— Soap Opera Digest is reporting that Felisha Terrell has been let go from her role as Arianna on Days of our Lives. The role will be recast with former Passions superstar Lindsay Hartley. Many consider Hartley THE breakout star from Passions where she played the hopeless romantic/schemer Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald during the show’s entire 1999-2008 run.
The casting move will reunite Hartley with a couple of her Passions co-stars. Galen Gering, who played Theresa’s brother Luis on Passions is also playing Arianna’s brother, Rafe on DAYS while Eric Martsolf who played Theresa’s love interest Ethan [#2] is playing Arianna’s love interest, Brady…it may have taken a new town and entirely new identities, but it looks like Theresa has finally landed Ethan! Take that Gwen!
— New York Post’s Page Six is reporting that Billy Joel has hooked up with Alex Donnelley who played the original Diane Jenkins on Y&R…now before you start the “We didn’t Start the Fire” jokes…Donnelley wasn’t playing Diane when SHE started the fire at the Abbott pool house and framed Phyllis…Susan Walters took over as Diane from 2001-2004.
— There are a bunch of Guiding Light stars that will be returning before the series ends its historic run on CBS this September. Morgan Englund will return as Dylan Lewis later this summer. England played the role on and off from 1989 until 2004 while Brian Gaskill (ex-Oscar, B&B; ex-BJ, ATWT; ex-Rafe, PC)assumed the role for a year in 2007.
Dylan won’t be coming home alone! Bridget Reardon will be returning with Melissa Hayden reprising the role. Bridget was last seen in 1997.
Michelle Ray Smith returns as Ava today (July 24th).
Fiona Hutchison returns as (the ghost of) Jenna Bradshaw for a few episodes beginning Wednesday July 29th.
Maureen Garrett will be back as Holly in August.
Tom Pelphrey returns as Jonathan on Wednesday August 5th.
— Don’t count on Ross Marler returning to GL for the finale as ABC won’t let Jerry Ver Dorn (who is now on One Life To Live) appear.
— Gina Tognoni (Dinah) filmed her final scenes for GL on June 26th however will continue to air until the finale. Tognoni was long rumored to return to One Life To Live where she previously played Kelly Kramer for six year however talks broke down due to her salary demands. Soap Opera Central is also reporting that Y&R also expressed an interest in the actress.
— Check out video from Guiding Light’s final cast photo shoot here.
— Lynn Herring has extended her deal with As The World Turns. The former GH and PC star will stay through the fall. Herring’s Audrey Coleman made her ATWT debut this week and should hopefully have scenes with her former General Hospital husbands Jon Lindstrom (Craig; ex-Kevin/Ryan, GH/PC) and Stuart Damon (TBA; ex-Alan, GH).
— Congratulations go out to Alicia Minshew (Kendall, All My Children)! The actress is currently expecting her first child with husband Richie Herschenfeld. Minshew is due in November and revealed to Soap Opera Digest that she’s having a daughter. I wonder how they’ll write Kendall out during Minshew’s maternity leave…another coma?
— Stacy (Crystal Hunt) reveals to Rex and Gigi that she’s pregnant on One Life To Live…no wonder John-Paul Lavoisier (Rex) is hating his character! Hopefully Gigi (Farah Fath) will cuss her sister out!
— Billy (Billy Miller) takes a break from romancing his high school sweetheart Mac next week on The Young and the Restless and finds him at odds with his mother Jill and the Great Victor Newman (Eric Braeden)! Here’s a preview:
Billy finds out from Cane that the only reason why Jill made him the CEO at Jabot a few months back was because Victor forced her to. Billy is heartbroken when he realizes that his mother was not really sincere with the promotion. Billy also feels manipulated by Victor and realizes that Jack has been right about “the mustache” all along!
To make matters worse, Colleen tells Billy that she’s been kicked off the Newman board because of her unsavory video where she flashed her tits. Billy thinks she could have been set up and crashes the Newman board meeting where he hopes to reveal the “real” Victor Newman in-front of the board members and Ashley!
As for Billy and Jill, look for Billy to tell her that he wants nothing to do with her.
— As for Colleen…there’s rumors that Tammin Sursok is finally out. The Australian actress never really caught on with fans when she took over from Adrienne Leon back in 2007. There’s a crazy rumor out there that Colleen drowns because of Mary Jane’s latest scheme and her heart will go to save Victor. But no one really buys that right? Hopefully the show can continue to correct the wrongs of the Latham-era and bring back Adrienne Leon as Colleen. As for the ‘original’ Colleen, Lyndsy Fonseca’s got two feature-films coming out next year, “Kick Ass” and “Hot Tub Time Machine”.
