The Rustle of the Sheets . . .
Soap Opera Weekly

In today's rocky soap climate, just introducing a new character can be frowned upon by viewers. So Guiding Light took a risk early this year when it added an entire family -- the Santoses -- to it canvas. From the mail this magazine is receiving, not to mention the response the show has had, it appears GL's gamble has paid off.

According to head writer James Harmon Brown, the starting point for creating the Hispanic family was Danny. "We thought wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who could get between Jesse and Michelle," he explains. "Danny was created -- and who is he? He was connected to this family. We didn't want to make it the typical Italian godfather family. We had been trying to inject some Hispanic characters into the show. So he belonged to this family that was not Italian, but had many of the same traditions. It is happening in the world today. Families like this do exist.

Danny Santos and the new Mrs. Santos, Michelle

"As we got into who Danny is, we then got into who does he work for?" Brown continues. "That was when we came up with Carmen. We thought it would be more interesting and more of a pop for the audience if the godfather was in fact the godmother! She and Danny had a contentious relationship. He is more or less the Michael Corleone. He is bred to make the family legit. The push-pull is whether there is going to be enough time to do that. Of course, getting involved with Michelle and having feelings for her has completely upset everybody's agenda, including Danny's. This wasn't what he was looking for."

Danny's feelings for Michelle have especially upset Carmen's agenda; she wants Michelle dead because she's responsible for Carmen's son Mick's death. (Michelle and Drew killed him in self-defense last November; the Santoses don't know about Drew's hand in his death, yet.) Danny's feelings for Michelle have upset Michelle's agenda, too, because she wants to bring down the family, but she has fallen for him as well. Follow?

"Once we got into the Santos family and saw that the Danny/Michelle story had really taken off, everything became easier," Brown says, referring to the freedom his writing team now has to take risks with these fresh characters. "You are going to want to see these people and see what they are all about. They are not a stereotypical mob family. You will see that they have other things going on as well. It's exciting for us to build what we think is going to be a family far into the future of Guiding Light." Brown says we'll see more of Grandma Santos, as well as Danny's cousin Ray, whom Drew flirted with before finding out that he is a priest. "The grandmother is terrific," Brown says. "Once we got into the story, we started to look around and see what makes this interesting. Well, Danny has a cousin who is a priest. There are going to be other surprises down the road."

One for the wedding album

One twist to watch for is Carmen's involvement with Ben. Brown finds the Carmen character -- as well as Saundra Santiago's take on it -- fascinating, to say the least. "She went at it in a different sort of way [than we had imagined], but if you look at this woman...this is someone whose husband was running the show, and she was a wife and mother. He was killed, and to keep her family safe she had to rely on strength that she probably never knew she had. She, in fact, stepped in for her husband. She had to be strong to keep the family going. She can be a little over the top and scary. As time goes on, we will be seeing different sides to Carmen, as well as the other characters."

Some soaps might be envious of GL; with summer approaching, the show doesn't have to look far for a hot, young storyline to attract kids who are home from school. "It's nice for summertime people to already have something up and running instead of imposing it...just pulling something out of a hat and saying, 'Here are our young people for three months.' We are getting great mail, particularly to the Paul/Joie relationship," Brown says, referring to Paul Anthony Stewart and Joie Lenz (Danny/Michelle). Paulo (Benedeti; Jesse) has stepped up. I think Tammy (Blanchard; Drew) is going to be a movie star. She is a natural born talent. It opens up tremendous storyline opportunity for us that we are going to jump on. We are looking to the future of the show. These are young characters whom viewers seem to like, and we are going to ride that horse."

-- Mark McGarry