‘The Young And The Restless’ News: ‘Y&R’ Releases New Cast Photo, Plus Pays Tribute To Jeanne Cooper To Commemorate 11,000 Episodes

 “The Young and the Restless” has given loyal viewers two remarkable tribute gifts in recent days. First, Jeanne Cooper’s final scene as Katherine Chancellor was replayed in a flashback tied to the current Chancellor Mansion renovation.

Her old nemesis, but eventual bestie, Jill (Jess Walton) was surveying the house they once shared. Taking in the chaotic state of the renovations, her eyes drifted toward the staircase. And there she found Katherine Chancellor clinging to the banister, measuring every breath. Jill asked if she needed help. In one last, grand gesture, Katherine slowly turned to face her old friend and said, I’ve got this.

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The scene was riveting. When it first aired Cooper had been ill for a while, and she did not appear well. It would be the last time Y&R viewers had the pleasure of seeing the amazing actress. She gave an astonishing 40 years of her life to her Y&R role. Cooper died May 8, 2013.

She chronicled those decades in her book Not Young, Still Restless. Published in 2012, by HarperCollins, the book is a candid look at her both her real and Y&R lives.

It was fitting for Katherine and Jill to share their final scene in the mansion. Much of the twosome’s air time was spent loving and fighting together in the grand and elegant Chancellor home. Through the years their fights over men, business and family brought them closer together than any marriage or bloodline could. Even if they had turned out to be mother and daughter, as the storyline teased at one time, it could not have made their bond stronger.

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So Jill (along with Y&R fans) was understandably outraged when her son Billy Abbott (Jason Thompson) dishonored the past by turning the house into a gloomy man cave.

The flashback scene signaled the house‘s return to splendor. With one stroke of a paintbrush, Jill declared that the past would be honored. She painted a yellow stripe on the wall, declaring that Katherine’s favorite color, “Forget-me-not-yellow'” would be the shade of the Chancellor Mansion.

In another acknowledgment of Y&R history, the show released a new cast photo to commemorate its 11,000 episode. Shot with a simple black background, the cast photo is elegant and mesmerizing, just like Jeanne Cooper and the incomparable long-running daytime gem “The Young and the Restless.”

Congratulations to Y&R for doing a fantastic job of honoring its past and celebrating its future.

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