In arguably the most legendary soap crossover in daytime history, back in 1992, Kimberlin Brown took evil Nurse Sheila Carter from The Young and the Restless, where the psycho had burned not only a farmhouse but pretty much every bridge in sight, to The Bold and the Beautiful, where she began a new life… that was every bit as insane as her old one had been. How Eric Forrester ever fell for her, we’ll never understand!
When Adrienne Frantz’s incorrigible Bold & Beautiful character left Los Angeles, she promised to better herself. But when she arrived in Genoa City, home of the The Young and the Restless, OMG, she might’ve actually worsened. Thinking that Cane Ashby (pictured) was the “late,” loaded Phillip Chancellor, she tricked him into marriage, then enticed Lily Winters’ then-husband Daniel Romalotti with, ahem, adult material.
Unlike Amber, when Sean Kanan’s Bold & Beautiful alter ego split from L.A., he expressed no desire whatsoever to trade his devil horns for a halo. And true to form, once he landed in Young & Restless’ Genoa City, he began raising all kinds of hell, blackmailing both Amber and Nikki Newman into marrying him and seducing Victoria Newman and Phyllis Summers (pictured).
When Another World decided to spin off the late, great Beverlee McKinsey’s uberpopular megabitch in 1980, the powers that be simply crossed her over to her own show, Texas. But when the offshoot tanked, the actress took a powder — costing the show a million viewers and, in essence, sealing its grim fate. Three years later, McKinsey returned to daytime as Alexandra Spaulding on Guiding Light.
After One Life to Live was cancelled, the father/daughter duo played by Roger Howarth and Kristen Alderson relocated from Llanview to Port Charles, aka the setting of General Hospital. There, Todd got involved in a baby swap with Heather Webber — hey, it happens — and Starr recovered from the loss of both her baby and babydaddy by getting involved with Michael Quartermaine — hey, it also happens. Later, Howarth would trade the role of Todd for that of Franco Baldwin, the then-villain previously portrayed by James Franco, and Alderson would be recast as Ava Jerome’s daughter, Kiki.
General Hospital really messed with our heads when it crossed over Michael Easton’s One Life to Live character. Not because General Hospital would go on to give him umpteen more roles but because it paired his Llanview detective with Sam McCall, played by Kelly Monaco (pictured) — yes, the same Kelly Monaco who’d played Livvie Locke to his besotted vampire Caleb Morley on Port Charles. Mind. Blown. Jaw. Dropped.
Following the death of The Young and the Restless’ John Abbott, his elder daughter, played longest and most memorably by Eileen Davidson, fled Genoa City and wound up learning from The Bold and the Beautiful lothario Rick Forrester (pictured) what “We’ll always have Paris” really means. Upon settling down on the West Coast, she became another in the long line of women who had to learn the hard way that Ridge Forrester would never love them more than he does Brooke Logan.
Rare is the character who made tracks quite like Robin Christopher’s. After spending years stirring the pot in the Pine Valley of All My Children fame, the vixen hit One Life to Live’s Llanview just long enough to come between Max Holden and Blair Cramer, then touched down like a hurricane in Port Charles, home of General Hospital. There, she hoped to get acquainted with her biological father, Alan Quartermaine, who turned out not to be her father at all but so wished he was that he adopted her. Aww.
More than 20 years after Linda Dano last played the erstwhile Gretel on One Life to Live, Skye’s surprise Mommie Dearest — who’d also played Christopher’s mom on Another World — returned to the ABC soap, then visited not only All My Children and General Hospital but its spinoff, Port Charles — a first and, if we’re not mistaken, last for any character.
Almost a quarter of a century after Ilene Kristen had last played Ryan’s Hope scheme queen Dee on that classic ABC soap — man, what we wouldn’t do for a revival! — she crossed over the infamous character to General Hospital, where it was revealed that, owing to a fling with late mafioso Victor Jerome, she’s the mother of that show’s preeminent conniver, Ava.
What’s a gal to do when her plot to fake a terminal illness and hold hostage her romantic rival until she’s been impregnated by the object of her obsession has… well, gone bust? The only sensible thing is to do is what Courtney Hope’s Bold & Beautiful minx did: Pack up and move to the Genoa City of The Young and the Restless renown. At least in Wisconsin, if she gets the cold shoulder, she can blame it on the frigid temps!
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