Rita Stapleton

Rita Stapleton Bauer
Lenore Kasdorf as Rita in a 1979 Guiding Light screencap
Guiding Light character
Portrayed by	Lenore Kasdorf
Duration	1975-81
First appearance	October 8, 1975
Last appearance	June 30, 1981
Created by	Jerome and Bridget Dobson
Profile
Occupation	Registered nurse
Residence	Last known whereabouts San Francisco, c. 1981
Parents Viola Stapleton (mother), Mr. Stapleton (father) Siblings Eve Stapleton (sister) Children unnamed stillborn son (with Ed), 1980, possible child (with Ed or Alan), late 1981 or early 1982

Rita Stapleton Bauer is a fictional character from the CBS soap Guiding Light. The character was played by Lenore Kasdorf, and was created by Bridget and Jerome Dobson, shortly after they became Guiding Light's head writers in 1975. Rita was written out in 1981, when Kasdorf announced she was leaving the show. She had been so popular in the role, producers decided against recasting.

Rita was born and raised in Bluefield, West Virginia, the older of two sisters. She grew to adulthood under very modest circumstances, her father being a coal miner, and her mother a school teacher. When she first arrived in Springfield to take a job as a nurse at Cedars Hospital, Rita began dating Dr. Tim Ryan (Jordan Clarke). However, she soon became interested in Chief of Surgery Ed Bauer (Mart Hulswit), and the two began dating. The two became closer, particularly after Ed helped Rita's elderly mother Viola (Kate Wilkinson) recover from a stroke, and he soon asked Rita to marry him. However, unbeknownst to him, Rita shared a past with his nemesis Roger Thorpe (Michael Zaslow) (who Ed had just found out was the biological father of the child thought to be his, Christina).

Unfortunately for Rita, her past with Roger would come out while she was on trial for the murder of a wealthy, elderly Texas oil man, Cyrus Granger, for whom she had worked as a private duty nurse, prior to coming to Springfield (she also became a suspect in the death of Granger's son Malcolm, who'd followed Rita to Springfield, and then died under mysterious circumstances, after being admitted to Cedars). Roger had also worked for Cyrus Granger. (These events had occurred off-screen prior to Rita's arrival in Springfield, and during a three-month period during which Roger was said to have left town in early 1975.) He and Rita had had a brief fling, and then both went their separate ways after Granger's death; both coincidentally ending up in Springfield independently of one another. Though she was hesitant to provide an alibi, it eventually came out that Rita couldn't have committed the crime, for she was involved in a sexual tryst with Roger at the time. While Rita was acquitted, Ed, upset and angry to learn of her past with Roger, broke things off with her. Rita briefly dated Dr. Peter Chapman, though he turned out to be more interested in Ed's ex-wife Holly Norris Bauer (Maureen Garrett).