She's super popular as The Young and the Restless' Chloe Mitchell, but actress Elizabeth Hendrickson originally won soap fans' hearts when she joined the cast of All My Children in 2001. Her role as Frankie Stone was meant to be a three-month stint that ended in murder, but Hendrickson become so loved by fans that after Frankie's death, the powers that be brought the actress back as Frankie's twin sister, Maggie.
Hendrickson went on to play the role of Maggie until 2007, ultimately becoming part of the first daytime lesbian supercouple with Eden Riegel's Bianca Montgomery (Bianca and Maggie were affectionately called BAM by fans). The actress' time at AMC was super meaningful, so, when Soap Central recently interviewed Hendrickson about her Y&R shenanigans as Chloe, she was happy to share a few Pine Valley memories, as well.
"Oh, my gosh, All My Children is where it all started for me," Hendrickson gushes. "I was in my junior year of college, going to school at Fordham, down a ways from the studio, and I kind of stumbled upon the job. I had an agent, but I was not really focused on doing soap operas. It was originally a three-month gig, and I ended up getting it. But I didn't really know anything about soaps! I didn't really grow up watching soaps, so, I didn't know how they worked, and I didn't know any of the characters. I mean, I knew who Erica Kane was, and I knew who Susan Lucci was! I knew of the shows, I just didn't grow up on them."
Hendrickson quickly found that she absolutely loved the soap genre, and she realized that her three months at AMC was going to be over way too fast.
"After a few weeks into my time as Frankie, I was so bummed that the role was only going to be a few months, because I was having such a good time, and I was learning so much," she recalls, adding that she loved the gig so much, she dropped out of Fordham so she could fully focus on her career.
"All I wanted to be was an actress. I quit school. I was like, 'This is what I want to do,'" she shares, adding that it was a very lucky break to have her time at AMC unexpectedly extended. "When my contract ended, there was such an uproar from the fans; they sent in this petition and kept sending letters, so the show wrote me back in -- on contract. So, my life changed because of All My Children. I was 21 years old, I was living my dream, I was paying my rent on my own, living in New York City, and was a working actress."
But, of course, as she points out, that sounds more glamorous than it was. Much like Cameron Mathison (ex-Ryan Lavery; Drew Cain, General Hospital) -- who once shared that even though he wasn't a great chef, he used to home-cook all of his meals to save money during his early days at AMC -- Hendrickson also continued to pinch her pennies after getting her AMC contract.
"Listen, I might have been paying my rent, but I also lived with two other people -- we were in New York City, so we converted a one bedroom into a three bedroom, and I could pay for that 5 x 9 room I had!" she says with a laugh. "My third roommate was in the breakfast nook of the kitchen. We also put up a teardown wall, a freestanding wall that cut off half of the living room, so, when I say I was paying my own rent, I was paying my own rent split three ways!"
The struggle was worth it, especially because working at AMC gave Hendrickson the opportunity to work with some seriously talented actors. "I was working with Susan Lucci, and I was working with Eden Riegel, who was just this phenom. I was really living my dream," she shares.
Hendrickson also got the chance to work with Amelia Heinle at AMC, where the actress played Mia Saunders before she joined Y&R as Victoria Newman.
"We were at All My Children at the same time, and gosh, did I look up to her!" Hendrickson enthuses. "She was just the coolest, and the most beautiful, and the sweetest, sweetest woman there. Well, maybe I should say the sweetest girl there? She was really young. We were all really young! But she had a son, so she was a woman -- I was a girl, she was a woman! And I really looked up to her."
Heinle revealed to Soap Central that she would love to revisit Mia if the rumored All My Children reboot happens, but would Hendrickson step back into the shoes of Maggie if Kelly Ripa (Hayley Santos) and Mark Consuelos (Mateo Santos) gave her a call?
"Oh, my gosh, one hundred percent!" she says without the slightest pause. "But I know they're never going to call me because Maggie wasn't important enough."
Wait, what?! She can't be serious. Maggie and BAM were so loved!
"Okay, yes, Maggie was loved. But I think they'd probably be more interested in Bianca [for the reboot], and Bianca ended up having a couple of love affairs with some pretty significant women following Maggie," Hendrickson clarifies. "But if there were an opportunity for Bianca and Maggie to run into each other and go down memory lane, I would absolutely love that. Plus, I would just love to work with my friends again! It would be great."
What do you think about the memories Elizabeth Hendrickson shared about her time as AMC's Maggie? What were some of your favorite moments from the character's time in Pine Valley? Do you think Maggie was an important enough character to be featured in an AMC reboot? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
