Charita Bauer
Charita Bauer (December 20, 1923 – February 28, 1985) was an American soap opera radio and television actress.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, on December 20, 1923,[1] she began her career at the age of eight as a model for clothing ads.[2] Her talents included singing, playing the piano, and speaking three languages.[3]
Stage
Bauer attended the Professional Children's School in New York, and her first theater appearance was on Broadway in Thunder on the Left (1933).[4][5] She was the only child actress in The Women on Broadway in 1936.[6] By 1942, Bauer's maturity was evident as a newspaper reported, "Charita Bauer ... gets her first 'grown-up' role in a Broadway play in William Roos' Life of Reilly, which opens on Apr. 29."[7] In 1944, she played in Good Morning, Corporal, on Broadway, with a reviewer commenting, "she's grown up and in this play has the role of a young woman ..."[8]
Radio
Bauer first appeared on radio on WPAP in New York City as a child.
She played Sarah O'Brien in Rose of My Dreams,[10] Mary Aldrich in The Aldrich Family[11] (a role she also played on the television version of the program[12]) and Judy Todhunter in David Harum.[13] Bauer also played in Second Husband,[14] The Parker Family,[15] and Orphans of Divorce.[3]
On November 11, 1944, Bauer made her 2,000th radio broadcast when she appeared on
Guiding Light
She played headstrong and opinionated Bertha "Bert" Miller Bauer on the long-running soap
To avoid confusion between her real life and her popular soap role, Charita asked the show's producers to name her TV son Michael after her own son Michael Crawford. (The show was aired live in the early days, and a mistake like addressing her TV son by an incorrect name would have been difficult to cover.)
While her character was a spitfire in the earlier days, by the 1970s she had been relegated to the ceremonial role of town matriarch, a role she would fill for the show for the remainder of her run. Just before Thanksgiving 1983, complications from a
In the storyline, after visiting Aunt Meta in New York, Bert returned to Springfield and began experiencing pain in her leg (which had been fitted with a prosthesis by this time and mostly kept off camera). She ended up having her leg amputated just as the actress who played her had. For the first time in decades, Bert had to depend upon others to wait on her hand and foot, resulting in one of the series' most memorable stories. (Bert, sitting in a wheelchair at Cedars Hospital, told Josh Lewis, who had been paralyzed recently and had given up hope, that life itself was a miracle and never to forget it.) In a moving scene, Bert dropped a teacup. She tried to get it, but could not, and in sheer frustration, she burst into tears. As she went through rehab following her operation, camera shot closed in on her remaining leg as she learned to walk again, bringing even more realism to the storyline.
In 1983, Bauer's long-time contributions to television were honored when she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Bauer received a posthumous Lifetime Contribution Daytime Emmy Award that summer, along with Search for Tomorrow's Larry Haines and Mary Stuart (who in the 1990s would play Meta Bauer). Her character Bert died, and was mourned on-camera in March 1986, a full year after Charita Bauer died.
Death
Bauer died February 28, 1985,[16] at age 62 after a long illness.[2][5] She was survived by her father, her son, and her grandson.[16]
References
- ISBN 9781476604145. Accessed October 26, 2015. "Charita Bauer was born on December 20, 1923 in Newark, New Jersey."
- ^ a b c d e f "Charita Bauer of TV's 'Guiding Light' Dies". Los Angeles Times. March 2, 1985. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
- ^ Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b Elze, Winifred. "A Silver Anniversary for The Guiding Light," Deming Headlight, June 23, 1977
- ^ a b "Charita Bauer, Veteran Star of 'Guiding Light'". Chicago Tribune. March 2, 1985. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ Newspapers.com.
External links
- Charita Bauer at IMDb
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