BEFORE THEY WERE SOAP STARS
By Alina Adams

Judith Chapman, who turns 65 years old today and is currently playing Gloria on Y&R, has a phenomenally impressive soap resume.

She started off on ATWT as Natalie, Tom Hughes' first legal client - and eventually his first wife. Then she was Charlotte on Ryan's Hope, a part of some overly complicated Irish vendetta against Frank that really had to do with his mother (I hated the character so much, that when she got stabbed and spent, I swear, it was literally a week, writhing on the floor, trying to get to a phone, I giggled through the whole thing).

She was Ginny on General Hospital, where she somehow got to enchant both Mark Goddard as Derek (those who remember my earlier confessed love of Lost in Space, will understand my confusion) and Chris Robinson as Rick Webber. At the time, I thought it was the worst story ever written for Rick. Little did I know of what havoc would be wreaked when he returned to the show years later, only to be killed off by Laura and his body dragged around town, nearly Weekend at Bernie's style, by his grandsons, Lucky and Nikolas.

Next, she played Anjelica on Days of Our Lives. In this case, I had loved Jane Elliot's take on the role, and never warmed up to her subsequent portrayers. The same thing happened with Y&R's Gloria.

But, the thing that utterly stunned me was when I recently found out that Judith Chapman had also appeared on the classic Galactica 1980 episode, The Return of Starbuck (as Dr. Z's mother), a show I adored as a child. (Don't tell me it was cheesy. I know it was cheesy. My love was able to overlook that. Or maybe, at 10, I just had no clue). Thankfully, to keep things consistent, I hated that character, too.

Check out the video clip below!