On Her Young & Restless Ashley-versary, Eileen Davidson Looks Back… and Ahead
Credit: John Paschal/JPI, CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection (2), CBS/Getty Images
The tension was so thick, you could’ve cut it with a knife when Eileen Davidson auditioned for The Young and the Restless back in 1982. The soap was building a new family around the father/son duo of John and Jack Abbott, and the casting of John’s elder daughter Ashley had to be perfect. Among those vying for the role, Davidson told The Locher Room in 2021, were Catherine Hickland (later Lindsay on One Life to Live) and Leann Hunley (later Anna on Days of Our Lives). How did the future Emmy winner keep her eye on the prize? By losing a contact lens!
When that happens, Davidson noted, it messes with one’s depth perception, and “you can’t see crap.” So when during her tryout with the late Terry Lester, who first played Jack, he put his feet on a coffee table to block her path, she wound up kicking his legs out of the way. “That’s probably part of the reason I got the job.”
But it’s certainly not the reason that since June 11 of that year Davidson has kept it — and kept being able to return to it for all these years. (The show recast twice upon her departure, with Brenda Epperson and Shari Shattuck, then brought Davidson back at the first opportunity.) The actress brings more than strength and elegance to the part, she brings a vulnerability that speaks volumes about the fragile heart that Ashley tries so hard to protect and a fire that serves as a constant reminder that she is a force to be reckoned with.
Over the years, Davidson has slayed in one meaty storyline after another, from Ashley’s abortion of her and Victor Newman’s child to a May/December affair with Bold & Beautiful playboy Rick Forrester. And yet, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what could lie in store for the embattled chemist. What would be her portrayer’s preference for her next act? From Steven Lassiter’s death to her disastrous remarriage to Tucker McCall, “she’s always the one getting her heart broken,” she noted to Soap Opera Digest in 2022, “so it’s time that she goes out and breaks some hearts.”
