Meg Bennett obit

Meg Bennett, Soap Opera Actress and Writer, Dies at 75

She multitasked on ‘The Young and the Restless,’ ‘General Hospital’ and ‘Santa Barbara’ and worked on ‘Search for Tomorrow’ and ‘Sunset Beach’ as well.

 She was not on the list.

Meg Bennett, the Daytime Emmy winner who did double duty as an actress and writer on the daytime soap operas The Young and the Restless, General Hospital and Santa Barbara, has died. She was 75.

Bennett died April 11 after a battle with cancer, her family announced.

Bennett portrayed Marty Maraschino for more than two years during the original Broadway run of Grease that kicked off in 1972, then began her long run in daytime two years later with a turn as Liza Walton on CBS’ Search for Tomorrow, where Kevin Kline and Morgan Fairchild were castmates. She joined CBS’ The Young and the Restless in 1980 as Julia Newman — wife of Eric Braeden’s Victor Newman — but as her character was being written off, she was asked by Y&R creator Bill Bell to stick around as a writer.

“I’d been acting on the show for almost two years when this happened, so I knew the characters,” Bennett said in a 1985 interview. Still, she continued to show up as Julia on and off throughout the years, the last time in 2020.

Bennett wrote for NBC’s Santa Barbara from 1991-93 (and played author Megan Richardson) and wrote for ABC’s General Hospital from 1993-2011 (and portrayed the villainess Allegra Montenegro).

She shared her Daytime Emmy for her work on G.H. in 1995 and was nominated for writing Y&R in 1986, G.H. again in 2000 and 2012 and The Bold and the Beautiful in 2003. She also wrote for NBC’s Generations from 1989-91 and NBC’s Sunset Beach from 1997-98 and won a pair of WGA awards during her career.

Helen Margaret Bennett was born on Oct. 4, 1948, and raised in Pasadena. Her mother, Margaret, was a psychologist at Pasadena City College.

Bennett attended John Muir High School in Pasadena, and while majoring in drama at Northwestern University — where Shelley Long was a classmate — she was a homecoming queen, a Miss America contestant, a model in Life magazine and a performer in summer stock.

She moved to New York after graduation in 1970 to pursue acting, landed a modeling job for Cadillac and appeared off-Broadway in Godspell before joining Grease. She also won cash, a car, three rooms of furniture, a sailboat and a trip to Jamaica on the NBC game show Three on a Match, hosted by Bill Cullen.

In her 1985 interview, she wondered if concentrating on either acting or writing would have been enough for her. “I’ll admit, acting makes me a little crazy sometimes: You wait to audition. You wait for the part,” she said. “When you’re writing, you’re in control. I can initiate things on my own when I’m writing.”

Survivors include her husband of 19 years, Sunset Beach co-creator and nine-time Daytime Emmy winner Robert Guza Jr. — they met on G.H. and were frequent writing partners on soaps — two stepdaughters, four grandchildren, a brother and a sister.

She and Guza purchased a home in Beverly Hills in 2003 that had been owned by Boris Karloff and then Gregory Peck.

 

Writer

General Hospital (1963)

General Hospital

6.6

TV Series

associate head writer

breakdown writer

script writer ...

1993–2011

197 episodes

 

General Hospital: Night Shift (2007)

General Hospital: Night Shift

6.7

TV Series

writer

2007

1 episode

 

Laura Harring, Randy Spelling, Peter Barton, Sarah Buxton, Hank Cheyne, Vanessa Dorman, Adrienne Frantz, Jason George, Dax Griffin, Ashley Hamilton, Clive Robertson, Sherri Saum, Nick Stabile, and Susan Ward in Sunset Beach (1997)

Sunset Beach

6.9

TV Series

co-head writer

writer

head writer

1997–1998

63 episodes

 

Robin Wright, Judith Anderson, Valorie Armstrong, Melissa Reeves, Robert Alan Browne, Paul Burke, Ismael 'East' Carlo, Margarita Cordova, Nicolas Coster, Lane Davies, Richard Eden, Gina Gallego, Linda Gibboney, Andrea Howard, Ava Lazar, A Martinez, Todd McKee, John Allen Nelson, Rupert Ravens, Julie Ronnie, Kerry Sherman, Louise Sorel, Jonna Leigh Stack, Marcy Walker, and Dane Witherspoon in Santa Barbara (1984)

Santa Barbara

5.7

TV Series

writer

1991–1993

63 episodes

 

Kelly Rutherford, Anthony Addabbo, and Kristoff St. John in Generations (1989)

Generations

7.4

TV Series

writer

1989–1991

78 episodes

 

Heather Tom, Thorsten Kaye, and Katherine Kelly Lang in The Bold and the Beautiful (1987)

The Bold and the Beautiful

3.4

TV Series

writer

written by

1987–1989

348 episodes

 

You Are the Jury (1984)

You Are the Jury

6.3

TV Series

writer

1987

1 episode

 

Eileen Davidson, Bryton James, Joshua Morrow, Gina Tognoni, Justin Hartley, Melissa Claire Egan, and Peter Bergman in The Young and the Restless (1973)

The Young and the Restless

5.3

TV Series

written by

1983–1986

16 episodes

 

Additional Crew

Aaron McCarthy in Live on Bowen (2012)

Live on Bowen

8.2

TV Series

assistant floor manager

2013

2 episodes

 

Heather Tom, Thorsten Kaye, and Katherine Kelly Lang in The Bold and the Beautiful (1987)

The Bold and the Beautiful

3.4

TV Series

executive story consultant

2002–2004

559 episodes

 

Actress

Eileen Davidson, Bryton James, Joshua Morrow, Gina Tognoni, Justin Hartley, Melissa Claire Egan, and Peter Bergman in The Young and the Restless (1973)

The Young and the Restless

5.3

TV Series

Julia Martin

Julia

Julia Newman

1980–2020

52 episodes

 

General Hospital (1963)

General Hospital

6.6

TV Series

Allegra Montenegro

2005

2 episodes

 

Robin Wright, Judith Anderson, Valorie Armstrong, Melissa Reeves, Robert Alan Browne, Paul Burke, Ismael 'East' Carlo, Margarita Cordova, Nicolas Coster, Lane Davies, Richard Eden, Gina Gallego, Linda Gibboney, Andrea Howard, Ava Lazar, A Martinez, Todd McKee, John Allen Nelson, Rupert Ravens, Julie Ronnie, Kerry Sherman, Louise Sorel, Jonna Leigh Stack, Marcy Walker, and Dane Witherspoon in Santa Barbara (1984)

Santa Barbara

5.7

TV Series

Megan Richardson

1989

55 episodes

 

The Paper Chase (1973)

The Paper Chase

8.1

TV Series

1986

1 episode

 

Jane Krakowski, Matthew Ashford, Domini Blythe, Colleen Dion, Terri Eoff, David Forsyth, Lee Godart, Louan Gideon, Marcia McCabe, Jeffrey Meek, Jacqueline Schultz, and Mary Stuart in Search for Tomorrow (1951)

Search for Tomorrow

7.1

TV Series

Liza Walton Kaslo #3

Liza Walton

1975–1977

3 episodes