FLASHBACK: Beau Kayzer Tied in by the Plot 1977

Beau Kayzer Tied in by the Plot

By Steven H. Scheuer
Boca Raton News
March 6, 1977

Beau Kayzer of THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS (CBS) can be found on any soap opera popularity poll, but you're lucky to catch his character Brock Reynolds on the show these days.

Beau's father, a specialty steel salesman in Toronto, Canada, has to make long distance calls to find out how his youngest boy in a family of seven, is doing, because he never sees Beau on the tube.

With the law closing in on RESTLESS over the agonizing death of Bill Foster after his wife Liz pulled the plug on her ill, tormented husband, Beau's saintly Brock, the owner of the Allegro Restaurant, is left out in the cold. Brock's job at present consists of comforting his mother Kay, who has taken in Joann Curtzynski for company. A character who helps others, Brock verges on the stuffy side, something 25-year-old, 6'4" Beau Kayzer is not. If writers inserted a shot of Beau into Brock more often, it could only be a plus.

A handsome kid who had never considered acting, Beau and his electric guitar didn't drive away listeners in Toronto coffee houses. Told her belonged in Hollywood, the kid dutifully check in on Sunset Boulevard at age 16, and spend the next four years pounding pavements, peddling songs.

But acting and not singing opened the doors for him. It turned out that David Jansen's mother, Bernice, an agent, listened to Beau read and said, "You are a natural."

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Having succeeded with her son David, Bernice knew the ropes. She kept encouraging Beau by saying, "You will be a star." Two years ago, a steady job came his way, the role of Brock on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS. With that base, Beau can sing occasionally on the show at the Allegro. At this moment, he's out hustling his first album, "Touch That Feeling" which contains a few songs he did on the soap opera.

Perhaps Bernice Janssen is right. Beau will be a star.

Jill's Jam: While Brock Reynolds awaits his return in THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS plotting, Brenda Dickson's blue-eyed, auburn-haired Jill Foster is smack in the middle of the tragedy surrounding her father Bill's death. Jill knows her mother Liz pulled the plug on her father. That means the actress Brenda Dickson must play a semi-controlled young lady with under deep tension.

Between the police investigation, her frightened mother, and stalwart brother Snapper about to be sacrificed, Jill must hold together somehow. To carry things further, according to the actress, Jill will meet and be fascinated by David Mallory (Robert Gibson), a blind young man who has been given her father Bill's eyes in compliance with Bill's wishes... but Jill will be in the dark about the eye transfer.

So pretty Brenda, recently married in real life to dentist Robert Rifkin, is having a big emotional splash on the show. A native Californian, Brenda slipped into showbiz relatively early, entering a World Beauty Pageant at 17 as Miss California USA. In 1971, she sang and danced on Bob Hope's Christmas tour, before moving on to guest shots on TV. A role in the movie Taxi Driver moved Brenda up a notch with local producers. Brenda can be seen daily on the soap opera and the Dickson version of a taut Jill ready to explode shouldn't go unnoticed by Hollywood insiders.

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