Actually it seems more that I know how to do this, but Unity does not.
var light1 : GameObject;
light1.light.color = (1,0,0); //this gives an "expecting ),found ','."
or like this:
light1.light.color = red; //this gives an "unknown identifier: "red"."
And I'm setting the intensity of this same light (dragged to the light1 slot in the inspector) in the previous line, the same way, with no error. What gives?