Most Memorable Soap Characters

5. Bert Bauer (Charita Bauer): Even new fans of the soap know who Bert Bauer was. The matriarch of the show's core family, the Bauers, Bert, and by extension her portrayer, also became the matriarch of the show. Bauer joined the cast in the late 1940s as a recast, when GL was still being broadcast on radio, and then made the transition to television in 1952. Originally a hard and shrewish woman, whose social ambitions drove husband Bill to alcohol and extramarital affairs, Bert's most memorable moment on Guiding Light occurred when she realized the error of her ways and became a better wife and mother for it. Her transition from being the show's ersatz troublemaker to its matriarch was hard-earned, including dealing with the humiliation of her husband's infidelities and his lack of ambitions to recovering from uterine cancer, another seminal Guiding Light moment, which, inspired many of its female viewers to get screened after watching the show's heroine go under the knife to fight the disease; to her husband's supposed death and return several years later. Though over the years, Bert's stories dwindled and she became a tentpole character which provided advice and solace to other characters as they went through their various trials and tribulations, Bert became an unmovable force on the show, creating the moral foundation that in the past was provided by its religious themes. Undoubtably, Bert and Charita were the show's guiding light, inspiring comfort and familiarity to the soap's many fans. In 1984, actress Bauer's health began to decline. Eventually her leg was amputated. Bauer's real-life struggle was incorporated into the story. Fans watched Bert bravely struggle with her illness and recover from her amputation through therapy. Another important scene, one which fans fondly remember, was when Bert, while recovering from surgery through therapy, offered sage advice to fellow hospital patient, Josh Lewis, who had been paralyzed in a car accident after learning his love Reva Shayne was now married to his father. "Josh," she tells the frustrated young man who has a set-back during therapy, "these things take time."

Josh: So what are you saying: that it's going to take a miracle?

Bert: No, I'm not saying that, because life is a miracle. And don't you forget it.

By the next year, Charita Bauer would lose her struggle. The show honored her contribution to Guiding Light the following year when they wrote in Bert Bauer's death, offering the show and its fans a chance to say farewell to the woman and character who had left such a remarkable legacy on the show. Yet, despite the fact that it has been decades since either Bert or Charita graced the screen, their presence is still very much felt in fans' hearts, who continue to remember fondly this indomitable and beloved character.

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