Bleacher & Everard/PGP
Guiding Light made its television debut on June 30, 1952 (after starting on radio on January 25, 1937). On Thursday, June 27 at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT, the one and only Maeve Kinkead will join The Locher Room to look back at this historic show and her iconic role as Vanessa Chamberlain.
Vanessa was the daughter of Henry Chamberlain and half sister of Quint McCord who had sweeping love stories with Billy Lewis and Matt Reardon. She was also mom to Bill Lewis (with Billy), Dinah Marler (with Ross) and Maureen Reardon (with Matt; the child was named after Vanessa’s late best friend/Matt’s aunt, Maureen Reardon Bauer, a friendship that was an important part of Vanessa’s life).
In her conversation with host Alan Locher, the actress will share plenty of backstage memories from her time in Springfield, where at various times Vanessa served as president of Spaulding Enterprises, the Spaulding Foundation and Lewis Oil. She also invested in plenty of ventures around town including WSPR, Tony Reardon’s disco, Wired for Sound as well as Trish Lewis’s restaurant, The Hideout.
Kinkead joined the CBS soap in June 1980 and graced the Springfield canvas for nearly 29 years. She was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1995 and won for he statuette Outstanding Supporting Actress in 1992. In addition to her role as Vanessa, Kinkead had a three-year stint as Angie Perrini, sister to Ray Liotta’s Joey Perrini, on NBC’s Another World.
Kinkead, the daughter of parents who worked for The New Yorker magazine, attended prestigious Radcliffe Universitym where she majored in English, initially planning to pursue a career as an English teacher. While continuing her education at Harvard, she became involved with the Loeb Drama Center, sparking her career in acting.
The actress went on to earn an M.F.A. from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Her writings have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry in Performance, and Seventeen Magazine. Her first poetry book, A Dangling House, was released in 2017.
To participate in the livestream interview with Kinkead, click here.
