Actress Jeanne Cooper is taking a brief leave from THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS for unspecified medical reasons. While we don’t know the specifics, Entertainment Weekly reports that the 83-year-old actress, who has portrayed Katherine Chancellor on the series since shortly after the show premiered, is okay.
In her absence, actress Michael Learned, who portrayed another famous matriarch, Olivia on CBS’s THE WALTONS, will fill in.
Learned’s appearances begin on November 10th.
Only once before can we remember a different actress filling in for Cooper, and that was in the 1980s when the late Gisele McKenzie portrayed Genoa City’s top diva for a few weeks.
Longtime fans of the show will no doubt object to the temporary replacement, but as the character is involved in several front-burner storylines, it wasn’t possible to write her off of the show until Cooper could return.
That return, incidentally, is expected to happen later this month, which would put Cooper back in her familiar surroundings some time in December.
