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Soap Stars Who Grew Up Before Our Eyes — Plus, General Hospital’s Haley Pullos Turns 22
Molly’s portrayer turns 22 on Friday, July 10.
Join us, won’t you, in pressing “rewind.” The year is 2009. The show, General Hospital. The role, that of Molly, the youngest daughter of the formidable Alexis Davis. And the actress…why, that would be one Haley Pullos, at the time just 11 years old but already a star on the rise.
“I was so small” when I joined the show, she recalled during a 2017 Soap Opera Digest interview. “I was a baby!”
But my, how she’s grown — both as an actress and, well, literally. She’s now the tallest of the Davis girls at a “statuesque” 5’2”. And, on Friday, July 10, as hard as it may be for us to believe, she’ll have 22 — count ’em, 22! — candles to blow out on her birthday cake.
In honor of this momentous occasion, Soaps.com is shining a spotlight on 11 of Pullos’ peers, that rare breed of daytime actor who’ve gone right in front of our eyes from cute kids to leading ladies (and men). Included in the below nostalgia trip — sorry, we mean photo gallery — are a couple of actors who, especially at first, put the “young” in The Young and the Restless, a Days of our Lives star who went from girl next door to woman about town, and a General Hospital heartthrob who first turned heads when Izod shirts and feathered hair were all the rage.
To see then-and-now pictures of Pullos’ contemporaries, just click on the gallery below. Then hit the comments with the names of the stars whose evolutions you’ve most enjoyed watching.
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Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection, John Paschal/JPI
1/21
<p>Just 15 years old when <em>The Young and the Restless</em> cast her as Victoria Newman in 1990, the future Emmy winner — six times over! — couldn’t have guessed what adventures daytime held in store. “It has been a wonderful place to grow up and to develop and make lifelong friends,” the actress told <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/icymi-heather-tom-interview-1717959/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 2022, adding with a laugh, “I spent more time with a lot of these people than I have with my husband!” Since 2007, Tom, who also played Kelly Cramer on<em> One Life to Live</em>, has brought to life Katie Logan on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful.</em></p>
Image: NBC (2)
2/21
<p>By the time a 19-year-old Alfonso landed the role of <em>Days of our Lives</em>’ Hope, she was already an accomplished figure skater (she’d earned a gold medal at the Junior Olympics) and model (she’d even appeared on the cover of <em>Vogue</em>). But she was shaking in her boots when she screen-tested. “I was already a huge fan of <em>Days of our Lives</em>, because I would watch it when I would come home from school,” she told <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/icymi-kristian-alfonso-interview/"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 2019, so “being in [the Horton house] set, I was a nervous wreck!”</p>
Image: ABC (2)
3/21
<p>Legend has it that it was only after missing out on a chance to appear on the NBC sitcom <em>Webster</em> in 1985 that the future Daytime Emmy winner, at the time just 7 years old, was cast as Anna and Robert’s daughter, Robin, on <em>General Hospital</em>. McCullough has played the part off and on ever since while also, in recent years, making a name for herself as an in-demand TV director.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI, Howard Wise/JPI
4/21
<p>Three years after making her debut as <em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ gap-toothed darling, Cassie Newman, the then-10-year-old became the youngest-ever Daytime Emmy winner. And for a while there, we thought that she was going to manage to avoid having her character SORAS’d. But then the show killed off Cassie in 2007 (!!!) and, seven years later, rehired her by-then-grownup portrayer to tackle the <em>new</em> role of her outta-nowhere twin, Mariah Copeland.</p>
Image: CBS, Jill Johnson/JPI
5/21
<p>Having already done Broadway’s <em>Annie</em>, Byrne was a very young “old pro” in 1985, when <em>As the World Turns</em> initially <em>passed</em> on the 15-year-old to play Lucinda’s daughter, Lily, in favor of Lucy Deakins — who wound up beating her out for the lead in <em>The Boy Who Could Fly</em>, too. “I said, ‘You know what? I’m done with this business,’” she told <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/icymi-martha-byrne-interview/"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 2020. “’I want to get braces. I want to have a normal life.’ And I got a phone call… saying, ‘We wanna give you the job of Lily’” — which she held off and on for nearly two decades!</p>
6/21
<p>Today, her name is synonymous with that of Jennifer, the <em>Days of our Lives</em> heroine she’s played off and on since 1985. But a year earlier, when the actress was just 17, she got her big break in soaps when she was cast as airhead Jade on <em>Santa Barbara</em>. Not that she remembers it as a terrific experience. After the show debuted to depressing ratings, “they started killing everybody,” she told <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/tbt-melissa-reeves/"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 1988. “There was so much pressure and so much tension, I hated going to work.” Which, after less than a year, she didn’t have to — Jade was sent on a date from which she simply never returned!</p>
Image: ABC (2)
7/21
<p>When at 14 years old, the future daytime icon was picked to replace Stacey Baldwin as <em>General Hospital</em>’s Laura, she had no idea just how much her life had just changed. But despite the parts of her childhood that her blossoming career took from her, “I don’t regret a bit of what I’ve done,” she told <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=bBYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=true"><em>Orange Coast</em></a> magazine as far back as 1982. “What I have is a curiosity of what it would be like to be ’normal,’ to be a kid, because I gave that up.”</p>
Image: CBS, Howard Wise/JPI
8/21
<p>Twenty-three when he first appeared on <em>The Young and the Restless</em> as Paul, this Emmy-winning fan favorite wasn’t exactly a kid. But when you think of how far he’s come — in terms of decades, in terms of growth, in terms of accolades — we suspect you’ll agree that he grew up before our eyes as much as anyone else on this list. Certainly, his character did! “The transition from this bad guy out for himself,” he recalled for <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/photos/yrs-doug-davidson-paul-looks-back-on-his-genoa-city-stories/"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 2020, “started with April pressuring Paul to take responsibility” for daughter Heather. The rest, as they say, is history.</p>
Image: ABC (2)
9/21
<p>When <em>One Life to Live</em> decided to transform Jessica from a cute moppet into a real character in 1990, Torpey was the 9-year-old assigned to the task. She played the part for the next 12 years, ushering Viki’s daughter into teenage and ultimately adult storylines. Now, Torpey is a married mother of two with an enviable list of video-game voice roles to her credit. (<em>Star Wars: The Old Republic</em>, anyone? Everyone? Thought so, we did.)</p>
Image: ABC, NBC
10/21
<p>Stone Cold was just getting warmed up in 1988: That was the year that the 18-year-old landed his first soap role, that of <em>Days of our Lives</em>’ Harris, a high-schooler who accepted a bet to see whether he could get former hooker Eve into the sack. Three years later, he joined <em>General Hospital</em> as Jason, the preppy-turned-Mob muscle that he played off and on until 2021.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection, ABC
11/21
<p>In the decades that followed after <em>General Hospital</em> cast Shriner as baby-faced older man Scotty Baldwin opposite Genie Francis (Laura), a lot, as things tend to, changed. He switched shows (over and over), roles (except when he starred on <em>Port Charles</em>), coasts, co-stars, hairdos. But one thing has remained constant: his need for speed. In a 1979 interview with <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/tbt-kin-shriner/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a>, he shared his enthusiasm for riding his motorcycle down the freeway; now, of course, his love of his Vespa is the stuff of legend.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI (2)
12/21
<p>At the tender age of 14, Khalil really <em>was</em> young and restless when <em>The Young and the Restless</em> hired her to play the pivotal role of Lily in 2002. She left three years later, saying, “I don’t have a mortgage to pay, so it’s the right time to be unemployed and really <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/the-young-and-the-restless/news/191/davetta-sherwood-lily-yr-is-let-go/">go after my dream</a>, which is to be a movie star.” She returned in 2006, replacing her replacement, Davetta Sherwood, and is now the real-life mother of a 10-year-old.</p>
Image: NBC/Getty Images, John Paschal/JPI
13/21
<p>“I was voted Best Newcomer and fired in the same week,” Diamont told <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/icymi-bbs-don-diamont-reflects-on-35-years-as-a-member-of-the-cbs-daytime-family/" target="_blank"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> about his daytime debut as Carlo Forenza on <em>Days of Our Lives</em>. But, undaunted, the actor — now Bill Spencer on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em> — went on to land the <em>looong</em>-running role of pool boy-turned-ladies’ man Brad Carlton on <em>The Young and the Restless</em>. “If I wasn’t delivering and they weren’t getting a good fan response,” he chuckled, “I may have drowned in the pool at 22 instead of drowning in the frozen lake 23 years later.”</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI, Emily Assiran/Getty Images/That's 4 Entertainment
14/21
<p>Dropping out of college isn’t a smart move for everyone, but it sure paid off for Metcalfe, who left NYU to play Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald from the beginning of NBC’s <em>Passions</em> in 1999. After five years of madness on the supernatural soap, the actor took primetime by storm, going from ABC’s <em>Desperate Housewives</em> to TNT’s <em>Dallas</em> reboot to Hallmark Channel’s <em>Chesapeake Shores.</em> “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing” in the early days of <em>Passions</em>, Metcalfe admitted to<a href="https://grumpymagazine.com/2019/12/11/jesse-metcalfe/" target="_blank"><em> Grumpy Magazine</em></a> in 2019, “but I had the time of my life.”</p>
Image: Gary Null/NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection, NBC
15/21
<p>Although she was just 16 when <em>Days of our Lives</em> cast her as human hurricane Sami Brady, Sweeney was already an old pro who’d been doing commercials and such for more than a decade. “Discipline and work ethic [were] always instilled in me as a kid,” she told <a href="https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/allison-sweeney-tv-roles-146889/" target="_blank"><em>Closer</em></a> in 2018. “I was really lucky to have rock-solid parents who helped me through the industry and didn’t pressure me to do it. It was my choice.” And, it turned out, a hell of a smart one!</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection, Jill Johnson/JPI
16/21
<p>Three years after the future Emmy winner auditioned to play Stone Cates on <em>General Hospital</em>, the ABC soap dropped the former Tyler Baker into the role that would launch his career, that of Nikolas Cassadine. “I often wonder what my life would [have] been like if [casting director] Mark Teschner hadn’t seen beyond the fragile inexperience clearly on display during our first meeting,” Christopher said in a 2017 Facebook post. “Fortunately for me… he did.” The actor later originated the role of Stefan DiMera on <em>Days of Our Lives.</em></p>
Image: CBS, Charles Bush/CBS
17/21
<p>The daughter of <em>The Young and the Restless</em>’ creators, the late William J. and Lee Phillip Bell, made her first appearance as fresh-faced Jabot model Cricket in 1983 — when she was just 13 years old. It wasn’t until the actress was a bit older that she was put on contract — and “the Bug,” as Phyllis called her, began using her real first name, Christine.</p>
Image: ABC/Getty Images (2)
18/21
<p>Two years out of college in 1982, Knight was tasked with transforming the adopted son of <em>All My Children</em>’s Ruth and Joe Martin from merely mischievous into “Tad the Cad.” Needless to say, he nailed it — and was still rocking the role when ABC cancelled the show. How’d he pull off the feat? By bringing the funny, <a href="https://soaps.sheknows.com/general-hospital/news/633880/all-my-children-michael-e-knight-tad-martin-memories/" target="_blank">he said in 2022</a>. “They let me do a lot of sitcom takes” to cut the melodrama. Since 2019, the three-time Emmy winner has been hanging from the newest branch of Laura Collins’ family tree as Martin Gray on <em>General Hospital.</em></p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI, Howard Wise/JPI
19/21
<p>The two-time Daytime Emmy winner was 17 when he joined the cast of <em>The Young and the Restless</em> as Devon. But he’d actually been in showbiz even longer than that, appearing in commercials and magazine ads since he was 2 and starring on the ABC sitcom <em>Family Matters</em> since he was 4. Co-star Darius McCrary, who later joined <em>Y&R</em> as Devon’s uncle, Malcolm, “was like the brother I never had,” he told <a href="https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/icymi-bryton-james-interview/"><em>Soap Opera Digest</em></a> in 2018, “and he really looked out for me on set.” At Y&R, the late Kristoff St. John (Neil) filled that role. He “helped me think that I could be just as good as everybody else,” James recalled. “He really made me feel like an equal.”</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI (2)
20/21
<p>Even before <em>General Hospital</em> recognized the future five-time Young Artist Award winner’s star quality and cast her as Molly at age 11, she knew that the path she wanted to stroll was the Walk of Fame. She was beyond intent about becoming an actress. “I bugged my parents about it so often that they finally looked into it for me,” she jokes on <a href="http://www.haleyalexis.com">her website</a>. “I think they were shocked when my manager signed me!” Shocked maybe… but proud for sure!</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection, Howard Wise/JPI
21/21
