Emmy-Winning Young & Restless Star Dead at 75
Bittersweet memories are on the menu at The Young and the Restless’ Colonnade Room today: The word has just come down that Meg Bennett, who played Victor Newman’s woebegone first wife Julia from 1980-84, died of cancer on April 11.
A cast member of the original Broadway production of Grease (as Pink Lady Marty Maraschino), the actress got her start in daytime replacing future Dynasty star Kathleen Beller as Liza Walton, the sweetheart of Search for Tomorrow, in 1974. She achieved greater success when she joined Young & Restless six years later, as beleaguered Julia was mistreated from the start by husband Victor (who eventually imprisoned in a basement the photographer with whom he suspected more was developing than pictures!).
During her run as Julia, Bennett wowed Young & Restless co-creator William J. Bell with her ability to tweak scripts on the fly. So he hired her to write for the show as well as act on it in 1981. In the years that followed, she continued to wear two hats, taking roles on Santa Barbara (as Megan Richardson, the mom of future One Tree Hill star Paul Johansson) and General Hospital (as the villainous Allegra Montenegro), and writing for both of those soaps as well as Bold & Beautiful, Generations and Sunset Beach. (She was even co-headwriter of Aaron Spelling’s short-lived daytime drama from 1997-98.)
Bennett is survived by her husband of nearly 20 years, Robert Guza Jr., whom she met when they both wrote for General Hospital. (She won an Emmy for her work on that show in 1995.)
