Beloved Young & Restless Vet Spills the Tea About Her Momentous Return — and Potential Future in Genoa City: She ‘Could Be Connected to Literally Any Storyline’
Monday, October 11th, 2021
“I was just bombarded with wonderful memories.”
It’s not every day that an original cast member returns to The Young and the Restless, but that’s exactly what will happen this week as Janice Lynde reprises her role as Leslie Brooks. “It was like coming home again in some ways,” she admits, “although I wasn’t technically in Genoa City.”
Instead, her piano-playing alter ego will be performing at the wedding of Victoria Newman and Ashland Locke. “It appears Nikki and Victor have kept in touch with Leslie over the years,” says her portrayer, adding with a laugh that she was “happy to hear Leslie is still alive and well out there in the world!”
More: The Summer/Kyle wedding we didn’t get to see
Stepping back into Leslie’s shoes wasn’t at all difficult for Lynde, given how much the two women have always had in common. “Leslie and Janice were really interchangeable, except for maybe the mental institution,” laughs the actress. “I mean, they’ve never locked me away. But otherwise, our lives were very parallel. I was a concert pianist when I joined the show, and we were doing performances regularly. We were known as the musical soap at the time.
“And when John McCook joined as Lance,” she says of the man who now plays Bold & Beautiful‘s Eric, and who can be seen opposite her in the clip below, “we would burst into song all the time! It was very romantic, and we had these dark sets and lots of candlelight. Every character had their own musical theme. It was scored very much like a Hollywood movie.”
So what was it like returning to her old stomping grounds all these years later? “I got goosebumps, honestly,” she admits. “I was just bombarded with wonderful memories. I’d been back a few years ago, but that was just a very quick visit. This time, I really got to talk to so many members of the cast and get to know them.”
More: Richard Burgi says ‘Ashland could lose everything!’
Although she had left the role of Leslie before Eric Braeden and Melody Thomas Scott joined, Lynde very much enjoyed getting to spend time with them. “I was on for four years, which seemed like forever to a young person in their early 20s. But they’ve been on for four decades! They were able to make this into their life whereas I’ve had something of a gypsy’s career, which as an artist I’ve loved.”
Were the soap to want her to return on a more regular basis, Lynde would jump at the opportunity. “I would love that,” she admits. “Honestly, I was thrilled that someone at the show not only remembered Leslie, but that she is a world-class virtuoso and could be connected to literally any storyline through the music. Apparently, Victor and Nikki have kept in touch with her and have seen her perform in Europe. So the character has been kept alive and connected all these years!”
Now that we’re all feeling nostalgic, why not flip through the photo gallery below in which we chronicle the entire history of The Young and the Restless. Trust us when we say it’s a trip down Memory Lane that’s definitely worth taking!
Most Popular
Advertisement
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
