January 2008 News Archive (Page 16)

Most All My Children fans are thrilled that Rebecca Budig is stepping back into the role she originated.

But do you truly know the original Greenlee? Here are a few fun facts about the actress that not even the most die hard All My Children follower will be aware of:

• She's the youngest in a family of eight children.
• She previously portrayed Michelle Bauer on Guiding Light, but initially auditioned for the role of Kelsey on All My Children.
• Budig's first acting job was a bit part in the Aerosmith video for "Livin' on the Edge."
• he locked lips with Chris O'Donnell in the awful 1995 film Batman Forever.
• Cameron Mathison calls her "peanut."
• The actress majored in zoology at Miami University in Ohio before launching her performing career.
• Budig completed the New York Marathon in 3:45:56.

Here's a fun bit of casting news for fans of The Young and the Restless:

April Stevens - Paul Williams ex-wife and Heather's mom - returns to Genoa City on January 11 and 14. She'll be portrayed by Rebecca Staab.

Soap opera fans may remember Staab from her role as Elizabeth Barrington on Port Charles or Jessie Matthews on Guiding Light.

Will April be able to mend the father/daughter relationship or will her presence just add more fuel to the fire? Tune in this week and find out!

Julie Pinson will leave Days of our Lives in the next few weeks.

According to a source on set, the actress is being written out as part of the show's continued efforts to trim its budget. The move is controversial, however, because the decision to write out Billie was made by the show's interim writers, who are substituting for the show's regular writers while they strike.

In 2004, Pinson appeared for three months on The Young and the Restless before beginning her stint on Days of Our Lives.

A final airdate has not yet been announced for the actress, as a series spokesperson said:

"Julie is still at work. We do not comment on contracts."

Hearken back to 1984, Days of Our Lives fans.

You may not be aware of it, but you're intimately familiar with the Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie Louisiana, approximately 45 minutes outside of New Orleans.

It was here where Bo (Peter Reckell) and Hope (Kristian Alfonso) first made love, beautifully setting up the relationship that led to one of television's all-time great weddings.

Refresh your memory of the moments leading up to this event at Oak Alley below:

Now, let's take a look at the plantation today. I ventured to this gorgeous locale with my girlfriend last week - and could practicaly see Bo and Hope frolicking on the front lawn as we posed in front of the picturesque oak trees...

Did this writer and his lovely ladyfriend sneak off into a bedroom and emulate the actions of those classic Days of Our Lives characters? Like a true gentleman in the mold of Bo Brady, A.C. Powers will never tell.

Congratulations to Jack Wagner!

No, not for dating Heather Locklear. Although that is an impressive feat for sure.

But the star of The Bold and the Beautiful was named 2007's Top Hollywood Golfer of the Year by Golf Digest. Wagner reduced his handicap to three in order to earn the honor over 2006's champion, and friend, Dennis Quaid.

Here's a shot of Jack teeing off:

Fans of As the World Turns - and, specifically, the gay couple of Luke and Noah - have begun a "Kiss Campaign." Its goal?

To coax CBS and Procter & Gamble Productions into giving these cuties another on-screen liplock (especially since some primo opportunities were conspicuously dodged in recent weeks).

"Soaps, like all businesses, live and die by consumer response to a product," campaign founder Jerome wrote at AfterElton.com. "And while email complaint letters certainly get noticed, it's the more-grandiose gestures that usually succeed in eliciting a response."

Therefore, Jerome is calling on Luke-Noah (Van Hansis and Jake Silbermann, respectively) supporters to flood CBS Daytime Programs SVP Barbara Bloom with Hershey's Kisses.

"The symbolism," Jerome notes, "is obvious."

It's a new week of daytime drama. Welcome to the place that covers it all, The Soap Dispenser. Let's recap all the Monday, January 7 soap opera action ...

• General Hospital
• Guiding Light
• All My Children
• One Life to Live
• As the World Turns
• The Bold and the Beautiful
• The Young and the Restless
• Days of Our Lives

We appreciate your visiting The Soap Dispenser for soap opera spoilers and news from The Bold and the Beautiful to One Life to Live, Guiding Light and all the rest. Thanks to you, The Soap Dispenser is the #1 soap opera site online!

Brandon Buddy (Cole), Brittany Underwood (Langston) and Kristen Alderson (Starr) recently examined their characters' grieving process on One Life to Live.

They spoke to Soap Opera Weekly about new developments on the series:

Soap Opera Weekly: Starr has been rude lately, especially to Langston. What's with that?
Kristen Alderson: Best friends always have arguments. Starr prefers things her way.

Weekly: Like her parents?
Alderson: Sort of like them (laughs). Also, she's so close with Cole and loves him so much. If another girl says she knows what Cole would do it's like, "No! You don't know what Cole would do, I know what Cole would do." It was, "Don't act like you know him better than me." She was being very protective.

Brittany Underwood: It was kind of harsh, some of the things Starr was saying. Especially after everything that Langston has done for Starr, the blows were a little below the belt. I understand why she was upset. All Starr wants to do is help and be there. There's not so much that Starr can do, because Langston knows more about (losing a parent). Starr hates not being able to relate or understand the way Langston can understand Cole.

Weekly: Cole and Langston are headed for grief counseling. How was that?
Underwood: It was weird. It was a small group of people. I was nervous to have only a handful of kids in this small circle, all looking at me. It felt like we were really there, like we really had to share this with people we didn't know in this small space. It's a little scary. Brandon did an excellent job with his speech. I think it went well.

Weekly: How does Cole like the grief sessions?
Brandon Buddy: He had to do it when his dad died, so he has kind of the upper hand on the whole situation. But what kid wants to sit there after a parent dies and talk about it with a bunch of their peers? It is just not a situation most people want to be in.

Tammin Sursok has a pair of new movies coming out this year:

1. The horror flick Albino Farm;
2. The drama Crossing Over, which also stars Harrison Ford and Sean Penn.

Don't worry, though, soap opera fans: Sursok is on her way back to The Young and the Restless soon.

Over the weekend, Mandy Bruno was featured in The Oregonian - and it wasn't for work on Guiding Light.

Instead, it was for a role she earned long before that...

It's been nine years since Mandy Bruno scored the role of Jesus in "Jesus Christ Superstar" at Jesuit High School and ignited a heated, religion-driven debate that flared nationwide.

Bruno never walked on stage as Jesus. Leaders at the college-preparatory Catholic school required the part be recast with a boy in the lead. Bruno, instead, played Pontius Pilate.

The 1999 flap didn't harm Bruno's career. Now 26, she recently starred as Eponine in Broadway's "Les Miserables." Two years ago, she earned an Emmy nomination for playing detective Marina Cooper on television's daytime drama Guiding Light.

On January 5, Bruno was back in Beaverton, with about 90 other Jesuit theater alumni, all set to perform in a 10-year anniversary celebration of the school's Alex L. Parks Performing Arts Center.

The evening was meant to showcase talents of alumni, many of whom have gone on to careers in theater or teaching. But it was also a chance, Bruno said, to gauge how Jesuit's theater program, and her career, have matured since the much-publicized uproar about her selection to play Jesus in the musical loosely based on his life.

"I was definitely disappointed that I wasn't able to play that role," Bruno said, recalling how the incident sparked local and national debate. Reporters swarmed her family's Beaverton home and the high school. National talk shows wooed her.

"Then, my thinking was, 'How dare they not let a woman play the role,' that it was sexual discrimination," she says. "It was a lot for a 17-year-old to deal with. Ultimately, though, I think our school learned a lot from the experience, and that it helped future productions."

Read the full feature on Bruno and her classmates now.