Marland Monday: Good-bye My Friends
Is it Monday again? Well, that means it’s…
Marland Monday!
Yes, we are continuing to celebrate Douglas Marland, considered one of the best writers in the soap opera genre. Today we’re going to mark an anniversary of sorts concerning one of his most popular characters-many might think this character is their favorite of his, one of his best creations.
Let’s go back…
In 1982, Marland was still writing Guiding Light. It was time to bring in another Reardon. This time it was big sister Maureen (Ellen Dolan) that came home. She just survived a divorce and needed her family. After moving back to the Reardon boarding house, she got a job at Cedars being a secretary to Dr. Ed Bauer (Peter Simon) who was getting over a divorce from his third wife Rita. If you think these kids are going to end up together… Sniff! You are learning, grasshopper, how soap operas work. I’m so proud.
Maureen was one of the last characters Marland created for Guiding Light; a backstage drama was unfolding (trust me, I will write about this the next couple of months) and Marland didn’t renew his contract. He moved on to write for Loving. The show was in transition for a while, but one thing stayed the same: they kept the courtship of Maureen and Ed going. Ed proposed marriage. She wasn’t sure, but he insisted that she brought out the best in him. They married on Valentine’s Day 1983.
Maureen then settled into life with Ed, becoming what the British called the “Agony Aunt.” Stepson Rick was bothered Beth Raines wouldn’t go with him to the Prom? Talk to Maureen. Ed had problems with that mean administrator Warren Andrews? Talk to Maureen. Nola having problems living on the Hill with all the rich people? Talk to Maureen. There’s a dangerous virus going around that could kill people? Wait, that’s now. Trust me, people would’ve wanted to talk to Maureen.
Being a true soap opera character, Maureen went through the wringer. A miscarriage, Ed being jealous when she got the admin job at Cedars meaning she was his boss ( meaning she was his boss; Ed’s mom Bert set him straight on that) finding out Ed had an affair in Beirut with Dr. Claire Ramsey (long long story) and got Claire pregnant, then forming a bond with the baby named Michelle.
It was around then Dolan left Guiding Light. On April 2, 1986, a new Maureen came into town. To make things fun, she had the same first name as Dolan, Ellen. Last name Parker. But she became Maureen. Charita Bauer who had played Bert for thirty-two years died the year before. It was time for a new matriarch, a moral center for the show. Parker became the moral center, the one who told her daughter home before dark, who had hot chocolate ready on a cold day, and the calm in the drama of Springfield.
Maureen continued to be the Agony Aunt as people married, divorced, then got married again. She separated from Ed when he had an affair with his ex-wife Holly, but after therapy, they renewed their vows. She was a wonderful mother to Michelle. Parker had this lovely warmth about her, and she included everyone she came in contact with that warmth and kindness. She was strong when people needed strength. She was a loyal friend, listening to people’s problems, trying to be supportive. This continued for years. In the meantime, Marland had been writing for As the World Turns. Several GL alums joined him, including Ellen Dolan replacing Hillary Bailey Smith as Margo Hughes. She played the role until the show ended in 2010.
At the beginning of 1993, Maureen found out that Ed cheated on her again. This time it was much worse-it was Lillian Raines, one of Maureen’s best friends. After confronting Lillian yelling at her “You have reduced us to a ridiculous suburban joke and I will never forgive you!”Upset, Maureen went to the Bauer cabin to think, but Ed followed her. She ran out of her car and got in an accident. Ed brought her to Cedars, but it was too late. She died on January 11, 1993, twenty-nine years ago this week.
I had heard rumors in soap magazines they were letting Parker go. I thought it was malarkey. Malarkey! I was busy; I had a chance to study in London so I was super busy getting ready packing, getting shots so I wouldn’t get shingles or chickenpox, and learning the difference between dollars converted into pounds sterling. I crossed the pond, had horrible jet lag, but slowly got my body on GMT and learned to love London.
Early February my mother sent a news item: People were protesting at CBS studios in New York, demanding Guiding Light bring back Maureen. I thought she had died off-camera and would be brought back. I didn’t know she died on screen, and that Ed donated her organs. When organs were donated on a soap, that was it. You really were dead. There was no chance your character would be brought back. Years later when I saw that scene on YouTube, I thought oh God, no wonder people were upset. No wonder people were angry. They had every right to be angry. Killing Maureen was killing Little Women’s Marmee. It was unthinkable.
Maureen’s death was felt by everyone on the show. Roger Thorpe who always crushed on her cried on camera. Ed walked around in guilt. The moral center was gone. It never returned. At the Daytime Emmys that June, Ellen Parker won a well-deserved Best Supporting Actress Emmy, her first. All her colleagues and friends gave her a standing ovation.
Two months after Maureen died, when the weather was finally wasn’t so gloomy and daffodils were everywhere, my mother sent me another clipping from our paper. I was in the school’s mailroom. It was a couple of years before email, so letters home were gold. The headline read: Douglas Marland soap writer dead at 58. For a minute I thought, wait, I didn’t read that right. I read it again: he had surgery but there had been complications. He died on March 6, 1993, two months after I left the States.
I had an hour before classes started. I walked across the street to one of my favorite bookstores. My body was askew and I felt incredibly dizzy. I’ve had this feeling four more times in life: when I found out Paula Danziger, Beverly Cleary, Larry McMurtry, and Anne Beatts died. I couldn’t let anyone see me cry.
The bookstore had only been open an hour. I ran upstairs where there was a window seat. No one was around. I sat down and let the dizziness pass. I held on to the flimsy airmail envelope and the obituary. My fingers were getting dark with the newsprint. I couldn’t let anyone see me upset. I couldn’t explain to them that this writer I loved was dead. I couldn’t explain how I learned character development from him, or how to develop plot points because of him. That’s because I didn’t realize that myself until 2020 when I sat down and watched old ATWT episodes and thought oh wait, I see what he’s doing here, he’s developing the character here. Oh, I get why he did that, it’s tricking the audience.
He taught me so much, as much as my teachers and the writers I love. I didn’t know that yet in 1993. All I knew was I had a certain amount of time to cry. Then I had to wash my face with hot water then get a cup of tea and go to class.
People can debate why soaps aren’t great anymore to death, bringing up the OJ Simpson trial, the Internet, spoilers, people becoming sophisticated in their tastes, the storylines are boring, it’s the Internet and the constant complaining. I can tell you when the soaps died: the two deaths that happened in Winter 1993. One fictional one real, both devastating.
In the episode Maureen died, during the end credits the show played Linda Ronstadt’s “Goodbye My Friend” with the lyrics, Oh we never know where life will take us/I know it’s just a ride on the wheel./And we never know when death will shake us/And we wonder how it will feel. So goodbye my friend. That song makes me think of that late winter day in London, when I lost a mentor who I never met, a man I wish could’ve lived and written longer. We never met. But he was a friend. And oh, how his death shook me.
Turn in next week, everyone.
