Darlene Conley

  Best known for work on afternoon soaps, notably her eight-year stint as flashy fashion mogul Sally Spectra on The Bold and the Beautiful, Conley also appeared on stage in Night of the Iguana and Cyrano de Bergerac (both opposite Richard Chamberlain) and a number of prime-time guest spots. But daytime was her prime time, with tough-gal turns on Days of our Lives, Capitol and General Hospital before winning the villainous part of black-market baby broker Rose DeVille on The Young and the Restless. That soap's cocreator William J. Bell dreamed up the role of Sally Spectra just for Conley, and during her tenure she was nominated for two Daytime Emmys and got the chance to masquerade as Mae West, a German spy and a nun. Although her battle with stomach cancer kept her off The Bold and the Beautiful for months, she was still technically part of the cast when she succumbed to the disease in January 2007.