heart attack. Soderberg and Sommer also wrote most of the set-up to how both the characters of Katherine "Kit" Vestid and Charlotte Waring Bauer would become one of the most interesting pair of villainess seen on television up to that point, that would be concluded by the next writing regime. On April 1, 1971, a new character was introduced, by Soderberg and Sommer, who would become one of the most major and remembered characters in daytime, Roger Thorpe, played by Michael Zaslow, originally a junior executive employee of Stanley Norris', off-an-on until the spring of 1997. (Thorpe would stay on the canvas until the spring of 1998, but at that time from the spring of 1997 with an unpopular recast. Roger Thorpe would die off-screen in the fall of 2004.) During the 1970s, into April 1, 1980, the character of Roger Thorpe became more and more of a villain, but a complicated, multi-faceted one. It seemed the more bad Roger became, the more the audience grew and wanted more of him. And Roger's on-and-off again tortured romance with another character started under Soderberg and Sommer, Holly Norris Bauer Thorpe, Stanley Norris' daughter (played by Lynn Deerfield and then more memorably by Maureen Garrett), who was supposedly the "love of Roger's life". became one of the most popular and riveting romances on television period. (Holly was the character that was created by Soderberg and Sommer who would last, on-and-off until the show's end in September 2009.) Shortly before Soderberg and Somer's exit as head writers, long time cast member (on 24 years at the time, both on radio and television), Theo Goetz who played Papa Bauer, the patriarch of the Bauers, as well as most of the rest of the citizens of both Selby Flats and later Springfield, died on December 29, 1972, at the age of 78 years. Goetz had been considering retirement at age 75 in 1969, but was persuaded by then Executive Producer of The Guiding Light, Luci Ferri Rittenberg to stay on at the show as Papa Bauer. Soderberg and Somer wrote a fitting tribute episode, after having Papa die in his sleep, to both Goetz and Papa that aired on February 27, 1973, with a memorial service, with Mart Hulswit playing Dr. Ed Bauer, Papa's grandson, giving a very memorable eulogy and Don Stewart, playing Michael "Mike" Bauer, Papa's other grandson, singing one of Papa's favorite