Bert WAS the Queen of the Guiding Light.

Bert Bauer, Nancy Hughes & Joanne Turner the grand dames of P&G soaps. What magic memories I have of watching all three. We will NEVER see the likes of this again.

Charita was a fantastic actress.

When Bert Bauer died on the show and when Charita Bauer died in real life,the show died.The heart of the show fell apart.i stopped watching it forever at this point.The Bauers "Mama" was gone and there was nothing left to watch for.My heart broke and as far as I'm concern the show went down the yoilet and never recovered.I miss you Bert Bauer.I miss you Charita Bauer,forever.

My mother loved Charita Bauer. She liked Channel 2 soaps, and I liked Channel 7. Ms. Bauer was on the GL when it was on radio. ❤

My mother had the privilege of meeting Charita Bauer. This was back in the 1950s. She met her in a department store. This was a true testament of anyone who met Charita Bauer. She was revered by fans and co-stars alike.

I started watching in the late 70s till the end of the show, God I miss my Guiding Light family😢

I never watched when Charita Bauer was on the show in the 1950's through the 1980's, but after seeing the Scene with Ed Bauer #2, I realize what a powerhouse she was. I also feel that if The Daytime Emmys existed back in the 1960's, she would have won for this scene hands down.

I LOVED Bert Bauer! I cried when she died, too. And GL has never been the same...

It is SO sad to hear Ed Bryce say "stay tuned for 50 more" years. Thankfully he nor Charita Bauer are around to see the state of GL in 2008. He wouldn't give it 50 days if he could.

I grew up watching Charita Bauer. I loved her very much.

Oh how I miss Bert. I cried so hard when she died. what a wonderful character.

Whether she was playing warm and inspirational and understanding or shrill and judgmental and harsh, Charita Bauer was PERFECTION.

Actor Ed Bryce passed away in 1999. Had GL not foolishly killed off his Bill Bauer character in 1983, perhaps he could have assumed the role of Bauer Family patriarch after Charita Bauer's passing. Or, the character of Maureen Bauer could have taken Bert's place as matriarch in the 90s, but GL foolishly killed her off too.

They originally weren’t going to even acknowledge CB’s death on the show - just have BB offscreen. Fans demanded that CB and BB have a farewell explanation.

The opening scenes with Bert learning to walk was Charita Bauer's last months on the show during the year 1984.

The two scenes (Bert and Josh) and (Bert and Ed) are what makes GL great and what I will miss. I agree with the previous poster, Charita Bauer was a powerhouse and was taken from us WAY too soon. I will miss watching Guiding Light.

Great, classy lady. Along with Mary Stuart, she created a great legacy that is sadly being ignored and, consequently, diminished. Wouldn't it be nice to see this same caliber of committed storytelling again?

I miss Bert Bauer (Charita Bauer). The show has not and will not ever be the same. Thank you for posting this.

I miss GL and ATWT so much. I hate that people will forget them. But they will...

OMG.. I cried at the end, thinking she had to have a leg amputated and all she went through regarding it.. and yet, there she is, still smiling for all the world to see!

I know! She was what made me want to watch GL in the first place.She was the one who mothered the new in and up and coming stars on that show.She talked to them,coached them,and made them feel at home on the set.Many stars who remember her said that she was like a mother to them on the set and when she died,they all said they would never forget her,ever.When she died the show died with her.I still truly miss her.

Happy Charita Bauer Day! Today she would have been 86 years old!!

I did also. She was a special lady. The show changed somuch since her passing. I miss her even today too.

WOW, I'm a guy and I was in the hospital recovering from minor surgery around this time. I was flipping through the channels and all the soaps bored me until . . . I came across G.L. and liked it. By the time I left the hospital a few days later I was hooked. I worked evenings so I was able to watch every day before work. The writing and acting were very good, and this was definitely the best era of the show - and they deservedly won the Emmy for best drama during this time. And then it seemed like everything slipped (I heard there was a change in writers). The Bauer family was abandoned, everything focused on Reva (Sorry but I never liked her). But this and other clips from this era really bring back great memories of a great show: Roger and Holly, Rita, Eve, Ben, Nola, Hillary, Diane Ballard, Alan Spalding, and of course Bert Bauer. The list goes on and on, really miss them all.

It was taped at the GL studios, probably. It aired at the end of an episode, as part of a week-long celebration of GL's 50th anniversary. If I remember correctly, each day that week they had one of these "look back" pieces at the end of the episode.

I miss the days of these soap operas.

Thank you for posting this. Charita Bauer was one of the greatest ladies in TV history. Those of us who got to see her as Bert Bauer are very lucky. It's kind of shocking to compare the show in your classic Guiding KZfaq clips to the Guiding Light of today with its ridiculously low budgets. Today, it's like everyone involved is kind of going through the motions wondering when not if CBS will lower the boom.

I remember Charita Bauer once saying on an awards show that when she started on GL, it was still on radio. Don't quote me, but I think she said that 2 years later it went to TV, but they still did radio scenes in another studio, so she had to dash over to the TV station later. That lasted for a couple of years, too. She has been missed, and like Mary Stuart, Helen Wagner, and, to an extent, Jeanne Cooper, she could not be replaced, although Mary Stuart did somewhat take over the role of matriarch when she portrayed Meta.

She passed about same time as my father / grandmother 😢30 ish yrs later still gets me .

Sadly, the continual chipping away of the core characters-and thus the foundation of Guiding Light has sealed it's fate. I still tune into the show now and then hoping to see a glimpse of a once great soap.

When Robert Gentry came back, you have to remember that the current cast members he worked with weren't the same cast members he worked with in the 1960's. There were so many problems backstage and also none of Peter Simon's colleagues were on the show, the actors who played Ross, Fletcher, Holly, Alex, Vanessa and of course Roger by Michael Zaslow were no longer on the show so it was hard for them to work with them. Isn't it amazing that Bill Bryce is Scott Bryce's father who was on ATWT.

I miss Charita Bauer :(

should Ed Bryce have said "....thanks for 50 wonderful years of Guiding Light, and ...stay tuned for only 22 more, half of which will suck...." ???

Bert was wonderful. I am glad there is this tribute to her

Soaps can have all the pretty people they want but it's character like Bert that really resonate with fans. Love all the comments here. I loved Bert and Charita so much and cried so hard when Jerry ver Dorn announced Charita's death. It was outrageous they didn't write Bert's death until a year later - the show was never the same after her passing, though Maureen was shaping up to being a worthy successor to Bert until she was foolishly killed off.

My mom loved Bert

GL died when the Bauer's were fazed out.

Charita was a great actress, and I tell you, Bert had harsh streak when she was younger.

You are so right, it is sad to hear him say that. However....It can be said that the show made it another 21 years after his comment. That's quite a feat!! Especially for a show that featured Clones, Paintings coming to life, and Ava & Coop!

You are correct. At the end of each episode during the 1987 anniversary week, clips were shown based on 'votes from the viewers'. I think they were called "most requested scenes". This clip was called Bauer Family i think. One day they featured Kelly/Nola..Another clip featured Rick/Phillip.

Yeah, I remember that too. I remember him when he was Ross Chandler on AMC from 1984-1989. He was really good on that show.

RIP Charita Bauer (1922-1985) and Ed Bryce (1921-1999).

Charita Bauer was only 62 when she died.

You are so right! There are truly many versions of Guiding Light in the minds of the viewers. Only the name has remained the same over the years. Can you imagine Seinfeld running for 60 years, without Elaine, Jerry, or Kramer and still call it "Seinfield"? But that's what is happening with GL.

When you don't water the roots (the Bauer's having storylines) then the tree dies or you could say GL gets axed.

Daytime was when I was growing up full of soaps, game shows, reruns of prime-time shows, talk shows, ect. But now it has shrunk. Only 8 soaps left, 1 game show left. Local programming has taken over the airwaves.

What I wouldn't give for Natalia Rivera to have a conversation like this with her son Rafe about Olivia Spencer.

To the owner of the video: can you please give credit to Kassie DePaiva for singing that song at the end? She played Chelsea Reardon while on GL. Thanks. I LOVED Bert! Such memories.

God Bless Bert

Bert reads Ed for FILTH at 2:54: "I just hope that when you're his age, you are half the man he (your father) is...because he's a big man....and you're small."

They should really bring back some more of the Bauer Charceters - Ed, Michelle, Danny, Mike Hope. Make it a better soap opera focusing on the Bauers.

i think that was said just as a kind of pep talk of sorts for publicity...because the show's staying power of 50 years in 1987 was a major feat and here the show is 21 years later...in it's 71st year on the air...who knows if the show will go on another 29 years...but maybe it will...it's last 71 so far...

@Andorian323 I totally agree with you. I don't know why the writers got rid of them.

CaliforniaGuy, Ed and KEn never met during the 90s, as Robert Gentry had already left the show again back in the summer of 1998 when Holly's brother Ken returned to SF (after having been away for more than 20 years). He was mainly involved in the nursery rhyme stalker storline and left for good in early 1999.

My goodness those were some rough words from Bert telling Ed that he’s a small man. Daytime soaps had some great dialogue at one time.

Or if the show is too expensive to produce nowadays, then cut it back from one hour to 30 minutes, as it was in the 1970s. They could get rid of extraneous characters, and focus the show on only 2 or 3 good storylines at a time.

What is the name of this song? It's awesome.

laminage, I remember when Robert Gentry returned to the show in late 1997 (and left again after the Bauer barbeque in 1998), there was not a single actress/actor left from hist first GL period (1966-69); the "oldest" actress being Maureen Garrett at the time, who had started on GL during the mid-70s (1976?!). All the actors you mentioned were still with the show (with the exception of Zaslow who had been gone since early 1997) at the time.

Here's a question I've been wondering about for years. Would Bill and Bert have passed the rest of their years together in relative peace and happiness if he hadn't spent so many years away? I think so, because Bill was the sort of man who responded so favorably to softness and a light touch and support and Bert was just starting to transform into the sort of wife who could give that to him. Sure would've loved to see a new day dawn on the Bauer marriage.

Yes..they Ed and Ken didn't meet but were on around the same time I thought. I distincly remember a scene with Robert Gentry (playing Ed) getting the news that Holly's brother had been released and he looked concerned..but that was it...they didnt meet ! I think it was Ken who had shot Ed back in the day...

is there video available of the infamous storyline that included Bill's death at the hands of Eli Sims. I was too young to really remember it happening so i only have the accounts in GL's history book but the Fisherman story is what i'd like to see.

I have often wondered about these decisions myself. I guess somewhere there was an "Agenda' to get rid of the Bauer family. Only the Bauers seem to 'die'. Look at what happened to Hillary, Maureen,and Bill Bauer. Of course, they couldn't recast Bert..But where is Meta? And Hope left town back in 1983, never to be seen again. And let's not forget Rita Bauer...or heck even Johnny Bauer. oy

You know what would have been cool. If Leah Bauer had an argument with her Father, she has a Dream and her Great Grandmother Bert reads her chapter and verse using this Scene.

Ain't this a blip. Ed rails "He turns his back on you and turns to another woman!" Yet in the 1980's he does the same thing with his Wife Maureen who would be his "Last" Wife and sleep with Lillian Raines.

One of the things i'll really never understand is why the show treated the Ed Bauer character to poorly...Peter Simon exits the show and then later, Robert Gentry returns to the role...then they lose Gentry i think based on lack of story and they let him go; then all the hoopla over Peter Simon returning and they did nothing really with the character and eventually Ed was off the show again.

Where was this taped? And did it air in place of a GL episode?

I think like you do. I didn't understand why Robert Gentry's return wasn't better handled. Heck, they even had Holly's demented brother on the show at the same time. I think he was a writer on the show at the time and also had played Holly's brother back in the day. So, the show had Holly's brother and Ed on at the same time..Holly's brother I believe had shot Ed many years earlier. As for Peter Simon, the management didn't seem to like him for some reason.

I think young viewers hate cliches, not necessarily family based stories. All viewers want the best show. For me that means no gimmicks and no stale habits either. Aiming for what they think the youngest demographic wants is just ass-backwards, though. How long are they going to bet on Jonathan's returns?

bad decision making for sure...i can recall when the show attempted to be relevant and trendy in order to compete but the core audience, which makes up it's fan-base pretty much, didn't like it...but when the show puts on stories about family and other stereotypically "soap opera" stories, younger watchers don't like it...so GL is caught between several generations of fans while they're trying to please a desired age group.

I had taped that storyline back in the day (1983 I think). I believe Bill fell/jumped out of the window upon seeing Annabelle Sims..She was supposedly a 'dead ringer' of her mother. At least that's how I recall it. I also remember that HB Lewis shot and killed Eli Sims but I don't think the show ever addressed HB's punishment...no jail time. Must have happened in California (just kidding about that).