Thoughts on "The Young and Restless Life of William J. Bell" Part 3

Here are my thoughts and summary on the William J. Bell biography, "The Young and Restless Life of William J. Bell Creator of The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful" by Michael Maloney with Lee Phillip Bell (Bill's widow). This entry will cover chapters nine through fourteen of twenty-one.

Chapter Nine: Take Your Daughter to Work Day

This chapter is all about Lauralee Bell, Bill's daughter who plays Christine aka Cricket on Y&R intermittently. It starts with how she first played an extra in a scene with David Hasselhoff, and then goes into detail about the early Cricket, Nina (Tricia Cast) and Phillip (Thom Bierdz) story. There are references to the flack she got in the role along with how she handled it, including the Terry Lester leaving Y&R in frustration. Then it mentions the stories with Danny (Michael Damien) and Phyllis (Michelle Stafford), along with Paul (Doug Davidson) and Isabella (Eva Longoria). Quotes from Tricia Cast and Martha Byrne are in this chapter. Her marriage and children are also mentioned along with her web series Family Dinner and Just Off the Rodeo.

Chapter Ten: From "Rags" to Riches

This chapter begins with a short discussion of Capitol, the show which B&B replaced on CBS. While it had a strong style, its writing was uneven due to switches in personnel. Then discussion switches to the beginnings of B&B and how Bill and his son Bill Jr. worked on the idea for the show while driving to LA from Chicago for Ed Scott's marriage to Melody Thomas. Bill Jr. unlike his siblings Brad and Lauralee is not a performer, but a businessman. He works behind the scenes for the family in a non-creative way. Bill and Lee created Rags, which became B&B and completed work on it in January 1986. It was 39 pages, the Y&R treatment had been 65. Michael Brockman was the head of CBS at this time, and due to who was behind the project supported the creation of the program. The original story had the Forrester family called the Chandlers (which consider All My Children) is a good thing this was switched, and the Logans were the Stevens. Originally, the story was to be about Beth and Eric reuniting, but the audience loved Stephanie and due to that Eric and Stephanie were the couple people rooted for to be together. How B&B became popular worldwide is also mentioned, the first 250 episodes were given away free with another project called Queenie. Eventually stations played the free episodes, and viewers became hooked wanting more. What is also interesting was how in the 80s, the Bells lived like a soap opera family. Bill and Lee lived in the main house as did Lauralee, Bill Jr. and Brad had guest homes on the property. The last mention in the chapter was how in 1990, it was revealed on screen that B&B and Y&R were in the same universe. Macy was wearing a bathing suit from Fenmore's West, and a year later Sheila Carter from Y&R moved to Los Angeles.

Between Chapters Ten and Eleven there are photos. There is a baby picture of Bill, pictures of Bill and Lee together in their early years, photos of various people who were important in their careers, and other shots of their family.

Chapter Eleven: The Son Also Writes

This chapter explores how Brad got involved in the family business and began writing soap operas. At 16, he started to intern for his father sitting in all the writing meetings from 8 am to 6 pm, which was the same schedule Irna had Bill on all those years earlier. Brad had an opportunity to go into sitcoms, but decided to stay in soaps. He shares how Bill would watch the shows and yell at the television his opinions about the particular episode. In 1992, Brad and Jack Smith took over the reigns for 10 episodes as Bill and Lee were in France for the Olympics. This was unheard of, but after Bill read the scripts he allowed it and didn't tell the network. There was also discussion in this chapter about Hunter Tylo. It ended with personal information about Brad, his wife Colleen and their family.

Chapter Twelve: Bill and Jill Went Up a Hill

This chapter has a large focus on the character of Jill on The Young and the Restless. The issues Bill Bell had with Brenda Dickson along with how the role was recast with Jess Walton. The chapter ends on a general note about how real-life conflicts generate story ideas.

Chapter Thirteen: Chasing Emmy

This chapter discusses Bill's history with the Daytime Emmys. The whole 1986 snafu where Y&R was awarded the best writing Emmy, when Guiding Light actually won the award was recounted. This was also parodied on One Life to Live during the Daisy awards in 1989. Bill of course was really upset over the accounting mistake. Sally Sussman Morina shares how she had t-shirts made for the writers that said "And the winner is The Young and the Restless…" and on the back it said "Just kidding!" In 1992, Y&R finally got the best writing award, and like the aborted win, actors from Another World announced it. The chapter ends with a discussion of the 1992 Soap Opera Awards, in which Bill Bell got the Editors' Choice Award, the Writers Guild Award event where Sally Sussman Morina won for Days in 2000 and a banquet Bill and Lee attended where Bill Hayes got an award. Bill just liked supporting people he knew.

Chapter Fourteen: "Baby, Come Back"

This chapter is titled after the song by Ronn Moss's band Player. It discusses people who worked for Bill who came back to the program. Joanna Johnson leaving B&B as Caroline and then coming back as Karen is discussed. Don Diamont leaving Y&R and coming back as Brad, along with how he ended up on B&B is also a featured story. How Hunter Tylo came back to play Taylor and the shock wedding to Ridge was mentioned. Michelle Stafford and Heather Tom leaving Y&R also was discussed and they too came back.

Thanks for reading my quick overview of chapters nine through fourteen. Much of what was in these chapters I already knew, but I appreciate having it all in one volume.