagehands, cameramen and writers will be hitting
the pavement looking for work. There’s no real reason to mourn a show
that survived most of the 20th-century when shows now struggle to stay
afloat for more than two seasons. But when Guiding Light goes,
it will take with it a whole lifetime of memories for its fans. So
good-bye, Reva Shayne Lewis and company.Your painful, hilarious daily
antics will be sorely missed. Maybe I’ll jump in a fountain on Sept. 18
in memorial.
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