‘The Young And The Restless’ Actress Lauralee Bell Celebrates 40 Years Playing Cricket Blair On The Soap Opera

Actress Lauralee Bell‘s parents, William Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, may have been the creators of The Young and the Restless, but no one in the family intended for her to have more than a two-episode arc as a guest star on the show back in 1983, when she showed up to play a teen model. Forty years later, Bell is being honored for her time on the soap opera with a CBS special episode airing today that celebrates her performance as Cricket Blair.

Christine “Cricket” Blair was originally brought on the show to portray a teen model for Jabot Cosmetics, the fictional brand that appears in the soap. Eventually, thanks to overwhelming audience support, the character of Cricket was brought back and eventually became a lawyer, married and divorced her boyfriend Danny Romalotti (played by Michael Damian) and then got remarried to Paul Williams (Doug Davidson). In today’s special episode that’s dedicated to Cricket’s evolution, Damian returns as Danny, in a story that sees Cricket revisiting some of the most important moments and people in her life.

“My character’s at the crossroads of leaving my ex-husband and possibly revisiting my first love, who just happens to be back in town. I go from location to location and I talk to different people,” Bell told People. “At the end, there is kind of the answer to this question of where I’m at in my life. It sort of gives you a hint of what she might be doing next.”

Bell said of her time on the show, “When I started, I was a kid to them, and now, to be able to speak with everybody in an adult relationship, knowing their kids and their having watched our kids grow up, it’s so special.”

She added, “I’ve spent 40 years with some of these people and have loved every minute of it.”

The Young and the Restless airs weekdays at 12:30 p.m. ET on CBS.