FLASHBACK: Eileen Davidson Breaks Out (1984)

From Eileen Davidson breaks out of shell on 'Y&R'

By J.M. Reed
Tri City Herald
July 13, 1984

NEW YORK — Being a bachelor, I sometimes dream of the ideal Genie with the light brown hair. Lately, however. Genie is loofking more and more like Eileen Davidson, who plays Ashley Abbott on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS.

She's got a face and figure that stops you dead in your tracks. Mesmerizing hazel eyes with a soulful gaze are set in strong brows; full, sensuous lips are, by turns, playfully alluring and determinedly no-nonsense; the aquiline noise and prominent cheekbones provide a noble, slightly aloof quality, while the long, lean body is enticingly free and loose. She presents a remarkable contradiction of the unattainable and the accessible. She's a male chauvinist pig's fantasy: Venus, combined with a beach-blanket bimbo. Miss Davidson is neither, but her background and ideals combine elements of both. And she's as outspoken and frank as all get-out.

"I was raised in a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles," says the actress. "I have four sisters, and my father was a workaholic, so we rarely saw him. I grew up in this almost exclusively female cocoon. Perhaps that's why I've had rotten luck with most guys in my life: men were an alien force.

"During my early teen years, I was short and chunky. I had these little cat glasses trimmed with rhinestones, mousy-brown hair and a nonexistent bosom. I was a late bloomer and, when guys started to take notice, I was terrified. I never flirted with guys; I'd hide under the bed."

It was after her first kiss at 16 that she entered her "beach-bunny phase. I'd go to thrift stories, find checkerboard tablecloths and make them into shorts and halters. It was my way of rebelling against peer pressure and Catholic-girl uniforms. I hit the beaches and became a surfer Valley Girl, complete with the lingo: 'Oh, wow. Nectar Man really got tubed on that wave.'"

After dropping out of college, Miss Davidson says she "cleaned offices, scrubbing floors after-hours. That stunk, and I got fired for watching television. Then I was a taxi-dancer, a dime-a-dance girl in a downtown L.A. joint. I'd shoot pool and became so good that I hustled lots of chumps. I dated a cop who patrolled the place. While the other girls wore slinky rags and black leotards, I wore high-neck, lacey prudish things.