Sixteen Years to the Day Bold & Beautiful’s Darlene Conley Died, John McCook Reflects On the Scene Stealer Who ‘Dared to Do What Nobody Else Would’
Saturday, January 14th, 2023
“Everything about her was unique, and there will never be another like her.”
If you close your eyes while listening to The Bold and the Beautiful star John McCook describing the late Darlene Conley arriving at the set, you can almost picture it. “You’d be sitting in the make-up chair early in the morning,” Eric’s portrayer tells Soaps.com, “and you’d hear her entering the studio, practically growling, ‘Hello, darling!'”
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It’s a memory that brings a smile to his face. And as he perfectly describes Conley’s presence, we can almost pretend that, like Sally, she’s still out there, somewhere, ignoring the harsh reality that she was taken from us on January 14, 2007, “You would see this red wig coming down the hall. She brought the circus and vaudeville and theater and burlesque and opera… she brought it all when she came into the room!”
Conley’s very presence seemed to charge the air. “You could be sitting there facing a mundane day,” McCook recalls, “and in she’d come to remind you that this was show business, baby!”
As viewers know, Conley brought all that and more to the role of the original — and we do mean original! — Sally Spectra. “You could give any number of actresses the same part, with the same scripts, and it wouldn’t be the same. They could try, but Darlene added her own spin, with the broad gestures and the wigs and the bright lipsticks and the way she dressed. Everything about her was unique, and there will never be another like her. She dared to do what nobody else would.”
As much as McCook loved working with Conley, he believes Eric’s short-lived romance with Sally was a low point for his alter ego. “Eric is not what you would consider a manipulative character,” he explains, “but he was using Sally. And she believed that his feelings for her were genuine.”
Until, that is, he revealed the truth and broke her heart. “It was probably the most evil thing Eric has done in all the years I’ve played him,” says the actor. “But it gave me a chance to work closely with Darlene, and she acted the hell out of the material.”
Join us now in paying tribute to Conley by revisiting the antics, romances and heartaches of Bold & Beautiful‘s Sally, a character every bit as vivacious as the legend who brought her to such glorious life.
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Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
1/28
<p>Despite appearances, no way, no how was the indomitable Sally Spectra the type to sit around waiting for the phone to ring. The warden of the insane asylum that was Spectra Fashions, the late, great Darlene Conley’s scrappy character was likelier to let her fingers do the walking — along with the rest of ’er — to ensure that her firm’s designs were cutting-edge. Or at least looked a lot <em>like</em> her hoity-toity competitors’ gladrags did.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
2/28
<p>… Sally got — for a while, anyway. For instance, when she decided that she wanted Forrester Creations designer Clarke Garrison to start doodling dresses for Spectra, she blackmailed him into putting pencil to sketchpad. Then, when she decided that she wanted him to be <em>more</em> than Employee of the Month, she played a high-stakes game of <em>Let’s Make a Deal.</em></p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
3/28
<p>In order to get Clarke to put a ring on it, Sally offered him half of Spectra Fashions and his own label. But — and this was a big “but” — he’d only collect on their <em>second</em> wedding anniversary. Did he make it?</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
4/28
<p>But he made it — and <em>often</em> — with vacuous true love Kristen Forrester. Luckily, Team Spectra was able to prove Clarke’s infidelity in court and keep the company afloat. The raft was leaky as hell, true, but it was afloat, dang it!</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
5/28
<p>Future arch-frenemy Stephanie Forrester would no more have shared her photo op with <span style="text-decoration: line-through">Ben-Hur</span> Charlton Heston with Sally than the queen bee would’ve let Spectra Fashions nibble on the crumbs that fell from fancypants Forrester Creations’ table.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
6/28
<p>Though Stephanie initially regarded Sally as being as inferior as her (usually stolen!) designs, the Forrester matriarch came to consider her longtime rival a friend. You can tell, too, because in this image of them, neither one seems to have discovered a joy buzzer in the other’s hand. Of course, that didn’t mean that we couldn’t count on them to occasionally get…</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
7/28
<p>Clearly, this photo illustrates how quickly Sally leapt into action when her gal pal’s hair caught fire. Or she wanted to reinforce the importance of watering the flowers she’d proffered. Or… something. You know what it’s like. We all have that one friend.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
8/28
<p>The men, they came and went. But through it all, Sally’s heart <em>truly</em> belonged to daughter Macy. Once they mended fences — Macy initially resented the way that Mom prioritized work over her — they were thick as thieves. So it was especially crushing for Sally when her little girl had to break it to her her that… </p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
9/28
<p>First, Sally mourned Macy when she was “killed” in a horrific <span style="text-decoration: line-through">Brooke Logan</span> car accident. Then, she had to do it all over again when Macy came back from the dead, only to get <em>Phantom of the Opera</em>’d by a chandelier at a nightclub opening.</p>
Image: Paul Skipper/JPI
10/28
<p>… Brooke probably wouldn’t have survived this glare. And Sally had good reason to detest the seductress that Stephanie nicknamed the Slut From the Valley. At one point, she, of all people, took over Spectra Fashions. And if there was one thing worse than messing with Sally’s man, it was messing with Macy’s — and Brooke did. Big time.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
11/28
<p>But Brooke gave Sally a keen interest in directing her eyes in any direction but hers. Honestly, this was a tactic that Quinn probably should’ve tried when the Logan sisters were micromanaging her marriage to Eric.</p>
Image: Jesse Grant/JPI
12/28
<p>Clarke may have been the louse-iest of all louses while he was married to Sally, but he did give her at least one amazing parting gift: C.J., the son that she adored almost as much as she did pretty designs left in a poorly guarded office.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
13/28
<p>Though Sally had a hard time <em>keeping</em> a fella, she had no trouble <em>attracting</em> them. Heck, even Fabio couldn’t resist going all <em>Bachelor</em> on her and asking, “Will you accept this rose?” Looks like their next stop is the Fantasy Suite.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection (2)
14/28
<p>After recruiting Anthony Armando to raise Spectra’s profile, Sally’s interest was piqued — and not in a “My, how avant-garde your designs are!” kinda way. But he became so smitten with Macy that he killed a model in order to frame her most frequent husband for the murder.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
15/28
<p>Sally was as delighted as we are after two glasses of bubbly when Stephanie’s on-again/off-again husband Eric began romancing her and went so far as to pop the question. Alas, his affections turned out to be as “genuine” as the designs he was mad that she’d crafted at Spectra from his pilfered designs.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
16/28
<p>Somebody should’ve told Sally, “You don’t know Jack.” But she had to find out for herself how useless was Taylor’s father, Jack Hamilton. To add insult to injury, the gambling addict not only rolled the dice with her, he dealt in Stephanie, too. Pick a lane, bro! Pick! A! Lane!</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
17/28
<p>It doesn’t show here, but Sally was livid when first husband — and Macy’s dad — Adam Alexander showed up in L.A. Never mind that his megabucks had bailed her out of a tight spot, she was understandably miffed that after he’d run out on his family, he’d formed a new blonde one. Harrumph!</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
18/28
<p>Sally ended up doused on more than one occasion when she tangled with Stephanie. The first time was in a swimming pool, and the second time — take a gander, this is it! — Sally wound up in a lake in Italy during a fashion competition in Portofino.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
19/28
<p>Any longtime fan will tell you that Sally was most at home bellowing into the P.A. system at Spectra Fashions and/or on the City of Angels’ runways going up against the Forresters. She was so unstoppable, it was hard not to root for the underdog to get one over on her uber-rich competition.</p>
Image: JPI (3)
20/28
<p>Sally was probably actually <em>most</em> at home donning one of the many costumes that made her the show’s foremost master of disguise — a title you just don’t earn without using Sable from <em>Dynasty II:</em> <em>The Colbys</em> as a glamtastic accessory.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
21/28
<p>Oh. And some models are there, too. Yep, if the supposed queens of the catwalk were going to get any attention when La Spectra was around, they had to be dressed in colors that were brighter than a rainbow with its intensity turned up to 11.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection, Aaron Montgomery/JPI
22/28
<p>In good times and bad — oh, and also the bonkers times, and there were a <em>lot</em> of those! — Sally had at her side her Spectra Creations family, true-blue Saul Feinberg and ditzy Darla Einstein.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
23/28
<p>Sally cut ties with Darla after she got pregnant with the only daughter of Macy’s true love, Thorne. Of course, as you can see, once Aly entered the world, Sally came around both literally and metaphorically.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
24/28
<p>When her portrayer passed away in 2007, <em>Bold & Beautiful</em> decided to let Sally carry on exactly the way that she would’ve wanted to — surrounded by scantily clad cabana boys. “Darlene was a bigger-than-life character,” said executive producer/headwriter Bradley Bell at the time, “so she had to live forever.”</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
25/28
<p>In 2017, the soap introduced Courtney Hope as Sally’s namesake grand-niece. Like her predecessor, she had a can-do attitude that crashed into an “Oh no you can’t!” world. She also had her ancestor’s knack for picking…</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI (3)
26/28
<p>Thomas Forrester, Wyatt <em>and</em> Liam Spencer… they all slipped through her fingers. And Sally 2.0 was (and is!) a minx who was willing to kidnap her competition in order to eliminate them. When finally, her schemes became too big for one city to contain, she exercised her…</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
27/28
<p>Upon moving to Genoa City, Wis., home of <em>The Young and the Restless</em>, Sally set about making enemies of friends and adversely influencing people. That said, she and fellow pot stirrer Adam Newman seemed to see eye to eye… even if she had to wear <em>really</em> high heels to make that happen.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
28/28
