Chapter 1:
April 23, 1997
Roger Thorpe's apartment, 9:30 pm
Something was wrong. Roger could feel something was very wrong.
For months, he had been having a lisp to his voice. Roger had been for sure he had had a stroke, but now he wasn't too sure. He needed to schedule an appointment, but not here in Springfield, where its upstanding citizens would throw it into his face how he deserved his current predicament after years of making them all suffer and humiliating them time and time again.
No, Roger thought. It had to be out of town, where no one he knew, would find out about his medical crisis. If it comes to the worse, Roger would have to leave his family with their memories of him as he was then, and not burden them with the pain they might go through.
Roger quickly packed up everything in his apartment. Hopefully, he could leave town tonight without anyone recognizing him. But where would he go? The only towns nearby were Oakdale and Bay City, both within equal distance of Springfield.
Roger shook his head, he'd have to decide while on the way out. His thoughts were interrupted when the phone rang.
Damn, Roger thought. I wonder who could be calling right now?
Roger picked up the phone.
"Hello?" Roger's lispy voice said, trying his best to keep it from showing.
"Daddy?"
"Chrissy?" Roger's lisp nearly came out.
"I'm sorry for bothering you at this time right now," said Blake (Chrissy's name that she went by now). "But do you think I can speak with you sometime tomorrow?"
"I'm afraid I can't, sweetie," Roger said, hoping to end this conversation quickly. He didn't want to worry his daughter any more than what she was going through with her break up with Ross. "I have a very important business meeting tomorrow. Amanda wants me to speak to very important people out of town, first thing in the morning."
"Okay," said Blake, who sounded very disappointed. "We'll talk about it when you get back. How long are you going to be gone?"
"This meeting might take several days, sweetie," Roger said, his lisp making it somewhat uncomfortable for him to pronounce certain words. "I'll let you know when we might speak with each other."
"You promise?"
"I promise," said Roger, whose heart broke at having to lie to his Chrissy.
"Daddy, is everything alright?" said Blake, suddenly.
"Of course, sweetie," Roger said calmly, starting to grow nervous at his daughter possibly finding out. "Everything is perfectly fine. I'll see you when I get back in town."
"Okay," his daughter said. "Daddy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
Blake hesitated for several seconds, before she said, "I love you."
"I love you too, Chrissy," said Roger, whose eyes were beginning to tear up.
"Bye."
"Bye," Roger whispered, as he heard the phone finally click.
Roger sighed, before he immediately moved to pack his things in the car. It was about nine forty-five, when Roger checked out of the hotel. It would only be a matter of time before Springfield was finally behind Roger.
Blake Thorpe's apartment, 9:45 pm
Blake's phone call to her father left her more perplexed than she thought.
It was as if her father was hiding something from her, but Blake couldn't be for certain whether it had anything to do with his relationship with Amanda, who he had just gotten back with. And then there was that lisp to her father's voice that had been going on for months. Her father had told her that he had had a minor stroke, and said it was nothing to worry about. Blake knew her father didn't want her to worry, but whatever the case, Blake was worried. She immediately grabbed the phone and dialed her mother, who had a long and complicated relationship with her father, who she cared very much for, despite his relationship with Amanda Spaulding, and her own respective marriage to Blake's stepfather Fletcher Reade, who was the father of Blake's half-sister Meg.
The phone buzzed a couple of times before Holly picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hey, mom, it's me."
"Blake? What are you doing calling so late? It's fifteen minutes til ten. Is something the matter?"
"I just got off the phone with Dad, I asked him if I could speak to him tomorrow, but he said he had a very important business meeting tomorrow with some clients out of town that Amanda wanted him to handle."
"Roger didn't mention anything about a meeting to me today," said Holly, who sounded perplexed.
"You saw Daddy today, Mom?"
"I saw him earlier at Company. Both of us had lunch, separately with Ross and Amanda who arrived together, not long after Roger and I got there."
Blake frowned, upon hearing that. "How did Daddy seem to you?"
"He seemed perfectly alright, sweetie," said her mother, who was silent for a few seconds before asking, "Would you mind telling me what this is all about?"
"I don't know, Mom," said Blake. "I just-- I just had this feeling that Daddy was keeping something from me."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, I was kind of hoping that you could tell me."
"Well, I'm pretty much on the same boat as you because I don't know anything about any business meetings that Roger has. But then again, I don't tend to know about any affairs that he has with the Spauldings, business-wise and personal..." Blake's mother said, her voice trailing off before she cleared her throat. "Anyways, if Roger does indeed have a business meeting like he says, then he'll most likely be able to cram up his time to make it to the cocktail party that Amanda will be having at the end of this week."
"He said he was going?" Blake said, her voice raised.
"I don't see how he can't, especially since Amanda invited him," her mother said. "Honey, are you sure everything's alright?"
"I'm not sure yet," Blake said. "I'll find out more about it tomorrow, when I speak with Amanda. It's probably nothing, but one can never be too sure where my dad is concerned."
"I'll say," her mother agreed. "Listen, it's getting very late. I'll talk to you tomorrow, and then we can have this whole thing with your father sorted out after your meeting with Amanda."
"Alright," Blake said. "Good night, Mom."
"Good night, sweetie."
Blake hung up the phone before going over the conversation she had with her mom. Something didn't make sense in her father's story. Why hadn't Roger told her mother about this out-of-town business meeting that he was having before Amanda's cocktail party? Daddy always told her mother everything. Well, almost everything.
Daddy usually left out some things that made him look bad or kept a small piece of information to himself that he could use to his own benefit. Except now, Blake felt it wasn't either of those two, so what else could it possibly be? She sure hoped this meeting with Amanda tomorrow would clear up everything for her.
She walked silently over to her twins' crib, where both Jason and Kevin were sound asleep. She smiled softly, before kissing both her boys good night, as she went to bed.
Author's Notes: Okay, everyone, I understand that most of you are waiting out for the next chapter of Terror of Westeros, I will get back to writing that real soon, along with publishing the next chapters of Summer Fever, but I have been wanting to write this story for a long time.
To those of you who do not know, Guiding Light is a soap opera which ran for 72 years, that I have just gotten hooked into.
Roger Thorpe, the main character of this story, was the greatest villain in Guiding Light's history, played for many years by the wonderfully and extremely talented Michael Zaslow, who won a Daytime Emmy in 1994 for his role in Guiding Light.
In September 1996, Zaslow began experiencing slightly slurred speech on the set of GL. Over the next few months, as he began to lose weight and the slurring escalated, he underwent a battery of tests (doctors suspected everything from myasthenia gravis to Lyme disease).
On April 23, 1997 (24 years ago today), Zaslow made his final appearance as Roger Thorpe on Guiding Light, after Procter Gamble, the company which produced GL, took Zaslow off the air and shamelessly admitted that it was because of his condition. Eventually, they replaced him with another actor, Dennis Parlato, who lasted little more than a year.
PG exec Mary Alice Dobbins gained notoriety when she told TV Guide: "Roger is a powerful, active, sexual, multicolored villain. That's who we need him to be on the GL canvas. We do not need a wizened little old man. And that's what he would have to play in his condition."
In the September 1997 issue of People magazine, it was later revealed that the unemployed soap star no longer received his full salary. He was in arbitration with PG Productions about compensation. Zaslow stated that he had first suggested incorporating his condition "into the character, like a stroke," but GL executive producer Paul Rauch turned down the idea. "[Thorpe] has great strength and power," says Rauch. "It didn't seem characteristic for us to stop, then begin telling a story about whatever [Zaslow's] problem was."
The arbitration suit ended a month after his condition was finally diagnosed--Zaslow had ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). Zaslow called the settlement "fair" but was not allowed to discuss specifics.
Would GL have kept Zaslow on if his condition had been known at the time he was let go? Zaslow didn't think so, saying, "If I had been diagnosed with ALS while I was on GL, I do not in truth believe it would have gone down any differently. I think they would have booted me out of there even faster, out of fear. It takes brave people with a sense of fighting spirit and humanity to behave with dignity in a crisis. Those at the top [of PG] were not up to it. I bought into [the idea of GL] being a family and I have been hurt."
Fortunately, in 1998 ONE LIFE TO LIVE hired him to reprise his role as David, Dorian's ex-husband. For six months up until his death in December 1998, unable to speak or walk, Zaslow offered OLTL viewers a memorable and sensitive portrayal of a strong man afflicted with a life-changing illness.
After his diagnosis, Zaslow and his wife since 1975, Susan Hufford, exhaustively campaigned for ALS research funds. She continued to do so after his death in December 1998. In 2004, the character of Roger was finally killed off, six years after his portrayer's death. The following year Zaslow's widow published "Not That Man Anymore: (A Message From Michael)" using his personal journals, before she passed away in November 2006.
Undoubtedly, GL missed a huge opportunity to educate viewers about the early warning signs of this devastating illness. Yet, firing Michael Zaslow did more than just damage the show creatively. It left the audience with a sad, disgusting insight into the politics at PG, making it immensely challenging to support the show and its sponsors for quite some time before the show itself was finally cancelled and aired one last time in 2009.
Now I've always wondered as a soap fan, what would have happened had PG not fired Zaslow so harshly and kicked him to the curb as they did?
What would have happened had they identified the disease earlier and allowed Zaslow to stay in the role of Roger?
What would have become of Roger Thorpe, the scourge of Springfield, Illinois, who butted heads with practically everyone in Springfield and had a complex relationship with his family: Holly, his ex-wife, who he had once raped when they were married, of which Holly forgave Roger some time before they continued their complex romance to the disappointment of the people of Springfield before Roger's ex-wife Alexandra Spaulding set up Roger to look as if they had an affair, causing Holly to fall in the arms of Fletcher Reade, Holly's current husband; their daughter Christina (now known as Blake), and his long-lost illegitimate son, Hart, who gaslighted Roger the previous year with Roger's ex-wife Dinah Marler, who was Hart's lover; as he is finally receives his penance in the form of an incurable disease? Would he be able to repair the rift he had with Holly, his greatest love? Also, how would the people of Springfield react to finding out about his diagnosis?
Well hopefully, I hope to answer these questions as well as bring back some people of Springfield's past (Adam, Barbara, Sara, Ed, with more possibly on the way) in this story. Obviously, this will be an extensive rewrite of Guiding Light, starting on the day that Michael Zaslow last appeared, so this will ignore everything that happened to the character of Roger, who will not die in 2004, as per show canon. I will bring in some storylines from the show, such as Ross and Blake's estrangement from Blake having had an affair with Rick Bauer, over.
So please enjoy "Through Thick and Thin," the story of the Thorpe family as they help Roger after he is diagnosed with ALS.
Please review down below and let me know what you guys think.