Y&R: Old Articles

[Paul Raven]

Thinking about Nick Reed (Quin Redeker) Casey and Nikki's sleazy dad.

Nikki offed him (as she was wont to do) and that was the end of Nick.

I was imagining that instead of Nick dying and the door closing on that character, he had have skipped town holding the threat that Nikki tried to kill him. Remember, in those days women were less likely to be believed about such things as sexual abuse and Nikki would have been painted as a bad girl,(even believing it herself)

Or he could be sent to jail with the possibility of a return years later.

Nick could have provided story later on.

I'm thinking of the Edward stalker story which really came out of nowhere- Casey and Nikki had some random psycho neighbor.

Instead Nick could have been behind the harassment, using Edward, who he  might have met in jail if that story path had been followed, or befriended when he returned to town and was checking out his daughters.

Or later Nick could have hooked up with Eve Howard and they plotted against Victor and Nikki.

Or  after Nick had been missing for years and pretty much forgotten, Jill comes across 'Rex Sterling' (again Quinn Redeker)and grooms him to woo Katherine. Imagine Nikki's shock when she meets Rex and sees her father.

Rex denies he's Nick and Victor investigates and discovers Rex is Nick's twin brother (this is before Y&R started to use that trope)Rex never knew he was a twin. So then Nikki has to deal with Rex being her uncle and marrying Katherine.Also Nikki finds out Danny and Gina are her cousins and builds a relationship with them.

Then Nick resurfaces and in a twist on the Marge/Kay story, kidnaps Rex and takes his place, finally being exposed , killed and leaving Rex and Katherine to re-unite.

[SoapDope]

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Was Nikki & Casey's Mom ever referred to on the show ?

They should have had her show up....they could just say they considered her dead and told people that story because she had abandoned them as kids. She would have appeared around the time Nikki & Victor married. I picture an actress similar to a chain smoking Ellen Barkin type. 

[Paul Raven]

 Mom Reed was killed in a car accident in Dec 78.

[Joseph]

Mom Reed Was Definitely dead on Christmas 2011 her spirit visited Nikki

[BoldRestless]

Offscreen a la Josh Griffith, if I understand correctly.

[SoapDope]

Yeah...kind of forgot about that. I would have brought Mom Reed on the show circa 1984. They had Dorothy McGuire as Cora, maybe get another old school film star as Ma Reed. If they went trashy they could have cast Shelley Winters....if they went classy maybe Julie London. She had that smoky cigarette voice similar to Roberta Leighton's Casey. 

[kalbir]

100% this.

The cult storyline from summer 1980 was rewritten to result in Dylan's birth, which would have been spring 1981. We know that spring 1981 Nikki was climbing the pole.

[SoapDope]

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[Paul Raven]

That was a horrible rewrite that made no sense. The only way it would have worked had Dylan been Paul's son from the commune. He had sex with Sumiko, the cult leader and Rebecca played by his real life wife.

So it would have been quite believable that Rebecca had his child. Of course that meant no story for Nikki but they could have come up with something.

Nikki could have easily had a half sister - heaps of story possibilities there.

And now Nikki doesn't even mention Dylan. 

[SoapDope]

If they insisted writing Nikki having another child, they could have had her be pregnant by Greg Foster who she was married to at the time she joined the cult. 

Nick Reed was a sleaze bag, so he probably fathered some stray kids here and there. That would open up another sibling for Casey & Nikki. Genie Francis should have played the half Reed sister instead of the part she got stuck with. Genie & Melody both started on soaps in the late 70's. Heck, Kin Shriner could have been a long lost brother if they wanted Nikki to have a brother instead of a sister.

I always wondered how Roberta Leighton felt about her storylines. Bill Bell clearly thought Nikki was more fun to write for than Casey. She never really had a long term romantic interest. She never married or had children as far as we know. If she had, there could have been a niece or nephew for Nikki to deal with. 

[yrfan1983]

They chem-tested Casey with Snapper, Lucas, and Jonas, but nothing clicked.

Edward the stalker was originally obsessed with Casey, but the writers changed course, writing Casey out and transferring Edward's obsession to Nikki.

The show was nice to give RobertaL some work when they brought Casey back from '85-89, but the character was a pale photocopy of the original version. Casey 2.0 was just a talk-to for Nikki

[Joseph]

At least they gave her a bit of a personality in 1998, I honestly expected her to become a regular again from the episodes I've watched, also is it me or there are lots of similarities between Casey/Nikki and Olivia/Drucilla????

[kalbir]

Not just you. Bill Bell used a similar intro for the Reed sisters and the Barber sisters: new doctor in town that has a troublemaking younger sister. A Bill Bell element was educated professional that has a troublemaking sibling: Casey/Nikki, Tyrone/Jazz, Olivia/Dru, Neil/Malcolm.

Early Nikki and early Dru had some similarities. Both encountered shady characters when they tried to start modelling careers, and both were involved in the adult entertainment business. Nikki joined Rose DeVille's "agency" which was really a front for prostitution. Dru signed up with "agents" that tried to feature her in a porn film. Nikki later climbed the pole. Dru later appeared in a men's magazine.

Edited July 27, 2024 by kalbir

[Paul Raven]

Tracey Bregman interview from SOD 50th  Anniversay edition.

She cut her soap teeth as DAYS’s Donna, but Tracey E. Bregman turned her next daytime role into a 40-year career.
You were already familiar with the soap genre. How much did
you know about Y&R? “[Then-Producer] Wes Kenney gave me my break on
DAYS OF OUR LIVES, and when he went over to YOUNG AND RESTLESS,
that was the reason I started watching. I remember that the lighting and camera
shots were so different from what we were doing on DAYS, and Y&R was a
half hour at the time. Wes had been there around a year when he drove up in my
driveway and said, ‘Hey, you wanna do a soap again?’ ”
Was your answer immediately “Yes” or “Let me think about it”?
“I told him my nighttime series, THE FAMILY TREE, had just been canceled
and I said I could probably do [Y&R] through the summer because prior to
that, [Executive Producer] Gloria Monty had asked me to come on GENERAL
HOSPITAL and I decided not to do that because I had just gotten this other
series. So, Wes caught me at the perfect time and I was happy to be able to go
back to daytime for what I thought was going to be a short period of time. I loved
my time on DAYS. It was hard because I was in school at the same time, but I
loved the show and the people.”

Since Wes offered this to you, does that mean you skipped the
audition process?“No because they thought, ‘Why don’t we bring her into play Patty?’, Paul’s sister, but in the audition, we all looked at each other andI was like, ‘I’m so not this character.’ That’s when [Co-Creator/then-Head Writer] Bill Bell created the role of Lauren.”

You were first written as Traci’s nice friend but as legend goes, Bill saw you give some kind of look to BethMaitland (Traci) on camera. “What would have happened if he was getting a cup of coffee or taking a phone call and missed that one
look? It must’ve been some odd look because I loved Beth, she was my first friend, so I can’t imagine what that look could’ve been, but whatever it was, it came in handy [chuckles]. I’m sure it wasn’t a mean look, there just must’ve been something behind it that he saw.”

You had your mentors on DAYS, but was there anybody
who took you under their wing at Y&R?“On DAYS, I looked up to Jed Allan [ex-Don] and Deidre Hall [Marlena; ex-Barbara,Y&R] and they were incredible supporters of mine and wonderful friends. When I first got to Y&R, Beth showed me the ropes. She is the one who held my hand through those first weeks and months.
Wes Kenney and I used to have long conversations and he was very instrumental as well.”

Your short-term role turned into something more and Lauren was soon singing in concerts with Danny. What was that like? “It was wild, but those were the days when we worked such long hours. The concerts were very professional-looking and we all, the crew included, worked very long days on them.”

As your popularity was growing, what was your fan mail like?“Well, in the beginning I got a lot of death threats, and bad ones. I remember one night I was meeting Beth for dinner and someone tried to run me off the freeway. They were really coming after me so I was afraid to lead that person to where Beth was and endanger her. It was crazy and scary.”

When did you see a turn in public opinion?“I think when Lauren stopped saying nasty things to Traci, and the audience saw where Lauren came from because of an absentee mother and then she was put in the victim mode. They went from hating Lauren to loving to hate her. Then came some fun years, with Paul and then Brad. The audience started to root for Lauren, and then she became more of a heroine.”

What were your interactions with Bill Bell like? “He was very paternal with me. When I bought my first condo, he would talk to me about how we were going to pay that off early and wrote the Sheila story. When I got pregnant, he said, ‘I want you to bring your baby to work because you’ll know your baby is safe and your mind will be on your work.’ Thirty-one years ago, I don’t think there were a lot of employers that said that, so it was an incredible experience to be able to bring both my sons to work for the first two years of their lives.”

Well, Sheila made Lauren’s life a living hell. Do you have a favorite Lauren/Sheila scene?“I think their iconic fight in the lab. It was the first one. Because Lauren doesn’t wear tennis shoes, I was in high heels, so wherever I was, I slid around, while Kimberlin [Brown, Sheila] was in flats and was stronger. That catfight went down in history for us.”

And then Lauren and Michael fell for each other. “Finally! Christian [J. LeBlanc, Michael] and I wanted our characters to be together, so we kept playing this intimacy up whenever we were in scenes. I loved and still love their chemistry. And Christian is a very dear friend.”

What does it mean to you to celebrate Y&R turning 50?
“I just think it’s extraordinary. The actors of today will never know what it’s like to have the kind of longevity that we’ve all experienced. I have seen daytime grow and change and morph into what it is today,so I know it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, and I’m so
grateful.”

[SoapDope]

I know Casey (and Nikki) were close friends to Brock. Did he and Casey ever have a romantic relationship ? Brock was another character that Bell chem-tested with several women, but nothing ever clicked. 

I think Peggy Brooks never really had a lasting relationship as well.