'Guiding Light' Airs 15,000th Episode

Longest-Running Soap Hits Milestone With Kooky Day In Springfield

(CBS)  The daytime drama "Guiding Light," which has been entertaining audiences on radio and television for almost 70 years, hit another milestone Thursday with the airing of its 15,000th television episode.

In the episode, Reva (Emmy Award winner Kim Zimmer) goes to the Springfield lighthouse in the hopes of gaining some perspective on the life that is rapidly slipping away from her. She wishes she could change everything — no cancer, no broken marriage, no pain or regret.

But when she suffers a dangerous fall, she awakens to a changed world — a world totally unlike the one she came from.

Created by soap opera pioneer Irna Phillips, "The Guiding Light," as it was originally known, debuted on the radio Jan. 25, 1937. Broadcast live from Chicago, the 15-minute daily show centered on the Rev. Dr. John Ruthledge and the people he counseled in the town of Five Points, Ill.

He kept a lamp lit in his study as a "guiding light," indicating he was always available to those in need.

"The Guiding Light" moved to Los Angeles in 1947 and the story's location was changed to Selby Flats, Calif. Some of the storylines were quite daring for its day, including one about the character Rose Kransky who became radio's first unwed mother.

In 1949, the show moved to New York where it is still taped for television at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan.

The show premiered on TV on June 30, 1952 and continued on radio for a few more years. During that time, the cast had to perform the show live for TV in the morning and then do it all over again for live radio in the afternoon.

In the 1950s and '60s, the show revolved around the Bauers, a lower-middle class German immigrant family headed by the wise Friedrich "Papa" Bauer. His three children, Bill, Meta, and Trudy, provided plenty of drama, and storylines included Bill's battle with alcohol, sibling rivalry between Trudy and Meta, and Meta's challenging relationship with her step-daughter Kathy.