Guiding Light: The Longest Story Ever Told, Part 2
Written by Scott Katz   
Tuesday, 04 August 2009 00:28

The Radio Years (1937-1956)

By the mid-1940s, Irna Phillips reportedly commanded a salary of about $300,000 per year.  Quite an accomplishment for a woman in the workforce over 65 years ago!  In fact, based on the Consumer Price Index calculations of inflation, $300,000 in, say, 1945, would have the same purchasing power as $3.7 million dollars today.  This undoubtedly would have made Ms. Phillips one of the wealthiest self-made women of the era.

Still, Irna worked hard to achieve her success.  At the height of this success, she was writing about 2 million words per year, which would be equal to about 30 to 40 novels per year.  She had multiple soaps broadcast across the radio waves simultaneously.  In addition to the aforementioned Today's Children, there were: The Road of Life, Woman in White, The Right to Happiness (a spinoff of The Guiding Light), Young Dr. Malone, and The Brighter Day.  Radio soaps, like most radio programs, were typically 15 minutes in length.

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Guiding Light: The Longest Story Ever Told, Part 3
Written by Scott Katz   
Saturday, 08 August 2009 02:38

The Radio Years (1937-1956) continued: Introducing the Bauers

The Guiding Light's revamped storyline, now centered in Selby Flats, concerned itself with the troubled marriage of Ray and Charlotte Brandon and their desire to adopt a child.  They eventually did so -- a boy named Chuckie.  It was within this storyline that the Bauer family was slowly introduced.

In July 1948, Meta was the first Bauer introduced.  Papa Bauer followed on August 31, 1948.  Papa Bauer's wife, cleverly named Mama Bauer, had taken ill and Papa visited the aforementioned Reverand Dr. Charles Matthews seeking medical, spiritual, and emotional help for her.  Aside from Meta, Papa Bauer had two other children, Trudy and Bill.  It would be Bill Bauer's branch of the family tree that the series would follow most closely over the ensuing decades.  As for Meta, it was eventually revealed that the boy that the Brandons had adopted, Chuckie, was in fact, Meta's biological son.  Years of angsty drama ensued.

In 1949, Reverand Matthews left Selby Flats, and the series, but before he did, he made a generous donation toward the building of a new hospital.  This facility, Cedars Hospital, opened its doors in the fall of 1949 and has remained a central part of the show ever since.  Also introduced in 1949 was the woman who would eventually become the heart and soul of the show, Bertha Miller -- nicknamed Bert.  She and Papa Bauer's son, Bill, were married on December 9, 1949 by Reverand Paul Keeler who took over as pastor of The Church of the Good Samaritan after the departure of Reverand Matthews.

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