what happened to dolan after the guiding light soap

The two faces of Maureen Bauer: Ellen Dolan (fifty) and Ellen Parker (r).

I've been reminded, on several different social media pages, that this month represents 25 years since the character of Maureen Bauer died on Guiding Light.

This plot, and its aftermath, has taken on a life of its own in those 25 years. There's certainly a feeling amid many fans that information technology was a mistake; some feel it was the beginning of the cease for the show.

If I've learned anything in my years of writing virtually soaps, it's that nothing is quite as simple as some of usa see from the cheap seats, so I wanted to revisit this and take a fresh look at what happened in front of and behind the scenes.

Maureen had been a favorite graphic symbol of mine, as played by both Ellen Dolan and Ellen Parker.

As created by Ellen Dolan, Maureen was one of " the ladies of P&Grand ." These women were smart, sexy and a new kind of grapheme that we saw on screen in the 80s and 90s, mostly on P&G shows.

On GL, Maureen and her sister Nola were one of the beginning to actually sally, with all of the attraction and complexity of earlier characters like Rita and Holly, but with a new attitude.

They were, in some means, daytime cousins of Molly Dodd, the auburn haired New Yorker counterbalanced betwixt tradition and the modernistic globe.

At first, Maureen seemed to be following in Rita'due south shoes, connecting with Ed, marrying him and then coping with sharing the Bauer house with Bert, the grande matron of the manor.

Bert grew to love Mo, and when Bert died, it seemed that the mantle of town dame had been passed, at to the lowest degree unofficially, to Maureen.

And this is where, I retrieve, memory gets a little hazy for fans.

I've heard or read so many fans talk about Ed and Maureen being the tentpole couple, and that they had the perfect marriage.

But we didn't always come across much of them and when nosotros did, their union had, as least equally far as I remember, its off-white share of challenges.

One of the biggest challenges early involved a weird story where Fletcher went to Beirut. Information technology made sense for him to exist there equally a reporter, only somehow, Maureen, Ed and Claire followed.

Fletcher and Mo were believed to be dead, for a few days, after an explosion. Ed and Claire fabricated love in their grief, and Claire became pregnant. They got over that (and Maureen somewhen raised Michelle every bit her ain), but Ed and Maureen really had a pretty flawed matrimony.

I liked both Dolan and Parker's have on the graphic symbol, but Parker's Maureen captured the maternal role and then realistically. She was every bit warm and nurturing as you would await a tentpole matriarch to be, but Parker had an uncanny ability to bear witness the injure and thwarting in Maureen when people – especially Ed – allow her down.

Ellen Parker took over the role of Maureen in 1986, and to exist honest, I don't recollect any of the producers or writers had a articulate idea of what to do with her, other than "Ed'south married woman" and "Michelle's mom."

Storywise, the show was irresolute focus, with the return of Pam Long and the focus on some key stories, none of which really involved Ed and Maureen.  Every once in a while, Ed or Mo would pop up in a scene, only we didn't run into much of them, outside of the Bauer Barbeque.

They had one story during this era. It was fantastic, and Parker, in particular, hitting it out of the park. It was a "C" story, one where Ed and Mo hit a bumpy patch when Holly came back to boondocks. Maureen plant herself flirting with Fletcher and, later, had a meeting of the minds with Roger Thorpe where she tried to see his humanity.

I remember some amazing scenes coming from that, Ed and Maureen talking in a very realistic manner. Maureen yelled at Ed, her injure near Holly being his focus and her disappointment in his lack of delivery to her so close to the surface.

Information technology was captivating, simply it was probably the only real visitation of their relationship in whatever kind of visible story until Ed and Lillian's affair happened, and the subsequent chain of events that led to Maureen'due south expiry.

I can only say that if you take not seen the before, during and after scenes that you should.

They are on YouTube, under the subject heading "Goodbye My Friend." There are thirty segments in all. Lookout man all of them, simply especially this one, which is just heartbreaking, in every way.

I just rewatched it recently, and was surprised when information technology brought me to tears.

Okay, that'south the story part of it. A piddling discussion of behind the scenes.

Much has been made of how Maureen was killed off, and past whom. A few years ago, Jill Farren Phelps took accountability for the decision in an interview.  In that location accept been numerous rumors near other aspects of the decision, as well.

There was an interview with Ellen Dolan in Soap Opera Digest. I can't retrieve if it was before Parker left Guiding Low-cal or after she'd been gone for a while, but Dolan was playing Margo at ATWT by the time it ran.

She made a surprising confession to the reporter that, after Parker had been at GL for a while,GL had reached out to her and asked her to reprise the role of Maureen, an offer she declined.

So it'southward pretty clear that there was an ambivalence, at to the lowest degree, about Parker and the role of Maureen somewhere in the college echelons. Was it the network? P&G? A producer?  Who knows.

Was it a mistake to kill Maureen? Did it hurt the bear witness?

I think the scenes before, during and after her death are among the virtually realistic scenes I've ever seen on daytime. As I said on social media, during the final Ed/Mo scenes I felt like I was sitting on a bench in a room, watching 2 friends have the about brutal, heartbreaking fight of their lives.

I think the negative feeling about Mo's death sometimes overshadows the fact that it'due south one of the best storylines and best scenes we've ever seen on any soap. The comparison some people have made to another emotionally devastating storyline, General Hospital's story regarding B.J.'s heart, is an apt one.

The timing of Maureen's go out – and of Parker's – was a trivial questionable, since the show had just lost two of its biggest stars, Beverlee McKinsey and Kimberley Simms, a few months before.

Only in the big scheme of things, I don't think that Maureen's death, per se, hurt the show.

What I think did injure the shows in the long run (non just GL) was the erasure of characters similar Maureen. Information technology'southward no one author or one show's error there, and a lot of factors were in play, including ever-shrinking soap budgets.

But many shows jettisoned what were perhaps more "comfortable" characters, ones that added texture and warmth, for charcters that were younger and flashier, ones with more than morally questionable personas that could drive story.

Sadly,GL never really got that kind of grapheme dorsum. It briefly had the marvelous Mary Stuart playing Meta, a welcome presence in the midst of the mobster-filled Bauer house.

I'd love to say other shows learned their lessons, but I don't remember that was true. While some of the remaining shows still have a few veteran actors – near all in their retirement years – I call up many shows were or are guilty of killing a character, even a young character in hopes of a boost in viewers.

Few of those stories had the fine writing and well-planned backwash of Maureen'southward death, thank you to the writing of Nancy Curlee and her team.

If she had to go, nosotros were going to damn well feel it, and mourn her after she was gone. In that, Curlee – and GL – were very, very successful. Indeed we do.

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Source: https://1000worlds.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/maureen/

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