Blake Marler

Blake Marler is a fictional character on CBS's daytime drama Guiding Light. She was portrayed by Elizabeth Keifer from August 19, 1992 to September 18, 2009.^[1] Previous portrayers include Gina Foy from June 1975 to May 1978, Cheryl Lynn Brown from January 1979 to September 26, 1980, Elizabeth Dennehy from May 1988 to June 2, 1989 and Sherry Stringfield from July 21, 1989 to August 3, 1992.

Character Information

Biography

Christina Blake Thorpe was born on-camera in July 1975. Her mother went into labor at the Cedars Hospital cafeteria. Though she was thought to be the daughter of Holly Norris Bauer and Ed Bauer, it later came out that Christina was the product of an affair between Holly Norris Bauer and Roger Thorpe.^[2] When this was revealed, Ed Bauer divorced Holly though, being very attached to young 'Chrissy', he agreed continue to raise her as his daughter, with the stipulation that Roger not be a part of her life. In 1979, Holly married Roger, though the marriage was stormy one, ending when Roger raped Holly. Holly pressed charges against Roger though, when it looked as though he would be acquitted, she shot him (in a moment of post-traumatic stress), and was convicted of his murder and sent to prison. While her mother was in prison, Christina lived with Ed and his new wife Rita, until it was learned that Roger was in fact alive (thus negating Holly's murder conviction). After an initial failed kidnapping attempt, Holly fled with Christina to Santa Domingo. However, Roger followed them, eventually cornering them. The encounter ended with Roger falling over a cliff to his presumed death. In an effort to start over, Holly relocated with Christina and her mother Barbara Norris to Europe, where they remained for nearly a decade.

Return to town

Much later, as an adult—and now going by her middle name, Blake—she returned to Springfield as a spy for Alan Spaulding. Soon, she was tied up in the circuit of double-crosses between Alan, Phillip and Alex where each of them tried to outdo the other. Things were worsened by the reappearance of her father, Roger, who had long been presumed dead in 1989. Phillip tricked Blake into marrying a man posing as him on a yacht, but soon they resumed their romance when she started having true feelings for him. Things became even more difficult after Phillip and Blake married and she tried to cover up the fact that his former wife, Beth, might still be alive. Insecure, she began an affair with Phillip's younger brother, Alan-Michael, while searching for Beth herself, going so far as to have Phillip briefly committed to a mental hospital. Phillip eventually found Beth, ending the marriage. Blake ran to former brother-in-law Alan-Michael in an attempt not to lose a hold on her share of the family fortune. Alan-Michael's wife, Harley, did everything could to not lose her husband. Harley tried to get even with Blake, but Blake paid Harley to divorce Alan-Michael and faked a pregnancy so that he would marry her. Soon after, her ex-boyfriend kidnapped and tried to kill Alan-Michael and Blake. When the couple was rescued by Roger, Alan-Michael soon discovered Blake's deceptions and left her. She spent some time trying to get him back and pulled him into her blackmailing schemes, but failed to shake his obsession with Eleni Andros. She quickly dove into a relationship with her mother's former flame District Attorney Ross Marler, much to the chagrin of her father, who blackmailed Ross out of his political career. Blake initially seduced Ross only to hurt Holly, who was in love with Ross, but soon fell in love with him herself. They eventually managed to win both of Blake's parents over, and married in 1994.^[3]

Ross Marler and Ben Warren

Things got more complicated for the couple as Alan Spaulding began manipulating them and Ross' estranged daughter Dinah returned to tear them apart. Her suspicions of her stepdaughter led her to bug her rooms and create distrust in the family. After a one-night stand with Rick Bauer, she discovered she was pregnant with twins. She went to Roger and Amanda, who tried desperately to hide her transgression from Ross, but it would eventually come out when the twins had to undergo an operation. In 1997, things got worse when his brother Ben Warren came to town and began trying to blackmail her for sex. She eventually gave in, only to be caught by Ross. After accusing Ben of rape, Ross tried to shoot him and shot his wife by accident, paralyzing her. This didn't last because it was purely psychosomatic, yet she continued to charge Ben for rape, despite evidence that it was consensual. The proof fell into the hands of the mob and they were both blackmailed. Under the weight of guilt, she confessed the truth and Ross left her, suing for custody. She moved on with Ben and tried to help her mother when she learned that she was the Nursery Rhyme Stalker. She and Ross bonded over Holly's case and wound up making love.^[4]

Suffering through mental breakdowns, psychotic relatives and numerous affairs gave her plenty of fodder for her career as a romance novelist. This would often get her in trouble as her thinly veiled portraits of townspeople often led to their lives becoming endangered. Danger also stalked her when the crazed Tory came to town and attempted to steal Ross and the children away before trying to murder her. She would be constantly torn between loyalty and self-interest as she manipulated or went to ludicrous ends to protect her relationship with Ross, particularly from his daughter. In 1995, Blake had an affair with Rick Bauer and got pregnant and soon learned she was expecting twins. She learned that she was pregnant with children from both men as each man fathered one child.^[5] After months of working out the best possible situation for her sons Jason and Kevin, it was revealed that Ross was the father of both children. As Ross returned to his political career, she switched through several careers of her own until his accidental death.

Later years

Devastated and insecure, she soon entered into a relationship with mayoral rival Jeffrey O'Neill and became the author of the infamous Springfield Burns blog which she used to destroy the lives of her rivals and friends. After sabotaging Jeffrey's campaign, she won the mayoralty race only to be poisoned.^[6] The investigation quickly dug up the fact that she was the blogger. In her hospital bed she claimed that she had to lash out at everyone because they made her feel like she didn't exist. After lapsing into a coma for months, she eventually awakened and set her sights on Dinah and Mallet. Blake's schemes resulting in Dinah (who survived) being shot in the head by a man from Mallet's past) received backlash from viewers. In 2008 Blake began pursuing Henry Cooper Bradshaw (AKA "Coop") much to the dismay of viewers. In 2009, Blake, while still in a supporting role, began to receive more sympathetic writing and an increase in screentime. She helped Reva Shayne cope after the death of her husband Jeffrey, helped Olivia Spencer and Natalia Rivera process their feelings for each other, and, after taking over as manager at the Cooper family restaurant Company, helped publish Coop's last book, using the advance to stop Company from being foreclosed. During this time Blake decided to finally move on from the memory of her beloved Ross, and she began talking over the computer with a man she met at a dating service. After a few weeks, they met, and the man was, to her surprise, Frank Cooper, her longtime friend and former lover. They decided to go out on a real date, and a year later, were still together.^[7]

References