Y&R:Woman's Show attracts 'Y&R' star

By TARA MERRIN - Sun Media

CALGARY - When it comes to crazy fans, Don Diamont has seen it all.

Yet, the soap-opera star, best known for his portrayal of Bradley Carlton on The Young and The Restless, says their creativity never ceases to amaze him.

"I arrived at this dinner with a couple of winners of a contest -- one had spent the night sleeping on a billboard and the other one had the Y&R logo tattooed on her rear end. Not a painted tattoo, a real tattoo. That was pretty die-hard," he says.

Diamont, who joined the cast of Y&R in 1985, expects more of the same when he appears at the Calgary Woman's Show tomorrow.

"The show has been on for over 30 years. We are in people's living rooms five days a week, 52 weeks a year, so you build an almost family-like connection with these people," he says.

Part of the reason Diamont's fame has risen this year is a topical storyline on Y&R. In the July 28 episode, the fictional Brad Carlton revealed his real name was George Kaplan and his mother was an Italian Jew, making him the first Jewish lead character in a soap.

"Before this, there was no front-burner Jewish character in the history of daytime," he explains.

While Diamont's coming out as a Jew, on the show and in real life, could have easily been overlooked by the mainstream media, it just happened to coincide with Mel Gibson's high publicized anti-Semitic remarks.

"The next thing I knew, I was on CNN talking about it and in the New York Post," he says, adding people really responded to that.

Diamont, who plans to stay on Y&R "as long as they'll have me," says he never gets tired of talking to viewers.

That's why he's agreed to take part in the first Soap Cruise -- a four-day Caribbean cruise on which fans can mix and mingle with their favourite soap stars.

For more information on Soap Cruise, go to www.soapcruise.com

The Calgary Woman's Show runs today and tomorrow at the Roundup Centre. For a full schedule of events, go to www.calgarywomansshow.com

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Edited April 29, 200718 yr by Rhiannon