TB lands starring role in popular soap opera
TB lands starring role in popular soap opera
TB’s on the screen in Hollywood, publicist says
The patient, Taylor Forrester, is young and restless — actually, make that bold and beautiful. She’s endured a stormy marriage to wealthy fashion-apparel-scion Ridge Forrester, partly for the sake of her beloved child and now for the sake of her unborn twin girls. But wait! What’s that strange knocking beneath the deck of the cou- ple’s spacious and romantic seaside cottage? Why, it’s a homeless man, disheveled and incoherent, and coughing right in Taylor’s face! Soon, doctors solemnly deliver the worst possible news: The homeless man has died from TB! And now Taylor is coughing, too, and suffering from night sweats, and oh, so many pills to take. And how can Taylor be sure the twins will be safe?
Sound familiar? It certainly does to the six million Americans hooked on the lives and loves featured in the popular CBS daytime soap opera, "The Bold and the Beautiful." The TB storyline is part of the thicket of plot twists besetting the character played by actress Hunter Tylo.
As daytime soaps go, "The Bold and the Beautiful" ranks second in audience size only to "The Young and the Restless," the grizzled 27-year-old veteran of the small screen that’s still the top-ranked soap. With that kind of audience share, who cares if the show may have played a little loose with the medical details? (Has anyone, for example, ever progressed so quickly from exposure to active disease?) "Hey, this is entertainment," says Kevin McDonald, a CBS publicist.
As to why TB, and not, say, cancer, McDonald admits he’s clueless. "Well, TB’s contagious — that’s all I can think of," he says. "I’m no expert, but even I know that there’s been a resurgence and that TB is coming back again."
Will Taylor survive her bout with TB? Stay tuned . . .
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