Guiding Light:
Me and My Character
Beth Chamberlin
Beth Chamberlin stepped into the role of Phillip Spaulding’s (Grant
Aleksander) high-school sweetheart, Beth Raines, in 1989, and has played
the role on and off for almost thirteen years. In that time, Beth has
been a victim, a heroine, a schemer, a princess and even a con artist
named Lorelei. But never, ever before has Beth been a liberated, confident
sexual being. Until now. Beth’s caution-to-the-wind affair with the
much younger (born in 1984) Bill Lewis has taken the character in a whole
new direction. And actress Beth Chamberlin couldn’t be happier...
Beth v. 2:
We are seeing a whole new Beth. She comes into her own after leaving Phillip.
Here’s an analogy I’m using: My (real-life) husband got me this
Chinese plant. It was a little plant in my dining room. I've had it for
a year and I've watered it and taken care of it, but it always stayed
the same size. It looked perfectly healthy but it stayed the same size.
I thought, "Well, it's supposed to stay small." Recently, I
put it in my living room, which has a lot more light. Well, within two
weeks the thing became huge! It was sitting there with all this stored
energy, and when it got in the right environment, instead of growing at
a normal rate, it grew at this accelerated rate and just went all over
the place. And that's exactly what I feel is going on with Beth right
now.
The Greening of Beth:
She and Philip have this love that they will always have, but she wasn't
in the right environment to grow. She wasn't getting enough light and
air, because Philip was protecting her so much. And now, she's getting
all this light and air and she's just growing and blossoming and feeling
strong. She's feeling sexy. Beth, because of her stepfather and all the
things that happened there, was a little bit repressed sexually. But she's
finally let that go. She is not a victim of her ghosts anymore. Cutting
her tie to Philip cut her tie to that path. So, she's feeling like a sexy
woman, she's feeling like a powerful woman. She feels bold. And I think
that she just wants to taste everything and wants to experience everything
that Philip protected her from for so long.
Lorelei Lore:
Beth realized that unless she understood Lorelei and unless she embraced
the qualities that Lorelei had, she was destined to become Lorelei again.
Lorelei had to come out because Beth was repressing things. In investigating
what she was repressing, a part of her started to admire Lorelei. There
were stories that Bill would tell her about things that Lorelei did and
Beth would think, "I did that? I walked into a room and would play
pool and would blow all these big cowboys away... I did that?" It
was empowering to her. That was the first indication for her that she
wanted to take on some of those qualities. She realized that she was more
powerful than she ever thought she was.
Lizzie Grows Up:
It is different to play the mother of a teenager. It's actually helpful
for me because I now can deal with Lizzie in a strong way and talk to
her like an adult and demand that she hear me and demand that she respect
me because that is something you can do with a teenager.
It's definitely an adjustment but it works for me. I hope that having
a teenage daughter compels Beth to make the decision that for her (Beth)
to keep her light under a bushel and not reach her potential doesn't do
her daughter any good, ultimately. In general, any woman, especially when
she has a daughter, does her daughter the most benefit by being the most
powerful woman that she can be, and giving her a role model that is a
powerful woman.
Next: Nancy St.
Alban
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