The Writer Of The Bold And The Beautiful Reveals His Favorite Storylines
After airing on CBS for 35 years, "The Bold and the Beautiful" has seen an awful lot of stories, despite the fact its 30-minute format allows it to typically tell only two stories at once. In 2022, the focus on the show is still on Steffy Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), Liam Spencer (Scott Clifton), and Hope Logan Spencer (Annika Noelle) with another retread of their long-running love triangle (via Soaps.com). As a side story, we also see Carter (Lawrence Saint-Victor) continuously be torn with what to do about Paris Buckingham (Diamond White), a young woman who wants him but he knows he should not be with her, according to Soaps.com.
While there are two stories being told for months at a time, "B&B" Executive Producer Bradley Bell does have some storylines he considers his favorites. There's even one that harkens back decades to when Brooke Logan Forrester (Katherine Kelly Lang), the show's female lead since the day it premiered, got married for the very first time.
Brooke and Eric's wedding remains on top
"The Bold and the Beautiful" Executive Producer and head writer Bradley Bell chose Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) and Eric Forrester's (John McCook) first 1991 nuptials as one of his favorite stories through the years, according to Parade. It's one of the most memorable weddings in soap opera history, after all.
Even Katherine Kelly Lang, who has played Brooke since the day it first premiered, looks back fondly on their wedding. It was also the first of many her character would don white for. "Eric and I rode in a hot air balloon and then rode horseback to a romantic oasis in the desert," Lang explained to CBS Watch Magazine.
The wedding was filmed while on a stunning location shoot in the Mojave desert (via Parade) and a hot air balloon to the honeymoon was a first for daytime. Too bad the marriage didn't last long, nor did their marriage last years later when they said "I do" in an impromptu Las Vegas ceremony (via Soaps.com).
Brooke designed her own lingerie line
Brooke Logan might have been a college student working for a catering business (via Soaps In Depth) when the soap first premiered, but she was studying to be a chemist and got a job with Forrester Creations where she created a wrinkle-free fabric formula she called "BeLieF" (via Soap Hub). Not to be outdone with that miracle invention, Brooke also moved over the fashion side of things and designed her own lingerie line called Brooke's bedroom in 1998.
Of course, Brooke introduced the line during one of Forrester's many signature fashion shows, and it was Brooke who appeared on stage on a silky bed during the show, looking like she was about to seduce the audience. This caused Eric's ex-wife, and Forrester matriarch Stephanie Forrester (Susan Flannery), to express her very negative feelings on what she was just forced to witness (via Parade). It didn't matter that Stephanie wasn't happy because Brooke's intimate line of apparel was a smash hit.
Storm took his life so his sister could live
In 2008, Storm Logan (William de Vry) got himself in way too much trouble and was practically losing his mind by the time he pulled a gun on Ashley Abbott (Eileen Davidson) to convince her he wasn't so bad (via Soaps In Depth). It definitely wasn't one of his smartest moves, but what happened next was a complete stunner and showed how desperate Storm had become. His sister, Katie Logan (Heather Tom), saw Storm with the gun and thought he would shoot, so she tried to stop him, taking the bullet.
According to Parade, Katie then needed a heart transplant and Storm was a match. However, Storm was also alive. So, to save the sister he put in the hospital, Storm took his own life with his gun so that his little sister could quickly get a new heart and live (via Parade). Katie did survive, but has had heart and health troubles, including an incident where she needed a kidney, ever since.
Liam and Quinn became Adam and Eve
Brad Bell told Parade he considers this quirky little story from 2016 to be among his favorites over the 35 years. It was a brief story arc that lasted a few short months, but during that time, we saw two very different sides of Liam Spencer and Quinn Fuller (Rena Sofer). In the story, Quinn was obsessed with making sure her adult son, Wyatt Spencer (Darin Brooks), could have any woman he wanted. At that time, he wanted Steffy. However, so did Liam, so Quinn knocked Liam over the head and kidnapped him to a remote cabin.
Once Liam woke up, he had amnesia and no idea who he was. Quinn told him his name was Adam and she was his wife, Eve, and they lived in this lovely cabin. Liam bought the whole thing and the two found themselves falling for one another. That is, until Liam got his memory back thanks to his half-brother, Wyatt, finding them. Liam immediately made a run for it and reunited with Steffy on the beach (via Soaps In Depth).
Steffy was an original bride
Every time Steffy Forrester readied herself to marry Liam Spencer, she did it in style. She was not going to be a bride who would just walk down the aisle any boring old way, and that's why Brad Bell chose Steffy's entrances as one big story he absolutely loved, according to Parade.
Before Steffy married Liam for the first time, she made sure that his other love, Hope (then played by Kim Matula), was trapped in a gondola in Aspen before she made her way to Liam wearing boots, a mini skirt, and a short white veil on her head. When she married Liam a second time, she made her entrance on a motorcycle clad in black. For her third wedding with Liam, Steffy practically flew in on a zipline from the Sydney Opera House in Australia.
When Steffy finally got Liam out of her system and married John "Finn" Finnegan (Tanner Novlan) in 2021, she made a traditional entrance in the Forrester living room wearing a stunning white gown as her father, Ridge Forrester, walked her down the aisle (via Soaps In Depth).
The story of Maya Avant
"The Bold and the Beautiful" offered soaps a groundbreaking story when it introduced a new character named Maya Avant (Karla Mosley) to the scene in 2013 (via IMDb). By 2015, when her big secret was revealed, she was already an established character involved in a popular love story with Rick Forrester (Jacob Young).
When Maya finally told Rick she was transgender and had been born male, Rick still accepted her after his shock wore off. The pair married in a lavish soap opera-style wedding and even became parents via surrogate when Maya's sister, Nicole Avant (Reign Edwards), agreed to carry a baby using her egg and Rick's sperm (via Parade). Maya also had a harder time getting her father, Julius Avant (Obba Babatundé), to accept her as a woman than she did with any of her friends or other family members (via Soaps In Depth).
Stephanie's life among the homeless
In 1991, "The Bold and the Beautiful" did a groundbreaking story in which Stephanie Forrester woke up in her car with no identification and no memory. She ended up living among the homeless for several weeks, according to Soaps.com.
In 2010, when Stephanie learned she was dying of cancer, she decided she had to live out her life her way. That meant crossing things off her bucket list. One of those things was riding a roller coaster, which is how she lost her scarf in the wind. She later went looking for that scarf on the streets of Los Angeles where she encountered the homeless. That was when "B&B" used real homeless people to come before the cameras to tell their story, and Bradley Bell counts it as one of his favorites, according to Parade.
At the time the story was set to air, Bell told TV Guide what filming the story did for him and everyone involved with the episodes. "So many people are just a paycheck away from homelessness or living in a shelter," Bell said. "Our entire production company has been changed by this experience. Hopefully, so has the audience. To be a great country we need to take care of these people. As they say, we're only as strong as our weakest link."
Bill Spencer was shot in the dark
In 2018, publishing mogul Bill Spencer (Don Diamont) was standing by his window one night after making his family, friends, and enemies angry and he was shot right in the back. Brad Bell tells Parade he counts this as one of his favorite plots. Immediately, the first suspect was Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye) and he languished behind bars with seemingly no help.
Liam, Bill's own son confessed to committing the crime later on and Bill was shocked. He then recanted his statement that Ridge did the deed, but didn't name Liam because he didn't want his own son in jail for life. In reality, Liam had just convinced himself he had shot Bill (via Soap Hub), but the real culprit was Taylor Hayes (then played by Hunter Tylo). She claimed she did it because Bill had taken advantage of her daughter, Steffy, and slept with her when she was in a vulnerable state. It was Steffy who convinced Bill to not press charges against her mother (via Soaps In Depth).