Bradley Bell's no fool. The exec producer of The Bold and the Beautiful has Emmy winner Jacob Young — fresh from his scorching performance as badass boozer JR Chandler on All My Children — back in the role of Rick Forrester starting today. Young played the fashion-industry scion during the character's troubled teen years from 1997 to '99.
"Those were great times with Jacob and he's an even more exciting, intense and unpredictable actor now," says Bell, who nonetheless insists he's not bringing Young in to "take over and steal the show. We will slowly immerse Rick back into the Forrester ...
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The stars of daytime's No. 2 soap are about to get a big dose of reality: On September 7, CBS's The Bold and the Beautiful will start broadcasting in high definition, a development "that will take our show to a whole new look and level," exec producer Brad Bell tells TV Guide Magazine. "We knew back when we did all that CGI work on the Brookeberries story that it would have been so much better in high-def. Now we've got what we need to really move the show forward. And it's about time because, globally, you need to be high-def. It's now expected that you deliver your product that way." (B&B is the most widely seen daily drama in the world.)
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Did daytime's naughtiest, nerviest soap suddenly get cold feet? The Bold and the Beautiful seemed headed toward a near-incestuous romance between young couturier Thomas Forrester (Adam Gregory) and his dishy stepmom Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang). Then, outta nowhere, Thomas backed off and started hitting on several gals his own age — a bit too desperately if you ask us. His oddball behavior even has his uncle Thorne (Winsor Harmon) suspecting the kid might be gay. What's this all mean?
"We are not backing off ...
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The Bold and the Beautiful is famous for its gutsy storylines, and this one's a jaw-dropper. In the cliffhanger of the September 24 episode, control-freak matriarch Stephanie Forrester — played by four-time Emmy winner Susan Flannery — will find out that she has stage 4 lung cancer. Stephanie will stubbornly refuse treatment and decide to keep the dire news from her family, choosing instead to spend her final months checking off items on her bucket list: She'll throw herself a birthday party complete with a Silly Slide, ride the rollicking roller coaster at the Santa Monica pier... that sort of thing. Only Stephanie's archenemy Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) will be privy to the diagnosis — and that's by accident. TV Guide Magazine talked with B&B exec producer-head writer Brad Bell about this startling twist. And of course we hit him with the billion-dollar question — is Susan Flannery exiting the show? ...
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He was a prime suspect in the famous "Who Shot J.R.?" plot on Dallas. Now Patrick Duffy is returning to CBS' The Bold and the Beautiful for another big shooting. His character, gadabout dad Stephen Logan, will be paged back to town in November by his daughter Donna (Jennifer Gareis). "The Logan clan is being horribly abused by Stephanie Forrester [Susan Flannery] and Donna wants her father to stir the pot," says exec producer Brad Bell. Stephen has no idea that his eldest daughter, Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang), was recently raped or that sicko Stephanie had a hand in it. So expect fireworks. "For years this family has been ashamed to be Logans," Bell notes. "Now they're going to rise up proudly and combat this oppressive woman." Can we safely assume it's Steph who takes the bullet? Bell is mum except to say, "It's a shocker." — Reporting by Michael Logan
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