FLASHBACK: John Wesley Shipp 1981

Wedding Bells Ringing

By Polly Vonetes
Spartenburg Herald-Journal
August 15, 1981

"I want to get married someday," said John Wesley Shipp. "I think that whole aura of marriage and family is desirable, especially when you're involved in this kind of business. You want that security in your personal life."

Viewers of CBS' GUIDING LIGHT will see Shipp get married in a sense as his character of Kelly Nelson weds Morgan Richards (Kristen Vigard) in an episode this week. Their lavish outdoor wedding has been a long-awaited event.

Shipp, who created the role of Kelly Nelson in February 1980, is a graduate of Butler High School in Louisville, Ky., and the University of Indiana in Bloomington.

He has been in New York, where GUIDING LIGHT is filmed, since 1977, and before landing the role of Kelly, he had various walk-on parts on the serials ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN, and the nighttime series ON OUR OWN.

Since his move to New York, Shipp has studied acting with Julie Bovasso at LaMama Theater, and with Stephen Strimpell at the Herbert Berghof Studios. In addition, he has studied dance, piano and organ, and still finds time to take singing lessons. He has sung numerous times on GUIDING LIGHT.

Shipp has been featured in regional theater productions in North Carolina, Michigan and Indiana in "Unicorn," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "Company K," "The Caretaker," "Butterflies Are Free" and "Of Mice and Men." His musicals include "Company," "Carousel" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."

When not at the television studio, he enjoys basketball, bowling, tennis, volleyball, swimming and water-skiing. In the future, Shipp hopes to sing and play piano for albums and/or films.