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Soap actors/kids grow up on screen


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Unless you can tell me any different, there is really only a handful of children who started on soaps and stayed until adulthood.I mean children not teenagers like the man who played Nick Newmen who started out as a teenager or Hope brady who also started as a young teenager. I'm talking abuot the actresses who actually started out as children and stayed on for long periods of time to watch them grow up. Doesn't happen much because they want to bring the kids into adult storylines so they recast them to be adults.

Going back, my first thought is GH Kimberly Mccullough. She started as Robin Scorpio back in 1985 as a little girl at age seven. She stayed on for over 10 years. People watched her grow from a little girl who had two parents who were spy's and then having them die..to a teenager with her first love Stone and finding out he had AIDS...to a young woman with her love for Jason and dealing with having AIDS herself. I wasn't a big fan of hers when she left because i thought they made the character too "I know best" type character. I was glad when she left. But I did like her when she was younger. Even when she left, she came back occasionally like for the nurses ball and whatever so it's not like she really left for long and now she's been back for a few years. It's one of the few characters on GH when we can say "I knew you when..." since she's been back she hasn't gotten on my nerves as much.

The second one that comes to mind is Erin Tourpey who played Jessica Buchanan on OLTL from 1990 to 2003, a long 13 year span. She started as a nine year old when they aged the three Buchanan kids five years. Over the 13 years we saw Erin and Jessica grow up from the cute little kid who had to deal with her mother's stroke, her sisters death and then her parents divorce to a rebelling teenager with Christian and having to deal with a teen pregnancy followed by a miscarriage. As the 2000's hit, we watched her as a young woman dealing with thinking Viki wasn't real her mother and then finding out that she and Natalie were twins and finally finding out that Mitch Laurence was her real father. That's when Erin left in 2003, (i don't blame her.) but it was a gift that she stayed on for 13 years. She did come back in 2008 during Viki's heaven dream when she played the daughter Jessica had who died.

Last I think of Kristin Alderson who's been playing Starr Manning on OLTL since 1998. She started as a very young girl at age six. In her early years she played Starr as almost a devil child spitfire. but her parents were a crqazy ex-rapist Todd and a long suffering fighter Blair. Starr could be so nasty and tell people off when she wanted to. The only person who could keep her in line was her aunt Viki. She was always trying to get her parents back together. Then before our eyes, we saw her grow up and become nice. She made her own friends and then fell in love with Cole. She even had to turn on her father when he disapproved of the relationship so much it also became violent. She really turned into a nice young woman when she found out she was pregnant. I hope she stay's on much longer but it's been really great to watch her grow up and become a nice woman who can love and be loved without being the hell-raiser she was as a kid. For a while i thought she was going to turn into a Tracy Quartermaine as she got older but they happily changed the character around.

who do you like and can you think of any others who started as little kids and stayed on for a long period of time to grow up on the show?

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Going back,Jada Rowland was in the original cast of The Secret Storm as 8 yr old Amy Ames. She stayed with the show throughout its run (with a few absences) so the character aged with her and viewers got to see Amy over a 20 yr span.

Similarly,Lyn Loring played Patti on SFT for its first 10 years and aged from 6-16.

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Bryan Buffinton, until he was fired for an Aryan android who was almost immediately backburned and given nothing to do because he was so horrible, grew up on GL, being with the show from about 1989 to late 1997. Rachel Miner, until she was fired, was on the show from 1989 to 1995.

Jadrien Steele was on Ryan's Hope for almost ten years, from infancy on.

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Camryn Grimes played Cassie on Y&R from age 7 to 15.

I now look at Cassie's death and the aftermath as the true downfall of the show. It has not been the same since for some reason. I sometimes wish Cassie would wake up from a dream and the past 5-6 years would be revealed to be her dream/nightmare, and then I remember the people currently writing for Y&R... :lol:

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I don't know how much this one counts but Kimberly J. Brown played Marah on GL from little girl to early teen years in the 90s and later came back on for a brief 2006-2007 stint, whether you can imagine Brown as Marah having slept with Jeffery O'Neill or not

Camryn Grimes should still be on the show as Cassie. Yes that has been the turning point, not only because Cassie was the one to keep Sharon in check(see all of 2003!) but she was the future leading lady. She was already getting teenage stories between her boyfriend from school and falling head over heels for Daniel before her untimely demise. Thanks Jack Smith for a May sweeps stunt that has since ruined the show. That and he destroyed the usually sensible Cassie in the way that she died.

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Do you think they killed her off because they felt having a teen daughter may have somehow detracted from Nick and Sharon being seen as young romantic leads at the time? That it would make Nick and Sharon seem old? For the longest time, Graz and Stafford did not share many scenes together and I always wondered if it was because reminding viewers day in and day out that Phyllis's son is a grown man would make her look old.

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Tommy J. Michaels literally grew up on AMC at Tim Dillon and was turning into an attractive young man when they axed him because he wasn't considered hunky enough. I always thought that was a really stupid decision. And then that horrible recast during Culliton.

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Yeah, Tommy J. Michaels was a very good younger actor and he could have been a decent younger leading man, and they junked that because they just had to get rid of the Dillons. And just about every teen they have brought in since has been a flop.

It was jarring as she still looked fairly similar to her age when she first played Marah.

Sometimes I forget how long she was there because I did not watch most of Josh's scenes for the first few years of his return, as he annoyed/bored the hell out of me and he had no chemistry with Tangie. I guess it was what late 1993 to late 1998? Then they brought in the other Marah I can't remember. I think she had red hair.

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If I remember, I think they axed him about a year before they got rid of the Dillons. I think he left a while before James Kiberd was essentially fired. Agreed he could've been a fine leading man, but he wasn't seen as studly enough. Yeah, most of their teens have flopped since then. The one exception was Finn Wittrock but they couldn't hold on to him. Don't think they were really interested in him either. Colby with Asher seems to be their end game, and Damon would've been the loser in that.

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