THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL’s Winsor Harmon (Thorne) fondly recalls two of his most memorable B&B-related trips. Both of them took him to Italy, where B&B is known simply as BEAUTIFUL and is a national pop-cultural phenomenon.
“My second experience with our popularity in Italy came when John McCook (Eric) and I went to Sorrento to accept an award for Best Show. That was when I was really first introduced to the unbelievably overwhelming fan response to our show over there. We literally got trapped inside of a restaurant for two and a half hours waiting for the police to come help us get past the mob of fans that had gathered outside. It was just unbelievable. That was a high I would never forget.”
That high would be rivaled only by his first taste of superstardom, Italian-style, when B&B went on location at Lake Como. “We flew out to Sorrento and we went into town to do a press conference and by the time we got out of there from having lunch, there must have been, they said, anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 people in the square. We couldn’t get to the cars. Then they called and told us that we could not come to the event that night because they couldn’t guarantee our safety, which was totally surreal. We were supposed to go with all the film directors and actors and you walk through this little town. It was just a very rare and charming experience, but they didn’t let us do it.
“Finally, at about 8:00 that night they called us back and they said, ‘We have roped the entire town off.’ They put us in the cars and they put us on a red carpet that must have been 150 feet long. It took us 20 minutes to get into the theater and then we went down the red carpet. The fans were so vocal and intense — I didn’t know who I was,” recalls Harmon with a laugh. “It was unbelievable. I know it sounds crazy but I sat down in the auditorium after we got in there, and I looked at John and he looked at me and he goes, ‘I’ve been on this show for quite a while, but you didn’t realize this was going to happen.’ I said, ‘John, I’m about to pee in my pants!'(laughs) I had never been more excited in my life.”
