On March 19, 1997, viewers of the CBS soap had their hearts stolen en masse by a 6-year-old newcomer whose future was as bright as her eyes.
This is going to be difficult, we know, but try, won’t you? Try to wrap your head around the fact that it has been nearly a quarter of a century since The Young and the Restless welcomed to its cast a freckle-faced newcomer by the name of Camryn Grimes.
It wasn’t just her innate adorableness that drew fans to the moppet who’d been cast as Sharon Newman’s long-lost daughter, Cassie, either; the 6-year-old was freakin’ good. Just over three years later, Grimes, 10 by then, became the youngest-ever winner of the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress. The audience assumed that they’d watch her grow up on screen the same way they had, say, Melody Thomas Scott as Nikki or Heather Tom as Victoria.
The audience was dead wrong. In 2005, Grimes was killed off as Cassie. We were as gutted as Sharon and the little girl’s stepfather, Nick. But that wasn’t the end of the actress’ stay in Genoa City. How could it be, right?
In the years that followed, Grimes appeared now and again as Cassie’s spirit. Then, in 2014, she was reintroduced to the canvas as Cassie lookalike Mariah Copeland… who turned out to be the twin of the deceased. Now, of course, both Grimes and her new character are as integral to The Young and the Restless as plot twists and sharp turns.
