'' was an
American Soap Opera that aired on
NBC from
January 6 , 1997 to
December 31 , 1999. It was co-produced by NBC and
Aaron Spelling Productions . It aired in over 70 countries around the world, and was especially popular in
Australia ,
Ireland ,
United Kingdom ,
Norway ,
Finland ,
Sweden ,
New Zealand ,
Israel ,
Germany ,
Poland ,
Republic Of Macedonia ,
Croatia ,
Russia ,
Romania ,
Slovenia ,
Venezuela and
Bulgaria .
The soap opera was named after the small beach community located at the northwest corner of
Huntington Beach, California just south of
Seal Beach, California and the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.
''Sunset Beach'' remains highly popular in many countries years after its cancellation. It frequently referenced other television shows: many episodes featured characters fantasizing about their lives and dreams in sequences that show the cast dressed as
Charlie's Angels or performing the opening from ''
Friends ''. Fantasies involving the character
Annie Douglas-Richards included take offs of ''
The Leeza Gibbons Show '' and ''
The Jerry Springer Show '', guest starring the talk show hosts. What made ''Sunset Beach'' truly innovative was its satirizing of itself and the soap opera genre. Advice was sometimes given to characters by the show's dog and on one occasion, by God himself.
One of the show's lighthearted traits would be to incorporate
Pop-up Trivia occasionally, taking a cue from the
VH1 show. A few of the characters were also known for
Breaking The Fourth Wall .
Storylines in its nearly three year run ranged from the traditional to the
Supernatural . One of the first storylines concerned an Internet romance. Kansas farm girl
Meg Cummings , played by
Susan Ward , discovered her fiance,
Tim Truman , cheating on her on their wedding day. Meg had been talking online with SB, a man who lived in Sunset Beach, California, and after catching Tim with her maid of honor, Meg fled to Sunset Beach in search of SB, who turned out to be wealthy, widowed businessman
Ben Evans , played by
Clive Robertson . The first year of the show revolved around Meg's pursuit of Ben (including her briefly breaking into his house, stealing a journal she found there and dressing up in his late wife's clothes), who was initially not interested in her, and the gradual development of a romance between them. A side plot showed the antagonistic relationship between Meg and
Annie Douglas , Ben's longtime best friend. Meg hated Annie for being close to Ben and wanted to cut her out of his life; Annie hated Meg out of jealousy for her developing romance with Ben. Their problems reached a head with a physical fight in a hottub. Meg's ex-fiance Tim Truman followed her to Sunset Beach to win her back, and ended up becoming Annie's ally and almost love interest. Once Meg and Annie had overcome their differences, Meg soon had a new problem when she began to suspect Ben was a murderer, although this plot line was developed to lead up to the Terror Island storyline, and contained some continuity errors. After the Terror Island/Derek storyline (see below) none of the things raised were ever mentioned again.
Meg and Ben became one of the show's first couples, along with reformed jewel thief
Cole Deschanel and local heiress
Caitlin Richards . Cole slept with and impregnated both Caitlin and Caitlin's unhappily married, alcoholic mother
Olivia . Olivia and her fiendish husband,
Gregory , planned to steal Caitlin's baby and pass it off as Olivia's (telling Caitlin her baby had died), in order to break up Caitlin's relationship with Cole, who her parents disapproved of because of his criminal past. Caitlin lost the child in a car accident when she found out about her parents' horrible plan, and planned to fake the rest of her pregnancy and adopt a baby to pass off as her own, as she was worried her inability to have children (caused by the accident) would cause problems in her marriage to Cole. She enlisted
Annie Douglas -- secretly trying to break up Olivia and Gregory, due to a term in her father's will stating she would only get her inheritance if she wed Gregory (her father's way of breaking up his marriage to Olivia, who he had been having an affair with). Annie drugged Olivia and stole her baby, telling her the baby had been stillborn. Caitlin unknowingly raised her baby half-brother (who was also her stepson, having been fathered by her husband), until a grief-stricken Olivia discovered the truth. Olivia was eventually reunited with her son.
When the show began it was the only soap on the air featuring Asian American characters, though they were written off before the end of the first year. The show also had daytime television's only African American villainess,
Virginia Harrison , who plotted and schemed to break up
Lifeguard Michael Bourne and reporter
Vanessa Hart so she could have Michael for herself.
In one of the most outrageous storylines on the show, Virginia drugged Vanessa and, using a
Turkey Baster and some stolen sperm, impregnated her with the child of
Dr. Tyus Robinson , to make it appear Vanessa had been unfaithful to Michael, who was
Sterile .
The show was known for other outrageous storylines, such 'Terror Island' in which several of the show's main characters were stranded on an island with a masked serial killer intent on killing them, especially Meg. A handful of characters were killed by the maniac, mostly minor characters introduced as serial killer-fodder, but also one lead character, young runaway made good
Mark Wolper . In his dying moments Mark pulled off the killer's mask and audiences were stunned to see Ben's face behind it. As it turned out, Ben had an evil twin,
Derek , who plagued Ben and Meg's lives off and on for the rest of the run of the show. Derek was killed after being shot in a struggle with Ben during the show's final weeks, following a long storyline where Derek kidnapped and impersonated his twin for months, sleeping with Ben's wife
Maria (having previously also slept with Meg).
Maria Torres-Evans , who had wed Ben when she was still a teenager and he was barely in his twenties, had disappeared and been presumed drowned after a boating accident that took place some years prior to the start of the show. Ben was haunted by the terrible secret that he had caught her in bed with Derek (it was later revealed that Derek -- who had impersonated Ben to Maria, who was unaware Ben had a twin -- had not slept with Maria, as she had stabbed him with scissors when he tried to rape her). Ben's guilt and grief over Maria caused a shadow over his relationship with Meg from the beginning, which worsened when an amnesiac Maria came back from the dead at Ben and Meg's October 1998 wedding. Ben and Maria grew closer while he helped her to regain her memory, and once she did, Ben flip flopped between the two women for much of the rest of the show's run. During the show's last year a strange woman, Tess, turned up on his doorstep with a son she claimed was Ben and Maria's. After a positive paternity test they raised the child,
Benjy , together, causing even more problems for Meg, who left Ben and briefly started dating her sister's boyfriend,
Casey . Derek (who was also wrongfully presumed dead) returned to kidnap Ben again, and it was revealed he and Tess were Benjy's parents.
Another outrageous storyline was the
Earthquake /
Tsunami story, in which Sunset Beach was struck by a massive earthquake, trapping many characters - most of them each other's rival - together in life and death situations. While half the cast battled the disaster on land, the rest of the cast was on a pleasure cruise aboard a ship that was overturned - a la ''
The Poseidon Adventure '' - by a tsunami created by the earthquake. This storyline was nearly a carbon copy of ''The Poseidon Adventure''.
The tsunami storyline proved so popular that two weeks' worth of episodes were compiled and turned into an hour-long show that was included on NBC's lineup for one night in
August 1998.
The show took a supernatural turn for a while with some cursed jewels, stolen from a religious icon, that turned those who'd touched them into shriveled mummies. The story culminated on Christmas Eve with the return of the jewels to the Madonna just in time to prevent the deaths of several key characters.
The show also featured two murder mysteries in its run, the murder of Annie's father
Del Douglas (by Cole's mother,
Elaine Stevens - Del had kidnapped Cole as a baby and convinced Elaine the child was dead), and the murder of seductress
Francesca Vargas , who just about everyone in town wanted dead. The surprise twist in the Who Shot Francesca storyline was that it was main character
Gregory Richards .
The show went in for stunt casting guest appearances -
Jerry Springer played
Talk Show host Jerry Feller,
Marla Maples played
Socialite Barbara Birch, Judge Wapner played himself - and featured a ripped from the headline story about a Washington intern, Meg's sister Sara, who'd had an affair with a married politician. Her affair was exposed by her supposed friend - Melinda Fall, a take off on
Linda Tripp . Sara went on to develop a relationship with local lifeguard Casey Mitchum, and their relationship and her sibling rivalry with her sister (who at one point started an affair with Casey) made up the bulk of Sara's storylines, although she was also famous for her TV show-inspired fantasy sequences.
Finola Hughes ,
Marla Maples ,
Christopher Darden ,
Howie Mandel ,
Jerry Springer ,
John O'Hurley ,
Kim Alexis ,
Jack Wagner ,
Barbara Mandrell .
The show was cancelled just before the third anniversary of its original air date. Most of the main characters were given happy endings. Ben and Meg and Michael and Vanessa married in a double wedding. Casey and Sara got engaged, Cole and Caitlin were happy in their marriage, and Olivia was happily raising her children alone. Maria gave Ben a divorce so he could marry Meg and met a new man, Ross English. Maria also adopted Benjy, the little boy she had regarded as her own, and she and Ben planned to raise him together. The 'baddies' all got their just deserts. Derek was accidentally shot and killed by Ben, his accomplice Tess went to jail, as did Gregory Richards. Tim Truman, who though not a villain spent most of the three years causing problems for Ben and Meg, was murdered by Derek. Virginia remained languishing in a mental hospital, while reformed bad girl Annie also got a happy ending, finding love with relatively new character Jude.
In a twist ending, Meg appeared to wake up in
Kansas and realize that the entire three years in ''Sunset Beach'' had been a dream - and the characters from the show were actually her friends and family in Kansas (an obvious reference to ''
The Wizard Of Oz ''). However, at the last minute, Meg woke up in Sunset Beach and was in bed with Ben, the day after their wedding. Probably this was poking fun at how many writers use the sloppy ending of, "It was all a dream" to bring a story to a close, as was done in stories such as
Alice In Wonderland .
Through its short existence, ''Sunset Beach'' remained in the daytime
Ratings basement. However, during the "Shockwave" storyline of 1998 it received its best ratings and showed signs that it might move off the bottom. However, this proved to be a brief spike and was not sustained.
- Tim Truman was named for the show's musical director.
- One of Bette Katzenkazrahi's (Kathleen Noone) seven ex-husbands was a man named Vincent Duke (named after the show producer), portrayed by Aaron Spelling.
- Sunset Beach did not air on the NBC stations in Houston ( KPRC ) and Detroit ( WDIV ). In both of these markets, the UPN stations, KTXH and WKBD (respectivily), aired Sunset Beach.
- Adrienne Frantz (Tiffany #1) played Amber Moore on ''B&B'' from 1997-2005. She also appears as Amber on '' The Young And The Restless ''
- Sarah Buxton (Annie) went on to play Morgan DeWitt on ''B&B'' from 2000-2001 and again briefly in 2005.
- Lesley-Anne Down (Olivia) has played Jacqueline Payne Marone on ''B&B'' since 2003.
- Sean Kanan (Jude) played Deacon Sharpe on ''B&B'' from 2000-2005.
- Tracy Lindsey Melchior (Tess) plays the second Kristen Forrester on ''B&B'' from 2001-2003 on contract and is still on recurring status.
- Sydney Penny , who substituted for Susan Ward as Meg Cummings, played Samantha Kelly on ''B&B'' 2003-2005, and is now back on "All My Children" playing Julia Santos Keefer
- Sandra Ferguson (Jade, who was killed on Terror Island) substituted for Katherine Kelly Lang as Brooke in 1997.
- Jack Wagner , who plays Nick Marone on ''B&B'', appeared in 1997 on Sunset Beach as a jewel thief friend of Cole's.
- Dax Griffin (Tim) played Shane McGrath on "B&B" from 2006 to 2007.
- Michael Sabatino (Phillip Vargas) previously played Anthony Armando on ''B&B'' from 1993-1995, and previously played JT Cornell on "Passions" in 2006
- Jack Wagner played Frisco Jones on ''General Hospital'' from 1983 - 1987, 1989 - 1991 and made guest appearances in 1994 and 1995.
- John Reilly (Del Douglas) played Sean on ''General Hospital'' from 1984 - 1995.
- Finola Hughes , who made a guest appearance on ''Sunset Beach'' played the role of Anna Devane on ''General Hospital'' from 1985 - 1992, and now currently recurs as Anna Devane. She also played the same character on All My Children from 2001-2003.
- Clive Robertson (Ben Evans) played Simon the record producer in 2004.
- Sandra Ferguson (Jade) has played the recurring role of Felicia Jones Scorpio since 2005.
- Nick Kiriazis (Antonio Torres) substituted for Rick Hearst as Ric Lansing.
- Constance Towers (Julianna Deschanel) has played Helena Cassadine on the show from 1997.
- Eddie Cibrian (Cole) previously played Matt Clark from 1994-1996.
- John Martin (Hank Cummings) plays the recurring character of Frederick Hodges on ''Y&R''.
- Lauren Woodland (Sarah Cummings #1) played Brittany Hodges from 1999-2005. Note: John Martin and Lauren Woodland ironically played Father and Daughter on both Sunset Beach and Y&R, though they never actually shared any scenes together on ''Sunset Beach'' as Lauren departed the role before John Martin was made a contract player on the show.
- Sam Behrens (Gregory) appeared on ''Y&R'' as an associate of Victor's first wife, Julia, whom Victor met with.
- Meg Bennett , who was a producer on ''Sunset Beach'', played Julia ''on Y&R''.
- Adrienne Frantz (Tiffany #1) crossed her ''B&B'' character, Amber, to ''Y&R'' in November 2006.
- Tracy Melchior (Tess Marin) previously played the first Veronica Landers in 1997.
- Margarita Cordova (Carmen Torres) previously played Rosa Andrade from 1984-1987 and 1991-1993.
- Gordon Thomson (A.J. Deschanel) previously played the third Mason Capwell from 1990-1993.
- Jack Wagner (Jacques Dumont) previously played the third Warren Lockridge from 1991-1993.
- Sydney Penny (Meg Cummings) previously played B.J. Walker from 1992-1993.
- Russell Curry (Tyus Robinson) previously played the third Lt. Vic Boswell from 1988-1992.
- Meg Bennett (a writer for SB) previously played Megan Richardson in 1989.
- John Martin (Hank Cummings) previously played Jon Russell from 1986-1989; 1991-1992.
- Christina Chambers (Maria Torres) has played the character of Marty Saybrooke since 2006.
- Sherri Saum (Vanessa Hart) played Kerri Reynolds from 2001-2003.
- Jessica Tuck (Diane Wood) previously played Megan Gordon Harrison from 1988-1992.
- Tracy Melchior (Tess Marin) previously played the second Kelly Buchanan in 2003.
- Sunset Beach : for other articles on other Sunset Beach topics
