Roger Howarth as Mitch Bacall/Matt Clark on Young and Restless: Share Your First Impressions!
Actor Roger Howarth is very familiar to soap fans from his roles on different daytime dramas during his career, and he’s recently added another one — Mitch Bacall, the identity assumed by the not-so-dead Matt Clark on Young and Restless — to his résumé. He made his debut on the CBS sudser in the October 31 episode, and made quite the impression on a stunned Sharon. But how did he do with viewers?
So Bad He’s Good
Howarth began his daytime career when he was cast as snooty Kent Winslow on Loving in 1992. From there, he made a brief appearance as Jory on Guiding Light before joining One Life to Live as Todd Manning later that year. He won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in 1994 and left OLTL the following year, but returned from 1996-98 and 2000-03. From 2003-10, he took over the role of Paul Ryan on As the World Turns, then came back to OLTL in 2011. Following OLTL’s cancellation in 2012, Howarth brought Todd over to General Hospital before going on to play two more Port Charles characters, Franco Baldwin and Austin Gatlin-Holt, until his exit in 2023.
Shortly after the news that Tamara Braun (ex-Ava, Days of Our Lives; ex-Kim and ex-Carly, GH; ex-Reese, All My Children) had been cast as Sienna Bacall on Y&R came the announcement that Howarth would also be joining the soap in a new mystery role. A month later, a teaser released by CBS made it clear that the actor would be playing Sienna’s husband, Mitch. However, when the character first appeared in the Friday cliffhanger of the October 31 show, Sharon took one look at the guy and immediately recognized him as Matt Clark, the villain who had tortured her and Nick for years (and who was supposed to be long dead!)
Naturally, Mitch dismissed Sharon’s claims and claimed she was confused before retreating into his club, The Shadow Room. A dazed Sharon made a beeline for the hospital and shared her theory with Nick, who joined her back at the club and was able to sneak in to question Sienna about her husband. Sienna claimed to be unfamiliar with the name Matt Clark and ushered him out of the bar, insisting she didn’t know what he was talking about. When Mitch sauntered back to his wife, she filled him in on Nick and Sharon’s claims, and he claimed he had no idea who Matt Clark was. Worried that Noah’s accident would cause trouble for them, Sienna wished it would all go away, and Mitch coldly suggested that she might get her wish if Noah didn’t pull through. But when Claire and Holden stopped by, he acted pleased when she shared that the doctors were optimistic about Noah’s recovery. After they left, Mitch scolded his wife for suggesting to Claire that Noah’s crash might not have been an accident.
Howarth has played bad guys-turned good (Todd — at least on his best days — and Franco), good guys who occasionally do bad (Paul, Austin), but Howarth told Soap Opera Digest that Mitch is “a true bad guy.” Though his Y&R run has only just kicked off, we want to know your first impressions of Howarth as Mitch/Matt, so cast your vote in our online poll and then be sure to expand on your thoughts in the comments below.
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