Emmy winning actor Doug Davidson says he’s been fired from CBS’s “The Young and the Restless.” He’s played Paul Williams since 1978 and is the longest running actor on the show. He’s 63 and is considered the “captain” of the show.
On Twitter in the last hour he conceded that he’d been let go, that the show’s producers are “going in a different direction.”
“They are doing away with history,” he Tweeted to a fan. “It does hurt, to be honest.”
“The Young and the Restless” is owned by Sony TV with CBS but was created by the late Bill Bell, who sold them the show years ago. His daughter, LauraLee Bell, has been on the show for about 30 years and plays Davidson’s wife.
Lately, “Y&R” has been shedding veteran players like Eileen Davidson (not related), Mishael Morgan, and Christel Khalil. Ratings are plummeting, and there’s a fear that the popular black family on the show is being replaced by EP Mal Young with a new Latino family.
It could be that CBS is trying to shut down the show by purposely antagonizing viewers. They did that in 2010 with “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light.” CBS’s Les Moonves told me then that he didn’t want to pay for the soaps because they cost so much to produce. “The Talk,” starring his wife Julie Chen, was much cheaper. Of course, Moonves is now gone and Chen may be soon as well.
It seems so https://t.co/JGHl1xLMwD
— Doug Davidson (@DougDavidsonYR) September 11, 2018
