The Guiding Light (TGL) (known since 1975 as Guiding Light) was a long-running American television soap opera. Show development In the 1970s, unlike in the 1960s after Agnes Nixon left to begin writing for Another World in 1966, there was less of a revolving door of head writers and story line seemed to stabilize in only two directions, first what was aired from January 1, 1970, to near the end of October 1975 and then what was aired from near the beginning of November 1975 to the end of the decade on December 31, 1979. The first half of the decade was mainly dominated by the story lines that were written by the head writing married couple of Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer who wrote for the show from near the end of 1969 to the spring of 1973 and were long time and reliable soap scribes. And then the head writing team that replaced Soderberg and Sommer, James Gentile, Robert Cenedella and former The Guiding Light cast member James Lipton continued most of the stories in the same direction as started by Soderberg and Sommer from the spring of 1973 to near the end of October 1975. Under Soderberg and Sommer, several memorable story lines either concluded in big ways or kept many viewers very riveted to the action in Springfield, which continued to remain the main locale for the show for this decade. They also created several memorable characters, two in particular one that would last until the show ended in September 2009 and another that would be one of the most talked about characters on all of daytime. In 1970, Soderberg and Sommer concluded the story line of Dr. Sara McIntyre being gaslighted by her first husband Lee Gantry and his housekeeper Miss Mildred Foss, with Foss meeting a gruesome end in January 1970 and Gantry one in August 1970. Soderberg and Sommer then moved on to setting up the killing of Stanley Norris, in November 1971, and great mystery for several months and a trial where heroine, Leslie Jackson Bauer Norris, who had married Stanley earlier that year, was accused of the crime and Soderberg and Sommer presented a very memorable last minute confession of the crime by another woman, who was the mother of one of the young women that Stanley was having an affair with, who would end up dying in the court from