TV Guide: A soapie kinda guy

The glamourous cast of The Bold and the Beautiful, which has been entertaining audiences for 25 years

I love soapies!

This is one of the reasons I am one of the 26.2 million people who follow The Bold and the Beautiful globally, making it the most watched soapie.

I have followed it from the early days when Eric Forrester (John McCook) started his fashion house, Forrester Creations with funding from Stephanie (Susan Flannery), the matriarch of the family.

The twists and turns of this never-ending story have seen me shed a tear and indulge in belly laughs, as well as experience a myriad other emotions as the Forrester children were born, grew up, celebrated weddings, and cried over divorces and loss due to death.

The story has taken yet another turn as creators William J Bell and Lee Phillip Bell prepare us for the departure of Stephanie, who will soon die of cancer (in the soapie of course). This, to me, is an unusual turn of events.

The main theme of the soap opera has been the high and mighty, and the glitter of the LA fashion industry that made the Forresters a formidable empire – first fighting off competition against the queen of knock-offs, Sally Spectre (may her soul rest in peace, for real), and now Jackie Marone of Jackie-M Fashions.

So this is the story so far. After being diagnosed with cancer, Stephanie decided to live her life to the fullest. While taking a wild, uncharacteristic ride on a roller coaster in downtown Los Angeles, she loses a treasured scarf she inherited from her late mother.

This leads to a search that ends with her confronting a street dweller called Daisy, who found the scarf and will not part with it no matter how hard Stephanie tries to convince her.

Eventually, Stephanie follows her to her makeshift tent on the side of the street and discovers a community living there.
This touches the usually hard-as-nails fashion empire matriarch.

She strikes up a relationship with Daisy after meeting and talking to other street dwellers, and that eventually sees her setting her up with her own restaurant.

Daisy has become one of a string of black actors that the creators have kept on bringing into the story line, maybe to address concerns about the series having an all-white cast. She joins Marcus, adopted by Eric as a son, whom she is now dating.

Such is the impact of the most popular soapie. No wonder advertisers are willing to pay the SABC R50 000 for a 30-second slot during The Bold and the Beautiful.

I personally look forward to another 25 years – that is if I live that long – of being enthralled by this soapie that first premiered on March 23 1987.

» The Bold and the Beautiful is on SABC1 weekdays at 6pm