Love can be found in some of the strangest places and blossom at some of the oddest times. And for soap stars, that sentiment is especially true.
Which of These Soap Stars Was It?
All of these actresses are known for their work on any of the four remaining daytime dramas – The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless – and all of them had a starring (or co-starring) role in a primetime series. But only one can claim that she met her future husband on that show’s set.
But who can that actress be? Is it Deidre Hall (Marlena, DAYS), Genie Francis (Laura, GH), Sharon Case (Sharon, YR), or Michelle Stafford (Phyllis, YR)?
Deidre Hall
Hall was one season into her two seasons-and-done drama series Our House – where she played Jessica Witherspoon, a widowed mother of three – when she met her future husband Michael Dubelko. However, their meeting did not occur on the NBC program’s set.
Sharon Case
By the time she joined the inaugural cast of the syndicated serial Valley of the Dolls, Case was an old hand at the soap opera game, owing to her work on both GH (where she played Dawn Winthrop) and As the World Turns (where she played Debbie Simon, one of daytime TV’s first manic depressives).
Though she didn’t meet her future Mr. on VALLEY’s set, Case did appear in all 65 episodes of the soap (which had been adapted from the same-titled novel) playing Anne Welles – a role that had been previously been embodied by Barbra Perkins in the big screen adaption of the book.
Michelle Stafford
Off her initial three-year tenure at YR (which lasted between 1994 and 1997), Stafford headlined the cast of Pacific Palisades, Aaron Spelling’s final primetime soap effort.
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Unlike persnickety Phyllis, PALISADES’ Joanna Hadley was a heroine of the highest order, who would have been an asset to any daytime drama (she even had herself an illegitimate child that had been raised as her sister!). But Stafford didn’t find love on the short-lived series’ set.
Genie Francis
In 1982, a disenchanted Francis left GH, the soap opera that brought her international acclaim, in order to pursue other artistic endeavors. Soon after, she was contracted to star in the CBS mini-series, Bare Essence.
A blitz campaign full of provocative ads (Love Her. Use Her. Or Destroy Her. Everyone Wants A Piece Of Tyger Hayes) followed and the eventual offering proved so successful that NBC purchased the rights to continue the characters’ stories.
Francis followed the production, though the TV series version was not as well received and lasted for only one season with 11 episodes. But one benefit of the series proved to be the bringing together of Francis and Jonathan Frakes, who played Tyger’s in-law, Marshall.
The two actors developed a warm rapport that eventually blossomed into a full-blown romance one they co-starred in yet another large budget mini-series (North and South). They have been happily married since May 28, 1988.
So if you guessed that perhaps Genie Francis – who has played Laura Collins, GH’s waitress turned globe-trotting adventurer turned Mayor (on and off) since February 9, 1977 – was the answer to today’s query, then you were absolutely correct!
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