Lauralee Bell spends her summers in the most dire of circumstances.
”Let`s see,” muses the actress who plays Cricket Romalotti on ”The Young and the Restless,” ”about two years ago my character was being date raped, last year my husband was accused of dealing drugs and now we`re coming to the climax of the sexual harassment storyline. There`s always something traumatic for me this time of year.”
The Chicago-bred Bell has grown up on daytime television in front of millions of viewers. Her parents, Bill and Lee Phillip Bell, created the dynasty that is ”Y&R”-always atop the soap heap. At 9, she made her first appearance (non-speaking) as Cricket, while visiting the West Coast with her parents.
What followed were the occasional talking scenes during her teens. When she moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1986, Bell was added as a regular cast member to ”Y&R.”
She shared both her adolescence and her new-found acting techniques with audiences. If the critics were not initially impressed, the actress`
guilelessness, the daughter everyone wanted for their own, won over the fans. Now 23, Bell has fleshed out Cricket, the nurturing wife of a rock idol
(played by Michael Damian) and rising star in her own right as an attorney. Once lost (no parents, in love with a half-brother), Cricket is now found.
To the naysayers of daytime drama, Bell offers this: ”When people say to me soaps are stupid, I tell them to tape an hour of `Young and Restless.` You won`t be disappointed. It`s better than the stuff people watch on prime time,” she says.
”Characters on desert islands? That`s where other soaps lose viewers. People are thinking, `This could never happen to me.` Rarely are there long one-on-one scenes where people take time to really talk to each other. We do a lot of that,” she says. ”We try to get messages out so viewers will think,
`If it`s happening to them, this could happen to me.` ”
Detractors say the show`s pace is plodding, but ”Y&R” fans are anything but restless. The soap (which airs at 11:30 a.m. weekdays, WBBM-Ch. 2)
consistently ranks No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings.
Storylines-including Cricket`s socially relevant sexual harassment potboiler in which she fakes a split with her husband to go after the hotshot boss who has crossed the line in his advances-are gone over with a fine-toothed comb for incongruities by executive producer Bill Bell and head writer Kay Alden, a Chicagoan.
Lauralee Bell savors the reality the writers provide.
”The situation (for Cricket and Michael, her boss, played by Christian LeBlanc) is an explosive one,” she says. ”It`s his word against mine. All his double meanings and highly charged dialogue will not be enough for a case against him. He`s so smooth. During the next week I`ll be going away on a business trip with him and will be wearing a tape recorder, trying to get some proof.”
Finishing on a cliffhanger of her own, Bell says, ”I`ll just say this much. If they want to keep him on the show, I won`t catch him.”
– In a stroke of good timing, ”All My Children” has announced that Olympic swimming medalist Summer Sanders will kick off a string of guest shots on the soap beginning Sept. 4. ”AMC`s” casting director tracked down the California girl even before Sanders left for Barcelona. Sanders will have dialogue, and her mom will be cast as an extra with no lines.
– Andrea McArdle, the adorable child star who played the lead in
”Annie” on Broadway and brightly belted out ”Tomorrow” with innocent conviction, will showcase more mature talents when she shows up in Pine Valley (”All My Children”) next week as Cookie, the town`s newest prostitute.
– MTV aired the final episode of its 13-part, real-life soap opera/
documentary ”Real World” last Saturday, and executives for the project are considering either a follow-up series or a prime-time special that checks in on the 12 participants. In the meantime, model/actor/all-around hunk Eric Nief landed a daily gig with MTV hosting the dance show ”Hangin` With MTV,” which airs daily from 4:30 to 5 p.m.
– Crossing over: Eden Atwood, who plays the snooty Staige Prince on
”Loving,” has been singing in New York at the Algonquin and Birdland;
”Another World” actress Kaitlin Hopkins (Kelsey), aside from crooning in Manhattan cabarets, is producing a movie with her boyfriend, actor Judge Reinhold; Parker Posey (Tess Shelby on ”As the World Turns”) just finished shooting Richard Linklater`s film ”Dazed and Confused” in Austin, Texas. Parker was transformed from her woman of the `90s persona to an apathetic, bell-bottomed lost soul of the mid-`70s.
– Ron Moss, gathering with fellow ”The Bold and the Beautiful” actors for the soap`s annual fan club luncheon in Los Angeles last weekend, plunked out tunes on his guitar while ”B&B” cohorts Bobby Eakes (Macy) and Jeff Trachta (Thorne) did duets. Not to be confused with a rolling stone, Moss was in a rock band, Player, before he joined daytime TV.
