Mother and Daughter? Sisters? How Gina Tognoni and Courtney Hope Confused Soap Executives!

From the day Courtney Hope came to CBS to audition for the role of Sally Spectra on The Bold and the Beautiful (BB) people were commenting on the resemblance between her and The Young and the Restless (YR) star Gina Tognoni (Phyllis).

Soap Hub was at the Daytime Emmys last spring when the two actresses met for the first time and captured the first side by side photo of the dynamic duo!

As the two women chatted with each other during the pre-awards reception, Hope shared a story with Tognoni that Y&R’s executive producer Mal Young spotted her from a distance at the studio and thought she was Tognoni.

Then, the Y&R star shared that Bradley Bell, who helms B&B, once spotted her from a distance and thought she was Hope!

As the above photo clearly demonstrates, there are similarities between the two actresses. According to IMDB.com, both are 5’7″ in height, but there are differences, too. Hope’s a redhead and Tognoni recently switched her hair to blond after being a redhead for several years.

Might the two CBS soaps be inspired to do a crossover with Tognoni and Hope? The shows’ scribes could always create some kind of familial connection between the two. We’ve never met Sally’s mother — could that character be Phyllis?

Perhaps Phyllis gave birth to Sally and then went off to New York where she set her sights on Danny Romalotti back in the mid-90s.

This scenario is unlikely as viewers have already been introduced to Phyllis’ mother Lydia (played by Falcon Crest star Abby Dalton) and we know that Sally’s grandmother is Shirley! Plus, Tognoni and Hope would be more convincing as sisters — not mother and daughter.

Phyllis recently arrived Los Angeles incognito to see Billy. This would have been a perfect opportunity for her to run into her doppelganger, but that didn’t happen. Maybe Sally will decide to check out the designs of Chelsea 2.0 in Genoa City, which would put her in Phyllis’ backyard…

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