GIRL TALK
Beth Maitland (Traci, Y&R) cherishes her relationship with TV niece Melissa Ordway (Abby). “That girl is a little dramatic and she is so much fun,” chuckles Maitland. “She always has hilarious stories about her daughters, about her life, about Costco. I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, how does this girl get through the day?’ I want to ask, ‘Do you need me to come and help you, honey?’ She’s just fabulous.” Maitland appreciates how she and her co-star connect as mothers. “The other day, Melissa asked how my daughter, Emelia, is,” Maitland smiles. “My daughter is recently home from school and she’s living with me before she makes plans about where her life will take her next. I told Melissa it’s been like a mini vacation for us because she’s been away at college for six years. We were laying on my bed binge-watching PENNY DREADFUL and Em reached out and wanted to hold my hand. Melissa got tears in her eyes and she said, ‘That gives me hope.’ Her little girls have a lot of needs because they’re small and I said, ‘You can’t miss a minute of it because the next thing you know it’s gone.’ We always have little mommy talks and I hear her hilarious stories of taking her girls for ice cream. I mean, she is a gem, that girl. I am so glad that we are the kind of friends we are.”
HERE COMES THE BRIDE
Kate Mansi (Abigail, DAYS) has a very special milestone to celebrate in 2020 — her marriage to Blake Levin. The duo got engaged at the beginning of the summer and are knee-deep in wedding planning. “The proposal was a few weeks coming because he had tried to do it the weekend before and I had my best friend from high school’s wedding and it was also our five-year anniversary,” Mansi begins. “Let’s just say I had too much fun at the wedding to do anything the next day. My fiancé had planned a really nice day for us in Santa Barbara and I had to force him to cancel. But I didn’t know it was a proposal plan. So then the next weekend, we planned it and it was one of those classic everything goes wrong things, like, it started to rain, he wanted to walk on the beach ... it was just like one thing after another.” But things worked out and Levin popped the question. “And then we went to a really beautiful place called El Capitan Canyon, where we went when we were first dating,” Mansi shares. “We stayed in this awesome cabin and had champagne and cooked. It was really nice. And then we just started setting off on our wedding plans.”
TOGETHER AGAIN
Jacklyn Zeman (Bobbie, GH) is delighted that there has been an uptick in her scenes with Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth). “I really love that they’ve brought back the Bobbie/Elizabeth relationship, because for a long time, we had no connection,” she points out. “The first time it came back after many years was on the anniversary [memorial] show for Susan Brown [ex-Gail]; we had a couple of scenes that I thought were really nice and I was really grateful that the writers remembered that, because that relationship kind of got dropped by the wayside for quite a long time. The fact that they resurrected it and brought it back is wonderful. I mean, my gosh, I’ve known Becky for all these years, since she first came on the show! My girls were little girls when she came on and I always remember that she had a bunny rabbit in her dressing room and [daughters] Cassidy and Lacey would go, ‘Can we go to Becky’s room and see the bunny rabbit?’ This was a million years ago, before Becky was married, before she had her kids! So, doing these scenes with her has reminded me of those sweet times. I just love Becky.
I think she’s beautiful inside and out.”
SHE’S GOT GAME (SHOW)
For Denise Richards (Shauna, B&B), one of the perks of joining the CBS soap was the opportunity to guest-star on THE PRICE IS RIGHT. “It was so fun,” she raves of her modeling gig on the iconic game show. “It shoots right next to where BOLD is [in CBS Television City]. I just love Drew Carey. We worked together years ago. I have to tell you, I watched that show when I was a kid every day after school. It’s fun for me to be on the set of BOLD and then just walk through the studio and see all the men and the women who are getting everything ready for THE PRICE IS RIGHT, getting all the prizes and the big wheel ready, which by the way is behind this very special case so no one touches it. For me, it’s so nostalgic. My sister and I used to watch this every day after school. So now, to be able to be a model on the show and be a part of that, I was so excited.”