Fort Mitchell native Rebecca Budig “grew up watching soap operas. I was never a snob about it.”
She loved watching Susan Lucci on All My Children with her mother, which explains why Budig has enjoyed a long Hollywood career on daytime dramas from Guiding Light, All My Children, and General Hospital to now on The Bold and The Beautiful.
She starts a major presence as compassionate psychiatrist Dr. Taylor Hayes this week, after her surprise debut in the role Aug. 6. She replaced Krista Allen, who was written off the CBS soap in October.
“They auditioned several women for the role. It’s a very important character to the show,” says Budig by phone from Los Angeles. She had just returned from visiting her parents, George and Mary Jo Budig, in Northern Kentucky.
The 1991 School for Creative & Performing Arts graduate did mostly musical theater in school here: Annie, Oklahoma, Cinderella, Bye Bye Birdie and Carmen. She dropped out of Miami University after 1-1/2 years to try her luck in Los Angeles. Within two years, her kiss with Chis O’Donnell in Batman Forever, which also appeared in Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” video, launched her career in 1995.
She landed her first major role in 1995 on CBS’ Guiding Light, produced by Cincinnati’s Procter & Gamble Co. She played Marilyn Bauer for three years, then worked with Lucci on All My Children (1999-2011) and on General Hospital (2015-17).
She also squeezed in prime-time roles on Blue Bloods, How I Met Your Mother, Castle, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hope & Faith and L.A.’s Finest and hosted two series for younger viewers in the late 1990s — Sports Illustrated for Kids and Bonehead Detectives of the Paleo World. Her movie credits include James Dean: Race with Destiny, Bad Parents, The Beast and Fit For Christmas with Amanda Kloots. She also competed on ABC's Skating with the Stars in 2010.
After the birth of her daughter in 2014, she pursued some prime-time TV roles. But she told her agent she didn’t want to do series shot in Atlanta or Vancouver.
“I basically said, ‘I’m not going to leave town.’ I didn’t want to move my daughter around. There are not a lot of shows shot here (in L.A.),” she says. She was getting “super, super, super frustrated” with the entertainment business and considered going back to school to study psychology. (She was a zoology major at Miami dreaming of becoming a veterinarian.)
Now Budig, at 51, is all bubbly about her fourth soap. Her Taylor Hayes character is a pivotal role: mother to Steffy and Thomas Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood and Matthew Atkinson); on-and-off lover of Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye); and longtime rival of Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang). Budig previously worked with Thorsten Kaye on All My Children.
“On soap operas, women are not just relegated to one role — a mom or a grandmother. Soaps write for women of all ages. I’m really happy,” says Budig, niece of Cincinnati arts philanthropist Otto M. Budig.
Unlike the other daytime soap operas, The Bold and The Beautiful is only a half-hour program. (1:30 p.m. weekdays, Channel 12).
“It’s kind of like improv. It’s quick. You have to be fast on your feet,” she says.
Budig, the youngest of seven siblings, gets back home several times a year. She calls her mother every morning. She also keeps in touch with SCPA alums Nick Lachey (“our kids go to school together”) and Todd Louiso (Jerry McGuire, Silicon Valley, NCIS). Another old Cincinnati friend is Reds manager David Bell.
Going into her 30th year in L.A., Budig has enjoyed longevity in an industry fixated on young women. Her work has been recognized with four Daytime Emmy nominations, including three for best supporting actress.
“I’ve never pooh-poohed soap operas. I’ve made a career out of them. I’ve made a great life from them.”
