Jo’s Cafe

William Bell, Creator of TV Soaps, Dies

Apr 30, 10:28 PM (ET)
By ALEX VEIGA

LOS ANGELES (AP) - William Joseph Bell, an Emmy award-winning daytime TV soap writer, producer and co-creator of “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful,” has died. He was 78.

Bell died Friday from complications of Alzheimer’s disease at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, said Raul Rojas, publicist for Bell’s TV production company.

Bell’s career as a TV soap writer spanned more than four decades and earned him nine Emmy awards - three for his writing on “The Young and the Restless,” and the rest for producing or writing “Days of Our Lives.”

I grew up watching Young and the Restless with my grandmother. I watched CBS Soaps for years, As The World Turns and Guiding Light. In the late 80’s I started watching Days of Our Lives and watched it faithfully up until the Marlena Murder Storyline last year.

Mr. Bell will be missed in the daytime entertainment arena of television. My best to his family and I hope they know we morn with them.