Guiding Light R.I.P.

OK, I admit it. For a three or four-year period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I watched "Guiding Light" damn near every day. This is a clip from those "golden years," featuring my all-time favorite GL character, Roger Thorpe (as played by the late Michael Zaslow). For me, this clip and the character of Thorpe epitomizes what is so great about soap operas. For the entire time I watched GL, Thorpe was evil incarnate. Among other transgressions, he raped his own wife, beating her senseless in the process. He was beaten up by the Bauer brothers, shot by Holly, and as you can see here, dropped hundreds of feet into a vast jungle chasm.

Of course, he survived. A few months after this clip took place, he was back, his face heavily bandaged.

But that's not the best part. Even later on, Thorpe would become a good guy, one of the heroes of the series! And that's why I liked soap operas.

Zaslow actually became pretty famous later on, when he contracted ALS and was unceremoniously dumped from his role on GL. He went over to "One Life to Live," where he appeared until his death in 1998.

But the end of Guiding Light really is the end of an era. Farewell!