FLASHBACK: THE GUIDING LIGHT Receiving Large Response 1957

TV Soap Opera Receiving Large Viewer Response

The Hartford Courant
September 29, 1957

Are soap operas important to their viewers? Judging by the recent experiences of Theo Goetz, Papa Bauer on THE GUIDING LIGHT, soap operas are accepted as part of the reality of daily living.

After eight years on the show, Theo's character of Papa Bauer was singled out by the producer for a birthday party on camera. Someone then suggested, as a way to test the show's audience, that the public be invited to participate, so a 30-second announcement was flashed on the screen advising viewers that if they wished to send Papa Bauer birthday greetings they should address their cards and letters to a New York box number.

"I was very concerned about this," Theo told me. "I expected we'd get maybe a hundred letters and I went around and asked all my friends to write in."

Apparently they all did - Papa Bauer received 59,000 birthday greetings.

"Hardly any of the letters were addressed to me," Theo continued. "As far as the audience is concerned, there is no Theo Goetz, there is only Papa Bauer. I should have guessed it would be like this. Everywhere I go, I am recognized as the character I play. People get up to give me their seats on the buses. Complete strangers approach me on the street and ask my advice on the most intimate personal problems. They won't believe me when I tell them that hall my homey philosophy is supplied by the writers of THE GUIDING LIGHT.

"Recently on the show," Theo added, "there was a very unpopular twist in the story. I was again swamped with mail suggesting I do something about it. My favorite letter was from a minister, who wrote that he represented a large group of people who were very displeased with the way the story had turned. He suggested that perhaps I could induce the writers to send the popular young girl off on an airplane trip with the unpopular man she married. Then - poof - an airplane crash and only one survivor."

Theo accepts his status as America's most adopted grandfather gratefully and with good humor. After hitting the top as a European actor, he arrived in the United States in 1940 as a friendless refugee with $2.00 to his name. When he got his first radio job he was still unable to understand English. He appeared on YOUNG DR. MALONE opposite Alan Bunce, and remembers how he got away with it.

"I watched him intently," said Theo, "and when his mouth was closed I knew it was time for me to speak."