theyoungandtherestless

Where has the time gone? Is it really 20 years that Peter Bergman's played Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless? Amazing, but true. Not only has Bergman been tearing it up as Jack for two decades, he's pretty much eradicated the memory of his tenure on All My Children where he was nice guy, Dr. Cliff Warner. Say what you will about Jack, he's not a nice guy. He can have his good moments, but this character is too complicated, too selfish, too diabolical ever to be confused with a noble man like Cliff.

Which is what has made Peter Bergman's time on Y&R so remarkable! The character had been so sharply defined by Terry Lester that it was going to be tough for any actor to take over the part.

It's taken a while, but The Young and the Restless has finally filled a role that's been vacant for too long. No, David Hasselhoff is not coming back as Snapper Foster. The role of Malcolm Winters is returning and Darius McCrary's got the Y&R role. Malcolm, the dynamic younger brother of Neil Winters, has been missing in action for a while because the previous actor in the part, Shemar Moore, has become a star in primetime.

The Winters family is an important element in the Y&R canvas and they've missed Malcolm. Shemar was asked to come back, but with his success on Criminal Minds, there simply wasn't time in his schedule for both shows. Truth be told, there probably wasn't enough money to compel him to work that hard. So,while the fans might have liked Shemar back, they'll have to get used to a new face instead.

Sometimes it's true that all's well that ends well. And sometimes to reach that happy ending, arms are twisted, feelings are hurt, and bad blood is spilled. In the case of The Young and the Restless and actor Eric Braeden, there was a good deal of acrimony on both sides. The fact that Braeden is back in the fold now and he will continue as Victor Newman for the foreseeable future, doesn't obscure the fact that it was a nasty situation.

It's been a tumultuous six weeks for Eric Braeden and The Young and the Restless. For a while, it looked like he was on his way out of the soap when contract talks broke down between the star and Sony. Then there was a story in the trades about other actors being contacted to possibly replace him, including William Devane, Paul Michael Glaser and Peter Strauss. Before you could say Jabot Cosmetics, Bob posted the news that Eric and Sony had reached an agreement and Victor Newman would continue to be played by Eric Braeden. Crisis averted.

Well, while he was still in exit mode, the show wrote Victor out. In the storyline, Victor is recovering from a heart transplant and has decided to go to a clinic in Belgium to rehabilitate. This week he's been tying up loose ends before leaving.

'The Young and the Restless' fans were outraged when we first reported that longtime star Eric Braeden (aka Victor Newman) was leaving the show over a contract dispute.

Well, never mind.

TV Guide confirms that Braeden will not be leaving 'Y&R' after all; the actor will take a pay cut, as the rest of the cast had already agreed to do.

When Eric Braeden walked out of The Young and the Restless, it was my belief that the powers that be would find some way to reach a compromise with him and Victor Newman would remain an integral part of Genoa City. However, the negotiations between Braeden and the folks at Sony turned cold.

Cold as in heartless. Considering the character Braeden has played for nearly 30 years, Victor Newman, he should have understood the daytime TV business had changed. Instead, he was insulted and -- apparently -- grew stubborn. So instead of a compromise, it looks like Braeden is really leaving.

However, today's news suggests that while he walked from a job that was asking him to take a pay cut from $1.5 million a year to $1 million a year, other actors are interested in filling Braeden's shoes. The question is this, though: can another actor play Victor Newman?

Victor Newman, bidding Genoa City adieu forever? Say it isn't so!

Sadly, that seems to be the latest hit to daytime TV, as 'The Young and the Restless' star Eric Braeden, who has played manipulative, sometimes ruthless town gazillionaire and Newman family patriarch Victor since 1980, is leaving the Emmy-winning soap after a contract dispute with 'Y&R' production company Sony.

The star, who's won a Daytime Emmy, People's Choice Award, Soap Opera Digest Awards and a star on the Walk of Fame during his lengthy 'Y&R' stint, will leave the show just as his Victor is being sent off to Europe to rehab from a heart transplant. Braeden's last airdate, barring any last-minute negotiations, will be Nov. 2.

If you were to take the collective temperature of the loyal viewers of The Young and the Restless, the number one daytime drama in the Nielsen ratings for 20 years in a row, you would learn that the fans are hot! They are steamed and fuming and ready to boil over with rage. What's got so many people so incensed? Well, it might be easy to say it's Y&R's recent baby-switch story line -- where Sharon's baby was taken from her and given to Ashley, with neither woman aware of the crime committed against them -- but it's actually more than that.

Y&R fans are up in arms over happenings on screen and off. The very idea that Eric Braeden is leaving the show, that the character of Victor Newman is going to be killed off, has been a shock. After the near exit of Melody Thomas Scott and Jess Walton recently, it appears as though the foundation of the show -- the most integral characters and the actors who play them -- are being destroyed. Fans are wondering what the powers that be are doing to "their" show!

Is it even possible to imagine The Young and the Restless without Eric Braeden as hero/villain Victor Newman? You would think not, but then Days of Our Lives moved on without Deidre Hall as Dr. Marlena Evans, didn't it? Still, Braeden and his alter ego Victor is still a front and center presence on the show, an integral part of the storytelling. Therefore, the news that The Young and the Restless is contemplating killing off Victor if they cannot resolve the contract dispute with Braeden is a shocker.

Braeden is working now under a contract that lasts till 2010, and his reps have said that he would take a pay cut once the term is up. However, producers are asking him to take a pay cut now. That, my friends, is the rub. Braeden wants to help the show stay on the air, but he's not ready to take an economic hit until he has to. That's understandable.

First, Paula Abdul walks away from American Idol (or was she shoved out by the producers a bit?), now comes news that Susan Lucci's not sure about sticking with All My Children when the ABC soap relocates to Los Angeles in December. My thought was there's no way La Lucci was going to pass on the chance to keep on working, but she's saying it's a tough decision. "I don't know ... I love the show and I love playing Erica, but I'm just now going to have a couple of days off. It's a lot to think about."

Could Susan truly be thinking anything but, "Yes, I'm going"? Seriously, All My Children has been her mainstay for 39 years. That's right, nearly four decades of continuous employment in essentially a starring role.

There's good news and bad news on the CBS soap opera front. The good news is that The Young & the Restless has been renewed for two years. The bad news is that As the World Turns could be axed just like Guiding Light.

The Young & the Restless is CBS daytime's top rated soap. It's been number one in the Nielsens for nearly 20 years running. So the renewal wasn't a big surprise. However, the pick-up came with a warning to cut costs, tighten the budget and, basically, don't expect the stars to get big raises anytime soon. In the past year alone, two of the veterans -- Melody Thomas Scott and Jess Walton -- opted to take less money when the show threatened to write them out or recast. Welcome to the brave new world of daytime!

Late last week, actor Chris Engen reportedly bolted from The Young & the Restless, walking out on a front-burner story line on the number one rated daytime drama because he objected to his character sharing a kiss with another man. This week, Y&R's former Adam Wilson issued a statement online to tell his side of the story.

Engen wasn't unhappy with the gay twist, declared that he is not homophobic and said he didn't quit the show over religious objections. According to the first-time soap actor, "I felt generally unhappy about my contribution to the show, and had greater and greater difficulty making any sense of the challenges they were asking me to face."

It's been a little over a year since Guiding Light bolted from the confines of a New York studio to create a reality based production, a sort of cinema-verite style that brought to life a real New Jersey town to "play" Springfield. The results have been middling at best, but recently GL has lurched forward in a positive way and that can all be explained in two words/one name -- Grant Aleksander. The actor is back as Phillip Spaulding, one of the most important characters in the history of the show.

The last year of GL hasn't only been about the new production. Coinciding with all that physical change which has set more and more scenes outdoors and in "wild" set, the cast has been undergoing massive change. Top line veterans Ricky Paull Goldin, Nicole Forester and Beth Ehlers have all departed, and recently John Driscoll was tragically killed off.

Did you know that double Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro acted in soap operas? It's true. Many of today's biggest stars honed their craft by doing New York soaps like As the World Turns and Another World. Before she was Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar was Susan Lucci's daughter on All My Children.

Hollywood soaps like Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless also produced stars. Tom Selleck, for instance, was a Y&R hunk before becoming Magnum, P.I. There are a lot of current stars right now on hit shows who were daytime characters just a few years ago. After the jump, we count down the top ten primetime stars who started in soaps.

Just a couple of weeks ago, all was fine and dandy in Days of Our Lives-world. Or so it seemed. The big fan shindig at Universal in Hollywood seemed to signal that the status quo was holding that the lone NBC soap still in production would be able to use the 18-month renewal granted by NBC to climb in the ratings and return to past glory. Now comes the shocking news that NBC has fired Days of Our Lives' two biggest stars, Deidre Hall (Marlena) and Drake Hogestyn (John). By the way, Deidre and Drake were at the fanfest. You think they knew the pink slips were on the way? Um, no.

This is all about money, folks, and instead of seeking other ways to trim costs, Executive Producer Ken Corday and company have used a hatchet and chopped off the top salaries. Don't be shocked to hear that more is coming. That could be Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso -- Bo and Hope -- the other iconic romantic couple on the show, right after Marlena and John.