Soap Alum Sydney Penny Announces Husband Robert Powers’s Death
Sydney Penny, who soap fans will remember from her stints on Santa Barbara (BJ Walker, 1992-93), All My Children (Julia Santos Keefer, 1993-96; 1997; 2002; 2005-08) and Bold and Beautiful (Samantha Kelly, 2003-05), announced on Facebook that her husband, Robert Powers, passed away on December 31, 2024 at the age of 59, one day shy of his 60th birthday.
In her poignant post, Penny wrote, “I’m heartbroken to have to share the news that my husband of 29 years, Robert L Powers, passed away early in the morning on New Year’s Eve. He hadn’t widely shared that he had been fighting cancer for several months, so I know this will be a surprise to many. He loved seeing all of your activities here on FB and I know he would want you to speed through your sadness and shock and continue to celebrate life as he always did.”
Penny and Powers — an accomplished artist who was the nephew of As The World Turns legend Helen Wagner (ex-Nancy Hughes), who passed away in 2010 — met while he was working as a production assistant on Santa Barbara during her time there playing BJ. They got engaged on Christmas Eve, 1994. “We were at this beautiful bluff in Newport, CA, called Big Corona, which is actually where they filmed the opening shots of Gilligan’s Island,” the actress recalled of Powers’s proposal to Soaps In Depth in 2003. When he first handed her the ring box and she spotted the unique piece of jewelry inside, “It’s not a traditional engagement ring, so I’m thinking, ‘Is this it? Is he going to propose?’ ” Eventually, Powers made his intentions known. “He said, ‘So, anyway…. do you want to get married sometime?’ I just said, ‘Yeah, sure!’ ”
On September 30, 1995, Penny and Powers’s wedding was held in the outdoor garden at Lawry’s Five Crowns Restaurant in Corona Del Mar, CA, with her AMC co-stars Eva LaRue (who played Penny’s on-screen sister Maria, and is now on General Hospital as Natalia) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (ex-Kendall) in attendance.
The couple’s family expanded to include son Chasen August Powers on May 31, 2007. His obituary noted, “Rob’s greatest joy was his son, Chasen.”
According to the bio on his official website, Powers was born on January 1, 1965 in Okinawa, Japan. His father, an Air Force pilot, was killed while serving in the Vietnam War. Raised in Laguna Beach, CA, his art was featured on TV shows like Gilmore Girls and Curb Your Enthusiasm and was showcased in solo exhibitions. He was also an accomplished chef, having studied at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, and, alongside Penny, he ran a restaurant in Wilmington, NC, where the couple had relocated.
Soap Opera Digest sends its deepest condolences to Penny, and all who loved Powers.
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