CBS
We Meet Again: Ex-wife Ashley (Eileen Davidson) was a sore sight for Cole’s (J. Eddie Peck) eyes.
J. Eddie Peck (Cole, Y&R) was very pleased when his character shared an on-air reunion with his former Genoa City wife, Eileen Davidson (Ashley). From the script, Peck knew the scenes would incorporate a flashback of the characters from 1998. “I didn’t know which flashback they were going to use,” he says. “And the beautiful thing about that is that with Eileen, it was still so real and so much in that moment. She just sucked me right into it and it was a really nice connection between Cole and Ashley — and that’s 100 percent due to Eileen. She is so wonderful to work with and I just love the way that played out. She had all the levels of their [past] relationship, the levels of what she was going through right then and her own relationship with Tucker right there on her face, in her eyes and how she played it. Cole could feel that and that’s why he came back with that line, ‘Listen, I don’t know what’s really going on with you two, but whatever it is, you’re too good for him.’ I loved the moment. It was fleeting, it was fast, and it was impactful.” While this was his first time working with Davidson in decades, the pair had reunited last year while celebrating the show’s milestone run. “I got invited to the 50th anniversary [party] and when Eileen and I ran into each other, she was so gracious and I just felt such a tremendous warmth coming from her,” he marvels. “ I [thought], ‘How wonderful and nice is that?’ You know, I’ve missed Eileen and of course, everyone, who I used to work with [at Y&R], but after so many years to get that warm reception from her, I thought, ‘Wow.’ We took pictures together and when I got home, my wife and I were looking at them [and she said], ‘You two really look great together.’ I looked at them thinking, ‘We really do look like a couple, we really look great together.’ ” The actor says he would be delighted if the show explored a possible Cole/Ashley redux. “If the [writers] chose to go that direction, that would be a lot of fun,” he enthuses.
