The Young and the Restless has been the top-rated American television soap opera for more than 12 years. It debuted on the CBS network in 1973.

The Young and the Restless, created by husband and wife team William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell stood out from other soaps on the air for its brightness, both literal and figurative. Soap operas at the time tended to be comparatively darkly-lit and lugubrious in tone. The Young and the Restless infused light, humor and youth into the genre.

It follows characters in the fictional Genoa City, and around the companies Newman Enterprises and Jabot.

Longtime characters

  • Victor Newman - wealthy, powerful and brooding industrialist
  • Nikki Reed Newman - Victor's on-again off-again wife and one great love
  • Nick Newman - Victor and Nikki's son
  • Victoria Newman - Victor and Nikki's daughter
  • Sharon Collins Newman - Nick's wife and Nikki's frequent whipping boy

  • Jack Abbott - Victor's snarky rival in both business and romance
  • Ashley Abbott - Jack's chemist sister, Victor's other great love
  • Phyllis Summers Abbott - Jack's wife
  • Brad Carlton - Ashley's current husband, a Newman Enterprises executive
  • Jill Foster Abbott - Jack and Ashley's scheming stepmother
  • Katharine Chancellor - Jill's longtime rival, recently revealed to be her birth mother

  • Christine Blair - Legal Aid lawyer and former model
  • Michael Baldwin - lawyer and former lover of both Chris and Phyllis
  • Paul Williams - Chris's former husband, a private investigator
  • Mary Williams - Paul's meddling, judgmental mother

External sites

Warning: spoilers for non-American viewers; your current season may be behind that of America