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A Random Rant on Testing
Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
Soap stage goes dark for Firestone grad after 22 years in role
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Published on Sunday, Sep 13, 2009
Frank Dicopoulos was out walking on a New Jersey beach near his home one weekday morning not long ago, chatting with a reporter by cell phone.
''It's strange,'' he said. ''It's very strange.''
Strange because, for the first time in more than 20 years, Dicopoulos was not preparing for work.
Since 1987, the Firestone High alum has played Frank Cooper, a role created for him, on the CBS soap Guiding Light. But the network has decided that Friday's telecast will be the soap's last. Production has been completed. A new version of the game show Let's Make a Deal will succeed it in October.
Dicopoulos still can't quite believe it.
''It's very difficult, very sad,'' said Dicopoulos, who grew up as Frank Dickos before changing his name from its Americanized version to the Greek original. He got the bad news when executive producer Ellen Wheeler called on April Fool's Day.
''It made no sense to me whatsoever,'' he said. ''I'm kinda frustrated and kinda angry and kinda upset.''
The show was still drawing about 2 million viewers a day, he said. And its 72-year history on radio and, since 1952, on television made Guiding Light the longest-running broadcast series ever.
''We have four and five generations of watchers,'' Dicopoulos said. ''Can you imagine — to be seen in all those homes for all those decades?''
One of those long-ago viewers was Akron's Areti Temo, a Greek immigrant who learned English from listening to Guiding Light on the radio and later watching it on TV.
Mrs. Temo's granddaughter, Melina Kanakaredes, went on to become an actress — and, as Eleni Andros Cooper, part of the Guiding Light ensemble Please see 'Light', E5
Continued from Page E1
from 1991 to 1995, as well as Dicopoulos's wife on the show. Dicopoulos still refers to the years working with Kanakaredes as one of the high points in his Guiding Light tenure. ''I miss that connection,'' he said. ''When it works, it really, really works.''
Told of Dicopoulos' comments, Kanakaredes said, ''That's so sweet. . . . It was my first [acting] job out of college. I had done some commercials, but I was still new. . . . My grandmother was so excited.''
Kanakaredes, now starring on CSI: NY, would use the show as a shout-out to Akron-area friends of Mrs. Temo. (The widow of Temo's Candy founder Christ Temo, she died in 2004.) A list of customers for Eleni's catering business would often include local folks' names, Kanakaredes said.
While Kanakaredes and Dicopoulos did not know each other well before Guiding Light — there's about a 10-year age difference — she still marvels that they ended up working together.
''The odds of two people from the same town ending up, not only on the same show, but as love interests — it's so weird, so random,'' she said.
But if you talk to people from Guiding Light for long, the sense of community and family is evident. Besides working with Kanakaredes, Dicopoulos's favorite moments include times he acted with his real wife, Teja Anderson, and their daughter, Olivia.
Anderson appeared on the show in several roles, but the one that stands out for Frank is ''when she came on as a blind date for me. We had an absolute complete blast and got in a kind of food fight, and she did a great, great job.''
Then there's Olivia, who played Maureen Reardon on the show. ''It was an absolute thrill to work with my daughter,'' he said. ''It's, like, the old man's going off and the new blood's coming on.''
So you can see why the likely end of Guiding Light stings so much, not only for fans, but for actors like Dicopoulos. It's not only business. It's painfully personal.
''When you see some of the crap that's airing . . . this is definitely a medium and a vehicle that is needed,'' he said. ''How many reality shows and game shows can you possibly have? They're going to wear themselves out. . . . You need a blend, you need a mixture.''
Dicopoulos continues to believe that Procter & Gamble, which owns the program, has a ''very realistic'' chance of finding it a new home, although it might include some format changes. He believes daytime soaps, though an endangered TV form, still belong: that soaps provide a way of seeing others working out their differences, as well as providing viewers with difficult lives of their own some relief by seeing others suffer. ''You know, misery loves company,'' he said.
Guiding Light has endured decades of adjustments, a less-than-prime-time budget — which was then cut — and a possibly lethal time-slot change.
Although WOIO (Channel 19) carries Guiding Light at 3 p.m. weekdays, CBS offers it for 10 a.m. — when many potential viewers are not at home, he said. ''Guiding Light could have survived if we had been in a 3 o'clock time slot.''
Still, he said, ''we were able to pull off a miracle for years.'' Although Wheeler has made some controversial changes (such as using hand-held cameras) since joining GL in 2008, Dicopoulos considers those part of the miracle.
''I'm just so proud of the show,'' he said. ''Ellen Wheeler did a phenomenal job reinventing the show, even with budget cuts. She bought us an extra year and a half. . . . The saddest thing is, we were all excited about some of the story lines that were planned. . . . We had arrived where we wanted to be.''
Only, as far as CBS is concerned, the next step won't be seen. And as hopeful as Dicopoulos remains, he knows that you can't eat hope. Asked what he would be doing if the show is in fact done, Dicopoulos cracked, ''Retail.'' Then, he said more seriously that he had shot a pilot (he couldn't say for what) and was meeting with an agent about jobs, including some possibilities in prime time.
''I'm back in the pool,'' he said.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com, on Facebook and on Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Frank Dicopoulos was out walking on a New Jersey beach near his home one weekday morning not long ago, chatting with a reporter by cell phone.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Wadsworth, OH
Posted 08:40 AM, 09/14/2009
RIP guiding light., How sad, and to be replaced by a stupid game show is just sickening.
2 million viewers out there are heartbroken and explain to me why it couldnt go to cable?
akron, oh
Posted 09:00 AM, 09/14/2009
Thats show biz!!!!
