Beloved Young & Restless and Bold & Beautiful Vet Dead at 85: ‘The Earth Stopped Turning for a Moment’ When She Passed

Marla Adams took her final bow on April 25, our sister site Deadline reports. The veteran actress, who played John Abbott’s first wife Dina on The Young and the Restless off and on for nearly 40 years, was 85.

A native of Ocean City, NJ, Adams fell in love with the stage while winning beauty pageants in the Garden State. She appeared on Broadway in the 1958 production of The Visit and made her big-screen debut in 1961’s Splendor in the Grass. But it is for daytime that she will always be best remembered.

Adams was cast in her first soap role in 1968, and it was a doozy. For six years on The Secret Storm, she played Belle Clemens, who was hell-bent on ruining the show’s heroine, Amy Ames. Next came The Young and the Restless and the pivotal part of Dina, whose abandonment of her children Jack, Ashley and Traci messed them up for decades to come. (Climb the family tree here.)

In 1983, the same year that Adams landed in Genoa City, she also subbed on Capitol, filling in for Carolyn Jones as Myrna Clegg. In the decades that followed, Adams would pass through Generations (as Helen Mullin), The Bold and the Beautiful (as the Logans’ mom, Beth) and Days of Our Lives (as uptight Dr. Claire McIntyre). But it was Young & Restless that was really home for her. Although it was rare for gadfly Dina to stick around for long, Adams always came back. In 2021, following Dina’s on-screen passing, her portrayer won her first Daytime Emmy, for Outstanding Supporting Actress.

Upon hearing of Adams’ death, Beth Maitland, who plays Traci, Instagrammed that “the earth stopped turning for a moment when my Marla passed to eternity. Rest now, my Muti, and soar with the angels.”