Five Things That Happened On November 5 In Soap History

In 1990, Erin Torpey (pictured with Robert S. Woods as Bo Buchanan, c., and Chris McKenna as Joey Buchanan) debuted on One Life To Live as Jessica Buchanan. Torpey held the role until 2003, when she opted to leave, at which point the role was recast with Bree Williamson. Torpey did make a brief return to the show in 2008, playing the ghost of Jessica's late daughter, Sarah, and again in 2011, when she made a cameo in conjunction with the departure of her one-time leading man, Kamar de los Reyes (ex-Antonio Vega).

In 1990, General Hospital's Felicia Jones (Kristina Wagner) gave birth to her daughter with Frisco Jones (Jack Wagner), Maxie. It was Halloween in Port Charles, and Felicia had gone into labor while dressed as a clown. Once they met up at the hospital, a frantic Frisco was suffocating Felicia with his well-meaning doting, so his brother, Tony, enacted a plan to get Frisco out of the room. The little girl arrived safely and was named Mariah Maximilliana after Felicia's grandmother, Mariah, and her Aztec heritage more generally.

In 1996, General Hospital's Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard, l.) interrupted Brenda Barrett’s (Vanessa Marcil) wedding to Jasper "Jax" Jacks (Ingo Rademacher, r.) with Jax’s presumed-dead wife, Miranda Jameson (Leslie Horan). Brenda and Jax had eloped earlier in the year, and were now having a proper wedding before family and loved ones at the Quartermaine mansion. When Sonny crashed the wedding, Brenda demanded to know why her ex was there. Jax, meanwhile, looked at the woman accompanying Sonny and, shocked, dropped his wedding band. Sonny smugly introduced Miranda to Brenda by saying, "May I present Mrs. Jasper Jacks." Miranda being alive invalidated Jax and Brenda's earlier nuptials.

In 1998, Bethany Joy Lenz debuted on Guiding Light as Michelle Bauer. Earlier in the year, Lenz had drawn rave reviews for her work as a young version of Reva Shayne Lewis's clone. Lenz succeeded Rebecca Budig in the role of Michelle, and remained with the show until 2000, at which point Nancy St. Alban assumed the role.

In 2014, Justin Hartley debuted on Young and Restless as Adam Newman. The actor had previously played Fox Crane on Passions and achieved some prime-time success in Revenge and Smallville. He succeeded Michael Muhney, who had exited in January 2014, in the role, and remained with Y&R until 2016, when he confirmed his exit in a Facebook post thanking the fans for their loyalty; at the time, he had just booked the pilot of his smash-hit series This Is Us. In 2019, Adam Grossman assumed the role of Adam.