Renee Jones

Growing up on her grandmother’s farm in Georgia after her parents divorced, Renee Jones‘s life was far from the glamorous one she leads as DAYS’s Lexie. Though Jones describes having “a wonderful freedom”, the poverty-stricken clan didn’t have indoor plumbing in their home and she and her sister and cousins used the same bath water for their once-a-week scrubbings. The family moved to Mt. Vernon, NY when Jones was 11 and she felt like she was on DYNASTY having hot running water and electricity.

After graduating high school early, Jones went to work in admissions at Yonkers Professional Hospital in NY. A friend suggested she try modeling, so Jones — who didn’t even think she was pretty — was signed to the Black Beauty Modeling Agency. By 1980, she moved to Los Angeles and scored a role on WHITE SHADOW within a week of her arrival. She joined DAYS for a brief stint as Nikki Wade in 1982 (where she was, ironically, deemed too young for James Reynolds‘s Abe), then was cast as Lexie in 1993.

Though her work schedule is lighter these days, Jones is fine with that. “Sometimes you need work to fill you up, but I don’t need to work to do that; I’m full already,” she noted in 2010.