They may spend years – even decades – playing your favorite character, but that doesn’t mean that acting is the only job that a soap star has ever had. In fact, some stars previous employment might surprise you.
Which Soap Star Was It?
All of these actors are either alums of, or are currently starring in, one of the four remaining daytime dramas – The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of our Lives, General Hospital, or The Young and the Restless. But only one of them can claim on a resume that they served as an advance man for George H. W. Bush – the 41st president of the United States.
But who can that actor be? Was it Joseph Campanella (ex-Jonathan Young, BB), Greg Rikaart (ex-Leo Stark, DAYS), Joe Flanigan (Neil Byrne, GH), or Jess Walton (Jill Abbott, YR)?
Joseph Campanella
Campanella didn’t smooth the waters for a visiting president – most likely because he was too busy with his decades-spanning acting career. However, Campanella did have some experience playing a big wig politico having spent four years playing the troubled – and ultimately homicidal – Senator Harper Deveraux on DAYS.
Greg Rikaart
Though he never worked as a member of the Commander and Chief’s administration, Rikaart did spend a college semester serving as an intern for a congressman on Capitol Hill.
Jess Walton
Walton never jobbed for a sitting president. However, while starring in the now-defunct serial Capitol, she did play a former call girl who involved herself with a congressman who had his eye planted squarely on the Oval Office. Their affair produced a son, resulted in his divorce, and was a scandal that rocked the (fictional) political landscape.
Joe Flanigan
Despite appearing in his boarding school’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire and immersing himself in acting classes, Flanigan had no plans to pursue a career in the performing arts.
Instead, he obtained a history degree from the University of Colorado and began writing professionally. But due to his restless nature, Flanigan also tried his hand at a plethora of other jobs including bank teller, waiter (he was fired after two days), bartender (dismissed after a mere six hours), and advance man for President George H. W. Bush.
So, if you guessed that the actor in question was Joe Flanigan, then you were absolutely correct!
