Recipes for Living

Fans of the Young and the Restless will be interested to know Beth, who since 1982 has played Traci Abbott on Y&R, the youngest, kindest and most grounded of the three Abbott children. Beth was honored with the show's first acting Emmy in 1985.

When asked about my upbringing, and how I got to where I am, it seems a little boring since my story is not unusual at all. But perhaps the normalcy is what has made my opportunities shine.

I was born in Rapid City, South Dakota at the end of the fifties, and was blessed with a close knit, pioneer family who came from various parts of Britain three generations before me.

My biological father was gone before I was two, and left my pregnant mother and me to live with my mother's sister and her husband, an Oglala Sioux Native American, who taught me loom beading, leather work, rope tricks and to work with my hands. We made toy bows and arrows to play with in the summer, and visited many of his colorful friends in the Black Hills. My maternal grandmother moved in, too, when my little sister was born, to help with the child duties, and we were a big happy family.

My mother remanied when I was five, and our new family moved two years later to Scottsdale, Arizona following my new dad's job. From snow to desert sand was quite a culture shock. The population of Rapid City was smaller than my freshman class at Arizona State University. But the big city introduced me to theater and music and I embraced the creative arts with enthusiasm. At the recommendation of an eighth grade English teacher, I did my first play the summer I was thirteen — Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." It was also my first speaking role, and the experience changed my life forever. I would return for five years in a row to this summer arts program directed by James Newcomer, my soon to be high school theater teacher and lifetime friend.

The theater department smoothed difficult teenage years, and gave me friends and a safe haven for learning to negotiate a time when it was easier to be someone else (a role in a play) than to be in my own teenage skin. My two amazing theater teachers, Mr. Newcomer, and Judie Carroll shaped my professionalism, my understanding of anticipating deadlines and learning teamwork, and helped ease me through insecurities and nerves and shyness. They both remain dear friends these decades later, and I am thankful for them every day.

With dozens of plays, musicals, and vocal performances under my belt, and National Honor Society grades, I went on to study Music Theater at Arizona State, and had more great teachers to inspire me to push myself hard and explore my limits, discipline my talent, and meet challenges head on.

After my second year of college, I auditioned for a workshop for pop singers on Catalina Island run by then Vegas headliner and singer talk show host, John Davidson. I was accepted to the first session, packed my car, and moved to Los Angeles. In typical fashion, I made new friends, got a job in a restaurant waiting tables, and began to learn about an even bigger city and a career in show business. I was lucky early. Within a few months, I was in private film school, had done a commercial to earn my way into the acting union, I was doing plays at night and singing in cabarets. I worked during the day in a casting office, where I learned more about the behind-the-scenes aspect of television and films, and I soon got an audition for CBS who was looking to build a new family for one of their hit daytime dramas. I went through several auditions, a screen test and within a week, my world was changed again forever, and I had a contract on the Young and the Restless as the youngest Abbott daughter, Traci.

I have played this character on and off for nearly thirty years, and it has made my life rich and rewarding. It has been a rocky road — so many things out of my control over the years, but although show business seems a bit more glamorous than some other careers, it is as bumpy and as disappointing as it is exciting and fulfilling. It's just like any other choice in life. Just a little more publicized.

I was the first actor ever to win an Emmy (best supporting actress, 1985) for the show. I played a ground breaking character plagued with insecurity and weight issues during a time that most characters on soaps were glamorous and thin. Each year the show explored teenage issues through my character that reached out to the teen audience and changed lives. It was an honor, but often difficult emotionally to play, and even harder to know what to do about tragic fan letters asking for help from young people in the same distress as my character.

Then, when slower times came, and my character was written out more than in, I struggled personally with self image issues and confidence, having been tied to my character and that success for so many years. It took a long time to sort out, but eventually, I reached a level place where I understood that employment was separate from ability, skill, and talent...and personal value.

I found many other creative mediums in which to apply my abilities. I began designing personal and home accessories, machine embroidery design and construction, quilting, and many other textile arts. I contribute regularly to websites, with design ideas and project instructions. I am writing my first of a series of quilting project books I hope to have published very soon. I also design for private clients, and am always working on some new quilt or other, in my cozy studio filled with colors and textures and inspiration.— And I return to the Young and the Restless when they have something for my character to do.

Personally, I have also been blessed. I have been married for twenty one years, and have a beautiful and talented fifteen year old daughter who brings me great joy. I met my husband Christopher in the 1980's, when I had a storyline involving my singing on Young and Restless. I was recording a music project, and he was hired to do the final mix. He is a sound mixer who works now mostly in television, but started in the Gospel music business during and after college, and moved to Los Angeles from the Midwest to pursue a professional mixing career.

Christopher grew up on a farm in Michigan, and then a small town in Texas, so we had similar family backgrounds, and hit it off well. We dated for many years till we had our careers settled in, and our individuality established. We were married in the beautiful Central Coast area of California, where we hope to return eventually to a more rural lifestyle.

Christopher spent his early years very involved in playing and singing music as well as recording it. He also got a pilot's license at the age of 17, and returned to that love a couple of decades later to get a commercial license and start a small aviation business delivering radioactive cancer imaging medicine from the lab to various hospitals across the Southwest.

He and I share a love of animals, and have had horses and dogs since we met. We enjoy lots of equine activities, and are happy to have our large brood at home with us, dogs and horses, goats, chickens, and whatever else wanders onto our property. I volunteer for animal charities, and we are happy to have rescued most of our beloved pets. We live on a couple of acres about 50 miles north of Los Angeles, in a beautiful canyon with a mountain view. It keeps us in touch with our Midwestern yearnings, but we are close enough to town to work and get to cultural events and city life if we need it.

My daughter is also a great animal lover, and inherited her love of music from her father and me. She is fearless at playing almost any instrument she picks up. She participates by audition in district honor band and advanced wind ensemble playing bassoon, and plays at school in symphonic band and marching band in the fall, playing flute and piccolo. She is an honor student, a student leader in her band and orchestra, loves photography and art, and loves to swim. She just got her driver's permit, so is excited about that new independence and she makes her parents very proud. We are active in her school endeavors and her marching band productions and most of her other activities, and she is our treasure. Medical issues kept us from having more children, so she blesses us every day. It changes regularly, but at the moment, she hopes to pursue music and be a high school band instructor. Our lives are full and beautiful. It's not always easy, but I haven't met a person yet who doesn't share that reality.

During the "season" which describes when TV shows are in production, I work as an engineer, on sitcoms mostly, in the production booth taking notations for editing. It is interesting work, and has taught me a lot about the behind-the-camera part of show business. This is information that I needed, perhaps to direct at some time in the future. Plus, it fills the void between acting jobs with productive and entertaining work. Maybe I'll direct Young and the Restless some day, and will come full circle.

In closing, I have lots of ideas left to try, and lots of hobbies, crafts, activities that interest me, and a beautiful family to keep me loved and grounded and busy. If I have a creed or motto to live by, I suppose it would be to take things as they come, be flexible, and especially, be grateful.