Marland Special: Honey, Come Talk To Bea About It
When I started Marland Mondays ten months ago, I did it because I simply missed Douglas Marland. I missed his writing. I missed seeing his name on a credit listing. I missed the actors who performed his words. Five of them have died since I started this project: Lisa Brown, Kathryn Hays, Michael Tylo, and Jerry VanDorn. Now I add another name to the list: Lee Lawson, one of the first characters Marland created for Guiding Light.
If you needed a place to stay in Springfield that didn’t cost too much money, odds are you went to the boarding house on Seventh Street run by Bea Reardon. You couldn’t miss her; she had red hair, and usually was in her kitchen, talking with one of her children. She had seven of them: James (Jim), Sean, Maureen, Lana, Anthony (Tony), Nola, and Chelsea (In Marland’s world Nola was the youngest, but that was rewritten by another writer)
Her backstory went like this: In the early sixties, Bea’s husband Tom walked out on the family. Nobody knew why. Bea had to figure out how to support the family. She had a beautiful big house. She opened it up to boarders. Every morning she served breakfast, usually oatmeal. She spent her days cleaning the house, then serving dinner. Jim ran away in the mid-sixties (he came back in late 1983) Sean got married, and the others went to college or found jobs. When we met her in 1980, only Nola was left.
Nola, how should I put it? Nola wasn’t happy to be the last Reardon sibling left. She always complained about how unhappy she was, and how she wanted to leave. In one episode of Guiding Light, we saw Nola deep in thought. Bea walked in.
Bea: Oh, good morning! Isn’t it a little early for Princess Grace to be up?
Nola: Please Mom, I’m not in the mood for jokes this morning.
Bea: Are you sick?
Nola: No, I just couldn’t sleep last night, that’s all. I just gave up, end of story.
Bea: Well it’s not it for me, why couldn’t you sleep?
The scene went on with Nola talking about various people in her life, and Bea calling her out on a lot of stuff. Nola was concerned about her new girlfriend Morgan. Well, that was news because Nola never had girlfriends in school. Nola then complained about Floyd Parker, and how he was always around. Bea pointed out he was taking classes to be worthy of Nola. Every time Nola said something that hinted at an untruth, Bea called her on it. Bea didn’t take any guff.
When Nola’s lies threatened to derail Kelly Nelson’s career, it was Bea who told him the truth: he wasn’t the father of Nola’s baby. This led to the delicious scene I profiled last year of Kelly confronting Nola. When Nola came home and started lying again, it was Bea who set her daughter straight, telling her it was one thing to lie, but when the lies hurt someone else, then Bea had to step in.
That was Bea: she never minced words. She told the truth, even when it was hard, even when people didn’t want to hear it. Nine times out of ten, she was right. It was a trait her daughter, Maureen developed. When people were in trouble, they usually went to Maureen for help.
When Marland left in 1982, Bea continued to be the supportive mom. But she also struck a friendship with Henry Chamberlain (William Roderick) and in social gatherings, they often went together. In 1983 she found out a shocking truth: Tom never deserted the family. He was murdered by a misguided man (I won’t get into the story particulars, it’s complicated) but she could take solace that Tom never abandoned the family, that he really loved them.
When Charita Bauer (Bert) died in 1985, the writers tried to make Bea the main mother figure of the show, so everyone went to her for advice. The audience knew it wouldn’t work; Bea was Bea. Bert was Bert. Both of them were wonderful characters, but you can’t exchange one character for another. The powers that be at the time were trying to glam up the show, make it more Dynasty/Dallas. So Lee Lawson went to recurring. Bea went to visit her son Tony in Boston, leaving the boarding house in the care of newcomer Hawk Shayne. . When we first met Ellen Parker’s Maureen, Bea was babysitting Tom the second, Tony’s son. She came back for visits and give advice to Maureen and youngest daughter Chelsea (Kassie DePaiva) But I missed the Bea from the early eighties, the one who always set Nola straight.
I was shocked to find out Lawson was my mom’s age in 1980, in her late thirties. She had been in Love of Life and One Life to Live before Guiding Light. Years ago I was watching a rerun of Maude when a woman appeared at Maude and Walter’s door announcing “Hi, I need to be jumped.” I yelled out “It’s Bea!”
Seven years ago I was looking for a new therapist I could see online. I saw a name that looked familiar. Sure enough, Lee Lawson started over and became a psychotherapist in Southern California. I thought about seeing her, but decided against it. All the sessions would’ve started off with “What was it like working with Douglas Marland? Tell me about shooting the masked ball scenes.” It wouldn’t have worked.
When I heard she died last night, I felt so utterly sad. In bed, I thought of Bea, her kitchen with green walls. I thought of Lisa Brown, who died six months ago. Some people might think it’s silly to be sad about a soap opera actress dying. All I can tell them is when you watch someone for years, most likely in your living room, you feel like you know them. It might not make sense to you. I know (and I’m not alone here) that it makes sense to me.
Cheers to the people we let in our living room. You will never be forgotten.
