family jewel

Lauralee Bell Marks 40 Years Of Playing Y&R’s Christine

- Devin Owens

As the daughter of Y&R’s legendary co-creators, William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, getting into the family business might have seemed like a natural path for Lauralee Bell. “It wasn’t me asking, ‘Could you please put me on the show?’ so it must’ve been my dad’s idea,” the actress recalls of how she came to be in Genoa City as a performer. “I was 9 when I was an extra in a scene with David Hasselhoff [ex-Snapper] on an airplane, so I had no lines. After it was over, I said how easy that was and my dad didn’t like that I completely got the wrong impression, so he was like, ‘We’ll try this again — maybe.’ ”

So in 1983, Bell was cast as Cricket Blair, Jabot’s new teen model, but there were no promises as to how long the role would last. “It was for just two days,” Bell explains. “It was a little scary this time because I had to do a photo session and that required a lot of confidence, but I was terrified. Plus, I had this thick Midwestern accent, which made it hard to understand me. So I did the best I could and when it was over, I asked, ‘If I take acting lessons, and work really hard, do you think I could do two more days?’ And my dad said, ‘Well, we’ll see.’ Then it became two more days and another two days.”

An enthusiastic response from viewers helped her cause. “The fan mail said that they liked seeing a real young person playing a young person,” Bell reports. “It wasn’t a 30-year-old trying to play 18 and that was an interesting thought to my dad, so he said, ‘Let’s think about it next summer.’ ”