Meg Bennett, Emmy-Winning Soap Actress, Dead at 75

Meg Bennett as Julia Newman on "The Young and the Restless."

Soap star Meg Bennett has died. She was 75.

Bennett passed away on Thursday, April 11, following a battle with cancer, according to a statement from her family.

The Daytime Emmy winner made a mark on several soap series, including The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, and Santa Barbara, in which she appeared and, in some cases, scripted. But not until she got her big break on Broadway.

Raised in Pasadena, California, Bennett's career began in modeling as the "Cadillac Eldorado Convertible Girl." From there, she scored an acting and singing role in the off-Broadway musical Godspell which jumpstarted her career in entertainment.

After appearing in Godspell, Bennett was offered a role in the original run of Grease on Broadway in 1972. She then became a champion of TV quiz show Three on a Match, before beginning her long and successful soap opera career as Liza on Search for Tomorrow in 1974.

Bennett moved on to star in The Young and the Restless in 1980, where she portrayed Julia on and off for nearly 40 years and worked on the show's script up until 2020. She also played Allegra Montenegro in two episodes of General Hospital, where she assumed a behind-the-scenes writing role from 1993 until 2011.

Bennett is also credited with writing 348 episodes of The Bold and The Beautiful, as well as 63 episodes of both Santa Barbara and Sunset Beach.

During her longwinded career, she received five Daytime Emmy nominations for writing, five of which the General Hospital team took home in 1995, and five nominations for Writers Guild of America awards, with wins for Sunset Beach and General Hospital.

Survivors include her husband of 19 years, Sunset Beach co-creator and nine-time Daytime Emmy winner, whom she met on the set of General Hospital, Robert Guza Jr., two stepdaughters, four grandchildren, and her brother and sister and their children.

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