Not Young, Still Restless

by Jeanne Cooper

  All of which is to say, between my brilliant surgeon, early detection, a lot of faith, and the most loving, devoted children anyone could hope for, I am one blessed, grateful, and healthy woman.

  Two years later, in the summer of 2007, I decided to treat my whole family to a three-day trip to Las Vegas for a Fourth of July celebration. And by my whole family, I mean my children, their spouses, and my eight grandchildren—Corbin and Amanda and their four sons, Oliver, Angus, Henry, and Finley; Collin and his two sons, Harrison and Weston; and Caren, her husband, John, and their daughters, Sarah and Grace. It was perfect. We saw shows, we watched the fireworks displays, we relaxed by the pool, and we just enjoyed ourselves and one another in general, luxuriating in what a close, fun, playful family we are.

  I will always believe that Caren spent that weekend hiding something she knew, probably from self-examination, seeming to participate with all her heart while watching it from a distance, exactly as I’d handled the Linda Dano party.

  Immediately after we returned from Las Vegas, she went to see her doctor and then headed straight to Dr. Fuller’s office.

  He strongly recommended a double mastectomy, sooner rather than later, and he assured her that his wife, who’s also a doctor, would make that same choice if faced with Caren’s test and X-ray results.

  Her trust in him was so unconditional after my surgery that she agreed without a moment of hesitation.

  And every one of you who are parents know how literally I mean this: I would have given anything and everything I have in this world to trade places with her and let it be me instead.

  Since that wasn’t an option, all I could do was try my damnedest to emulate the extraordinary grace, courage, and determination with which my incredible daughter tackled the biggest, toughest fight of her life.

  She was in the brilliant hands of Dr. David Fermelia for the double mastectomy. She went through what seemed like more than her share of chemotherapy and radiation before proceeding with reconstructive surgery by Dr. David Kulber. She had occasional bouts of disheartenment and depression, and frankly, I would have worried if she hadn’t—I had firsthand experience that those are an inevitable part of the process. But not once did I see her breathe life into that fear circle or waver from her underlying approach: “If that’s what needs to be done, let’s do it.”

  She also wasn’t about to let chemotherapy decide when her hair would start falling out—she cut it off all by herself at her convenience, thank you. Her husband and daughters announced one day that they’d decided to shave their heads too, to let her know that as far as they were concerned, they were all in this together. Her response: “I love you for offering, and I appreciate the gesture. But I’m the one with breast cancer, not the three of you, so put that thought right out of your heads.”

  Caren also refused to wear a wig. She didn’t want to deal with the inconvenience, and she thought she would look and feel silly in them. She was right. In an ongoing effort to do something, anything, to help her, I bought several wigs for her in case she changed her mind. One day we sat down together in front of a mirror so that she could try on her new wig wardrobe. I’m not sure either of us has ever laughed harder. And no one will ever convince me that the old cliché isn’t true: there really is no greater medicine than laughter.

  The one thing I never, ever wanted to do was let Caren see how worried and sad and frightened I was, and to put her in the position of having to comfort me through her health crisis. I believe—I hope—I held up beautifully when we were together, and I reserved any meltdowns for the studio. Only a handful of my castmates and crew knew what I was going through on Caren’s behalf. One of them, thank God, was our amazing costume designer Jennifer Johns.

  Jennifer had known me for a long, long time, and she knew me well enough to know not to escalate the drama by making a fuss or trying to talk me through it with a lot of clichés and platitudes. Instead, she did the most perfect thing for me that she could possibly have done: she saw to it that every day a dahlia from her garden would be waiting for me in my dressing room. I’ve never seen dahlias like them, before or since, and she tells me she’s never grown more amazing dahlias, before or since. They were strong, exquisite, thriving, so vibrant with color and life that they took my breath away. All I had to do was pass by them, or sit near them, and I swear the strength and energy I got from them, with blues and purples so deep you could lose yourself in them, acted as a silent, constant reminder to focus on life and hope and good health rather than on the dark fear that kept trying to pull me under.

  In chapter six I talked about the special night of the AMEES in March 2009. I don’t remember much about my acceptance speech, other than a lot of heartfelt thanks for the honor and for the warm, gracious, perfect evening. I finished what I had to say and took a few steps away from the microphone. As I paused to acknowledge the applause, I happened to spot Caren at her table near the stage. She looked so beautiful, so strong, and so happy, her hair adorably short and growing back, her face glowing with renewal. It overwhelmed me how blessed I was to have her there with me that night, how heroically she’d fought and won the toughest fight of her life, and how full my heart was from loving her.

  I stepped back to the microphone and interrupted the continuing applause with an unapologetic “Excuse me, just one more thing . . .”

  Without belaboring it, I explained that my daughter was in the audience and why her presence among us was such an extraordinary, joyful victory.

  “With all the respect in the world for my fellow honorees,” I concluded, “I don’t think there’s a greater lifetime achievement in this room tonight than the one accomplished by that woman right over there, my greatest achievement, Caren Bernsen.”

  My daughter, who’s not exactly a spotlight hog, modestly stood to identify herself and then promptly sat down again. I wish you could have seen the awestruck look on her face when the thunderous applause started and every person in that huge ballroom, from Smokey Robinson to Berry Gordy Jr. to Vin Scully to hundreds of invited guests to past and present members of the Y&R cast to Caren’s very proud, adoring brothers, gave her the longest, loudest standing ovation of the whole wonderful night.

  My daughter and I are both in perfect health today. I hope with all my heart that you are too. But in case you’re not, please don’t lose sight of the power you have—to surround yourself with faith, love, positive thoughts, and the most gifted experts at your disposal, and to starve your fear and your illness out of existence by surrounding it with a small, impenetrable psychic circle that prevents it from ever, ever becoming a part of who you are.

  Oh, and to resist the temptation to dwell on it, which explains the deliberate brevity of this chapter.

  Chapter Eight

  Costars and Other Playmates

  And now, the chapter some of my castmates have been dreading (and most of them will turn to first) since I announced I was writing my memoirs. Where they get the idea that I might shoot my mouth off and be brutally honest I can’t imagine—it’s typically all anyone can do to drag an opinion out of me, but I’m going to give this my best shot if it kills me. (Please tell me none of you read this paragraph with a straight face.)

  But first, I feel compelled to clear up a story about me that’s been repeated in the press and all over the Internet for some time now. Apparently it’s been widely publicized that I’ve developed a reputation on the Y&R set, particularly among such younger male members of the cast as Greg Rikaart, Josh Morrow, Billy Miller, and Michael Graziadei, that I’m a serial pincher. That no butt or groin area is safe during a scene with me. That I lurk in all my Katherine Chancellor splendor and dignity, waiting for exactly the right, least-expected moment and then strike, on-camera, daring my victim not to react with, let’s say, an involuntary grin or snicker.

  It’s time to set the record straight once and for all about this insidious pinching rumor: every word of it is absolutely true.

  Frankly, it amuses the hell out of
me to sneak in a playful pinch, as my way of saying, “I don’t care how dark or lighthearted this scene is, let’s not forget to enjoy it.” I’m also very selective about who gets pinched. If I’m not enormously fond of someone, as I am of the boys I mentioned (and at my age, “boys” refers to anyone under sixty), you couldn’t pay me to pinch him. It’s a gesture strictly reserved for my favorites on the set and those to whom I’m close enough to know they’ll take it in the spirit of fun and fondness in which it’s intended.

  To his eternal credit, Josh Morrow goes out of his way to move close to me during our all-too-rare scenes together, daring me to get in one good surprise pinch, so I make it a point to let time pass between assaults, to lull him into a sense of false security. Billy Miller and Michael Graziadei are so loose on-camera that their reactions invariably fit right into whatever’s going on around them. Greg Rikaart, on the other hand, if I plan it properly, has to struggle to keep a straight face, which I guess makes him the most ideal target.

  Greg had grown accustomed to my occasional pinches on his butt, so I’m sure he felt safe from me when he was seated in the backyard of the Chancellor estate with his butt protected by a chair during the wedding of Katherine and Murphy. But what can I say? I can’t resist a challenge. So as I walked up the aisle, with cameras rolling, I unexpectedly paused to say hello to Greg (Kevin), ran my hand down his tie while complimenting him on it, and got in a good quick pinch to his groin before heading on up the aisle to my waiting groom.

  I’m told there are fans who make a game of seeing if they can catch Katherine pinching someone in the course of a scene. If this is the first you’re hearing of this, please, by all means, feel free to start watching for it too. Not only am I not giving up the game anytime soon, but I’m just getting started.

  And for those of you who are wondering, by the way, yes, I did, on one occasion, branch out from the young ones. It was during an especially tedious scene in which I was frankly bored and knew he was too, and suddenly it became impossible to resist giving one sound, meaningful pinch to one of my oldest friends in the cast, the inimitable . . .

  Eric Braeden

  If you know The Young and the Restless, you know that one of the strongest, most enduring friendships in Genoa City is the friendship between Katherine Chancellor and Victor Newman, brilliantly portrayed by Eric Braeden since 1980. Katherine met Victor through her close friend Nikki Newman, who is the great star-crossed love of his life. He was a self-made man who rose from his childhood in an orphanage to become a successful businessman. Katherine was impressed enough to make him the new head of Chancellor Industries, essentially telling him, “Make as much money as you want, just be sure I make every bit as much as you do.” They don’t just know each other; they understand each other very, very well, more alike in their strong-willed determination to succeed and in their private vulnerabilities than they might care to admit. They deeply love each other, flaws and all. They’re loyal to each other, they pull no punches when it comes to the honesty between them, they unconditionally have each other’s back, and no matter how exasperated they might get with each other from time to time, the foundation of their friendship is strong enough that they can disagree without judgment and move on when the argument’s over.

  Which, come to think of it, except for the part about being billionaires, is a pretty good description of the friendship between Eric and me. If only Victor Newman had Eric Braeden’s sense of humor.

  I know. The word “hilarious” doesn’t exactly leap to mind when you think of Eric. But there’s a well-disguised playful streak in him that can make working with him feel like an exercise in the arts of improvisation and self-control.

  Eric doesn’t look at a script until the day he’s shooting it, and if there’s dialogue he finds inane or out of character for Victor Newman, he changes it or cuts it completely. He’s good at it too. He’s as protective of Victor, his character, and his relationships in Genoa City as I am of Katherine. But playing a scene with someone who’s changed or cut his lines with no warning often means your dialogue makes no sense at all, which, especially in these days of “shoot it and move on no matter what,” leaves you no choice but to pay attention, think on your feet, and start improvising, trying as best as you can to keep the purpose of the scene intact. It may drive writers, directors, and other actors crazy, but he and I trust each other enough to get a kick out of it. And to be perfectly honest, it’s not unusual for our improvisation to make more sense, and be more true to our characters, than the dialogue we were given.

  Close-ups in a scene with Eric are a whole other challenge. He thinks nothing of waiting until he knows the camera is focused solely on you and then, looking deeply into your eyes, letting drool come out one side of his mouth, or putting on an animated little dance with his eyebrows. In the unlikely event that I give up my hobby of Pinching by Ambush, I might even start complaining about it.

  There’s also an ongoing battle between me and Eric that I’m ready and willing to expose: Eric insists on making sure that Victor Newman has the last word in any scene, whether it’s written that way or not, and it’s my position that every once in a while, his benefactress, Katherine Chancellor, deserves it just as much.

  Even when my line indicates finality, something like “I’m going to put an end to it, Victor, and I’m going to do it today,” or “I don’t care what it takes or who tries to get in our way, we will get back Jabot Cosmetics,” he’ll pause long enough to give me a glimmer of hope and then, just before the director yells, “Cut!” he’ll murmur some gratuitous line, like “I’m sure you will,” or “That will be wonderful, Katherine.”

  One day, as if we were playing a game of who could be the last to cross the finish line, I decided that if he was going to keep talking, so was I, so I said, “Well, I’m not sure ‘wonderful’ is quite the right word, Victor. It could get very unpleasant.” He responded, “But it will be worth it.” My turn again. “I certainly hope so.” I smelled victory. But no. “Count on it,” he said, immediately followed by the director’s “Cut!”

  I didn’t move a muscle, I just kept staring at him, and the instant the cameras were off I said, “Eric, do you think it would be okay if I have the last word in a scene just once?”

  He simply smiled and said, “No.”

  Which, of course, made me more determined than ever.

  Months later we were doing a scene in Gloworm—a name that, as you may have noticed, Katherine deliberately refuses to memorize, so that it might come out “Glow . . . Thing” or “Glow Whatever-It-Is.” Victor and Katherine were seated at a table having a very intense conversation, and at least according to the script, the scene was to end with my line: “That, my friend, remains to be seen.” Knowing that Eric considers lines like that to be the perfect opening for a classic Victor Newman response, I delivered it as written and then, before he had a chance to even take a breath, leapt up and practically sprinted out the door. He didn’t know I could move that fast. I didn’t know I could move that fast. But rather than deliver a comeback to an empty chair, he simply sat there in silence, and let me tell you, I was ecstatic when I heard the word “Cut!” In fact, I admit it, I gloated for the rest of the day over my one and only “win.” I know I’ll pay the price—he’ll be making it even more of a challenge from now on, but take my word for it, I’ve beaten him once, and I’ll do it again.

  The bottom line is, personally and professionally, I cherish this man. I cherish the fondness and respect between us. I cherish our phone calls to check on each other when one of us is going through a health crisis of some kind. I cherish the talks we’ve had about what a bitch this aging process is, but how it sure as hell beats the alternative. I cherish our thirty-plus years of laughter and tears and personal struggles and on-screen storylines, from the exciting to the preposterous. I even cherish our occasional frustration with each other, because it’s always accompanied by the luxury of being able to work through it. I can’t in my wildest dreams imagin
e another Victor Newman, and I wish we had another thirty-plus years together to look forward to.

  All of which can be summed up perfectly, I guess, with four simple words:

  God bless Eric Braeden.

  Ed and Melody Thomas Scott

  From the moment Melody Thomas arrived on the set of Y&R in 1979 to take over the role of Nikki Newman (née Reed), I was enchanted with her. She was gorgeous, sexy, adorable, and already a skilled, experienced actress who’d been working since she was three years old. Our on-screen relationship was as unlikely as it was beautifully conceived: Katherine, the insanely wealthy businesswoman, and Nikki, the stripper, became as close as if they were mother and daughter, with the added bonus of being best friends. They shared a common battle with alcohol addiction, highly dubious track records with the men in their lives, an intense loyalty to the people they loved, and bigger, more vulnerable hearts than they could sometimes handle.

  Off-screen, we were every bit as close. My God, I loved her, and my God, did we have fun, working together and playing together. She was the first person other than my own children who called me “Mother,” and I wore that badge proudly.

  In 1976 The Young and the Restless had hired a very smart, very gifted young associate producer named Ed Scott. He and I quickly developed a friendship I cherished. I admired him, I admired his talent, and when Bill Bell called me one night at two A.M. to tell me he was thinking about elevating Ed from associate producer to producer and to ask me what I thought, I gave him a resounding “Yes! Do it! You won’t regret it, that’s for sure.”

  I couldn’t have been happier for Ed, or more proud, when, in 1978, he became a full-fledged Y&R producer, already in place for a year when the stunning twenty-three-year-old Melody Thomas entered the building. I was working closely with two of my dearest friends, and life was good.