On Peter Bergman’s 31st Anniversary With The Young and the Restless, We Lay Out What *Should* Be Jack Abbott’s Next Storyline
Friday, November 27th, 2020
The Daytime Emmy winner’s most challenging material may be ahead of him.
By the time Peter Bergman first aired as The Young and the Restless playboy Jack Abbott on November 27, 1989, he’d already overcome a big hurdle: Terry Lester, his popular predecessor in the role. (That’s him below with his former on-screen family.)
Bergman came to the CBS soap an established soap star and, in fact, half of a supercouple, owing to his decade-long stint as All My Children’s Dr. Nice Guy, Cliff Warner. And he’d been suggested as the new Jack by no less than future Young & Restless leading lady Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki). Yet he still had… concerns. “I was replacing a terrific actor, one people felt was” the character, Bergman told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 1991. “I suspected that for several months, I would be directed to play scenes like Terry did. I promised myself I would not become angry with those suggestions and that, eventually, I could add my own stamp to the character.”
But it turned out that CBS hadn’t hired him to play Lester’s Jack but his own. “My first scene… was with Jess Walton (Jill),” he recalled. After a take, “Edward Scott, who was directing that day, came out to give notes, and I thought, ‘Uh-oh, here it comes!’
“Instead,” he continued, “Ed looked at me, smiled, went over to Jess, gave her a note or two and didn’t say anything to me. From that moment on, I knew they had hired me for what I could bring to the character of Jack.”
More: Young & Restless throws the party of the year
Decades later, Bergman would recall that he relocated to Genoa City in need of an attitude adjustment. As he put it to USA Today in 2019, “I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the best thing that ever happened to me. Looking back, if I have any regrets, it’s that I didn’t immediately embrace [Young & Restless] for the wonderful opportunity it was.” (That’s Bergman on All My Children below, with Taylor Miller as Cliff’s bride, Nina.)
Whether Bergman at first appreciated the chance that he’d been given, at least both the audience and his peers appreciated him. Almost immediately, he, for lack of a better word, became Jack. And just two years after he tackled the part, he won the first of two back-to-back Emmys. (He picked up a third in 2002… ya know, just for good measure.)
More: Our master plan for Jack’s forgotten child
In recent years, Bergman’s on-screen alter ego has been written more and more like father John Abbott, which on one hand makes sense… and on the other, doesn’t. That Jack would want to emulate the man he esteems more than anyone is only logical. But such a trajectory ignores the fact that John, for his many virtues, was an indefatigable bad-decision generator, one who fell for one strumpet (Gloria) after another (Jill). To deny that key component of Jack’s legacy — of his DNA, for Pete’s sake — is akin to asking a guitar player to strum with one hand tied behind his back.
Were Jack’s future up to us, we’d do two things in short order: First, we’d have him truly step up in the Abbott family and step into what he perceives to have been John’s role, that of the faultless, stalwart patriarch. Then we’d hook him up with a new love interest, one played by an actress of Bergman’s stature. We’re talking fellow All My Children alum Eva LaRue (Maria) as Celeste (below) or, dare we hope, Days of Our Lives’ iconic Kristian Alfonso (ex-Hope) as… someone new?
Then we’d challenge Jack’s resolve to emulate the beacon as which he thinks of his dad. We’d have Victor, unscrupulous as ever, take advantage of his archenemy’s determination to walk the straight and narrow, and make another play for Jabot Cosmetics. Jack would want to fight fair. Take the high road. Prove his mettle to his new squeeze, make his sisters proud and set an example for son Kyle. But…
Oh, it’s a big ol’ “but.”
More: Jack’s next love interest [PHOTOS]
Jack would be faced with the most epic of quandaries. “Do I wage war like a good man and lose? Or do I march into battle like a shrewd man and hit as far below the belt as my enemy — but in so doing proving to everyone I love that I’m not and never could be anything but a pale imitation of my idol?”
We’d watch the hell out of that, rooting with every beat for Jack to find a way to safeguard his best intentions while still putting the great Victor Newman in his place. What about you? What would you like to see happen next to Jack? On your way to the comments, stop off at the photo gallery below, which runs through a feels-filled series of photos of the 11,999 episodes of Young & Restless that preceded its momentous 12,000th one.
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Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
1/77
<p>When <em>The Young and the Restless</em> premiered in 1973, its focus was Brad Elliot (Tom Hallick), a doctor running from a tragic past… right into the arms of pianist Leslie Brooks (Janice Lynde).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
2/77
<p>Leslie set up her jealous sister Lorie (Jaime Lyn Bauer) with filthy-rich Lance Prentiss (John McCook, now Eric on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em>), only to get mixed up in a delightfully messy love quadrangle with the couple and his brother, Lucas.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
3/77
<p>Oh, no. Leslie (Victoria Mallory here) had every reason to think that she was being watched — she <em>was</em>. Lucas (Tom Ligon) and Lance had a mother (K.T. Stevens) who wasn’t so much a helicopter parent as a bomber pilot. And in <em>this</em> photo, Vanessa is being subtle!</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
4/77
<p>Vanessa so despised Lorie that she not only framed her daughter-in-law for her murder, she used words like “trashy” and “amateurish” to describe the author’s “great American novel,” <em>In My Sister’s Shadow.</em></p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
5/77
<p>Stuart’s daughter Chris (Trish Stewart) developed palpipations anytime med student Snapper Foster was around. Eventually, her condition was diagnosed as lovesickness. (There remains no cure.)</p>
6/77
<p>Then again, can ya blame Trish? Snapper was, after all, played by David Hasselhoff.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
7/77
<p>Snapper’s upwardly-mobile sister Jill (then Brenda Dickson) wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty. In fact, it was her preferred method of social climbing.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
8/77
<p>We’d mention that Jill’s mother Liz (Julianna McCarthy) disapproved of her willingness to lie, cheat and steal. But we’re pretty confident that you already know, just from looking at this photo.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
9/77
<p>But lonely Katherine Chancellor (the late, great Jeanne Cooper) wanted something besides her jewelry to keep her company. So she made the mistake of hiring Jill to be her companion.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
10/77
<p>If Jill had pocketed a bauble or two, Kay might have overlooked it. But instead, the mantrap seduced both her benefactor’s husband and son, Brock Reynolds (Beau Kayzer).</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
11/77
<p>Mobster Joseph Anthony (Logan Ramsey) and daughter Alana (Amy Gibson) got the shock of their lives when they learned that she hadn’t married milquetoast white guy Robert Tyrone but Tyrone Jackson (Phil Morris), a Black attorney hell-bent on busting the don’s crime syndicate.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
12/77
<p>Snapper and Jill’s brother Greg (Wings Hauser) didn’t know when he married Nikki Reed (Melody Thomas Scott) that he was just her practice husband. She was only getting started on the marry-go-’round.</p>
Image: TV Guide/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
13/77
<p><em>The Young and the Restless</em> was so hot in the late 1970s that <em>TV Guide</em> put Victoria Mallory (another Leslie), Dickson, Bauer and David Hasselhoff (Snapper) on the cover. But what time is <em>WKRP in Cincinnati</em> on?</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
14/77
<p>As they put the “young” in <em>The Young and the Restless</em> in the early 1980s, Andy Richards (Steven Ford), Paul Williams (Doug Davidson) and Danny Romalotti (Michael Damian) looked like they’d just stepped out of a John Hughes movie.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
15/77
<p>The ’80s ushered onto the soap’s canvas the Abbott family: patriarch John (Jerry Douglas) and his kids, insecure Traci (Beth Maitland), gorgeous Ashley (Eileen Davidson) and scheming Jack (the late Terry Lester).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
16/77
<p>No woman in Genoa City was safe from Jack’s seductive charms, not when he set his eyes on “bedroom.” Thankfully, here they are only set on “gazebo.”</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
17/77
<p>As much as Jack loved the ladies, the ladies loved him. He couldn’t even pose for a picture without being photo-bombed by the likes of Carol Robbins (Christopher Templeton) and Lindsey Wells (Lauren Koslow, now Kate on <em>Days of Our Lives</em>).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
18/77
<p>As Danny’s rock career took off, he found himself with as many groupies as Jack did lovers. Among the singer’s entourage were not only Traci but Lauren Fenmore (Tracey E. Bregman), who was a mean girl before there was even a <em>Mean Girls.</em></p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
19/77
<p>As you can see, Lauren wasn’t keen on sharing Danny. She probably wasn’t too eager to share mousse, either, so we have no idea how both she and her boo managed to pull off their amazing ’80s coiffures.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
20/77
<p>Traci was destined for other adventures, like marriage to her family’s former gardener, a successful career as a novelist and becoming Genoa City’s gentle voice of reason.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
21/77
<p>Danny seemed to go from one love triangle to the next. After vying with Jill’s son Phillip Chancellor (Thom Bierdz) for the affections of teenage Jabot model Cricket Blair (Lauralee Bell), Genoa City’s answer to Rick Springfield wound up battling Paul for her.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
22/77
<p>Danny and Cricket also ran afoul of David Kimble (Michael Corbett), the murderous gold digger who married Phillip’s “widow” Nina Webster for — well, <em>duh</em> — her money.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
23/77
<p>We only wish we looked, never mind <em>were</em>, half as excited about dusting as Katherine’s housekeeper, Esther Valentine (Kate Linder).</p>
Image: CBS
24/77
<p>Did somebody order a doppelganger? Somehow diner waitress Marge Cotroke convinced everyone — for a while, anyway — that she wasn’t Flo from <em>Alice</em> but the inimitable Katherine.</p>
Image: Columbia Tristar/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
25/77
<p>… is another woman’s treasure. Jill thought that she was sticking it to Katherine by dressing up Danny’s no-good father Rex Sterling (Quinn Redeker) as an appropriately fancypants beau. But the couple overcame the lie to find true love.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
26/77
<p>After getting an eyeful of Nikki going all Gypsy Rose Lee at the Bayou, new mogul in town Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) decided to turn her into a society dame. At the same time, his heart was slowly realizing that it had no choice but to also make her his bride.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
27/77
<p>They say that you never forget your first time — and in Victor and Nikki’s case, they mean the first time you marry each other. Mind you, it wouldn’t be the last, not by a long shot.</p>
Image: Courtesy Everett Collection
28/77
<p>For years, <em>The Young and the Restless</em> played Victor’s push/pull between his favorite wives, Ashley and Nikki. How could the show not? It would take a <em>lot</em> of shampoo for either of them to wash that man right outta their hair.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
29/77
<p>As he built up Newman Enterprises, Victor earned a reputation as one of… OK, <em>the</em> most cutthroat tycoon in town. No wonder Jack dubbed him the Black Knight and not, say, Prince Smiles-a-Lot.</p>
Image: Geraldine Overton/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
30/77
<p>While presumed dead by his loved ones back in Genoa City, Victor did what any sensible person would — and began a new life for himself in Kansas with blind farmer Hope Wilson (Signy Coleman).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
31/77
<p>Once future Emmy winner Heather Tom (now Katie on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em>) joined the cast as Victor and Nikki’s daughter, Victoria made herself comfortable in her new permanent home: the front burner.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
32/77
<p>Victoria was smitten from the start with baby-faced would-be businessman Ryan McNeil (Scott Reeves). But not only couldn’t he tie a tie, he couldn’t commit — and kept gravitating back toward Nina Chancellor, a “widow” with as much money as Victoria and <em>way</em> fewer hang-ups.</p>
Image: Columbia Tristar/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
33/77
<p>Brad Carlton (Don Diamont, now Bill on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em>) went from tending to John’s garden to marrying his daughters to occupying a corner office at his cosmetics company to… aw. A watery grave.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
34/77
<p>Not all of the attention that Brad got from the ladies — and he got a <em>lot</em> of it — was wanted. For instance, he could have done without being locked in a cage by an obsessed Lisa Mansfield (Lynne Harbaugh). And if ya think <em>that’s</em> bad…</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
35/77
<p>Shawn Garrett (Grant Cramer) became so fixated on Lauren that he buried his favorite singer alive. And it wasn’t like she knew any good funeral dirges!</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
36/77
<p>Victor went apoplectic when Victoria (now Amelia Heinle) took up with archenemy Jack’s kid brother, Billy (then Billy Miller). The Mustache even went so far as to have his own daughter arrested on her wedding day!</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
37/77
<p>There was no fooling Victor. He didn’t like Victoria being with Billy any more with Jason Thompson playing the part than he had when Billy Miller was.</p>
Image: Monty Brinton/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
38/77
<p>Fine, fine, Victor. We’ll move along…</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
39/77
<p>While Victoria was marrying her way through one Billy after another, brother Nick (Joshua Morrow) seemed to have eyes for only one young woman. And she was…</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
40/77
<p>When rich boy Nick fell for poor girl Sharon Collins (Sharon Case), it was all over for him. He was in it for life. Well, except for one thing…</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
41/77
<p>After Nick and Sharon lost daughter Cassie, their marriage frayed… to the point that he didn’t stop at just having eye sex with Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
42/77
<p>Though introduced as a beach-going himbo, Paul matured into one of the most honorable fellas in Genoa City. And during his time as a private eye, there wasn’t a case that he couldn’t crack like it was a walnut.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
43/77
<p>In 1991, Neil Winters (the late Kristoff St. John) was but an ambitious executive trainee at Jabot. How far he’d go before he was, sadly, gone.</p>
Image: Monty Brinton/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
44/77
<p>When feisty Drucilla Barber (Victoria Rowell) needed to manufacture a boyfriend as part of a harebrained plot to steal her sister’s man, she recruited level-headed Neil — and wound up getting the better part of the deal!</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
45/77
<p>Neil wound up with a rival when he was reunited with long-lost sibling Malcolm (Shemar Moore). So into Dru was the hunk that he had sex with her while she was too high on medication to realize that he wasn’t her husband. Not cool, bro.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
46/77
<p>Though Malcolm turned out to be the father of Dru’s daughter, Lily, they let Neil believe that he was the one who needed to go to all of the girl’s parent/teacher nights. Also not cool, bro.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
47/77
<p>Lily (Christel Khalil) turned out to have a knack for attracting trouble, whether it was Internet predator Kevin Fisher, porn addict Daniel Romalotti (Michael Graziadei) or…</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
48/77
<p>Fans rooted like crazy for Lily to make it work with Cane Ashby (Daniel Goddard). But when the Aussie wasn’t being duped (by everyone from Amber Moore to Chloe Mitchell), lying about his identity (Phillip Chancellor… as if!) or playing dead, he was locking lips and then some with a host of women who were not his wife.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
49/77
<p>As big a handful as Lily may have been, she had nothing on her adopted brother, Devon Hamilton (Bryton James), who carried on with ill-fated true love Hilary Curtis (Mishael Morgan) behind the back of her husband — his dad, Neil. Did we mention that Neil was <em>blind</em> at the time? Insert face-palm here.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
50/77
<p>“Evil” wasn’t actually a part of Nurse Sheila Carter’s name, but that was how everyone referred to Kimberlin Brown’s she-devil after she stole both Lauren’s husband and son and attempted to overcook her.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection (2)
51/77
<p>We couldn’t include a picture of one of Lauren and Sheila’s infamous smackdowns here, because once they got started, their fists were flying too quickly to be captured in a still.</p>
Image: Cliff Lipson/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
52/77
<p>Or the offense. Either way. Once the erstwhile Cricket dealt with legal mentor Michael Baldwin’s sexual harassment and subsequent obsession, she became a respected attorney. And also, at one point, Michael’s fiancée. We didn’t get it, either. </p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
53/77
<p>Keeping a cake from melting in the heat looked a lot easier for Danny and Christine on their wedding day than it ever does on <em>The Great British Baking Show.</em></p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
54/77
<p>Years (<em>and</em> years) before making hay with Nick, Phyllis was introduced to the canvas as the Danny superfan who went so far as to switch paternity tests to make the happily-hitched rocker believe that he was the father of her son, Daniel. (You remember, the porn junkie on the beach with Lily a few images ago… )</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
55/77