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Eric Braeden is the latest star of The Young and the Restless embroiled in tough contract negotiations.
Eric Braeden is the latest star of The Young and the Restless embroiled in tough contract negotiations.
In recent months, Y&R veterans Jess Walton (Jill Foster Abbott) and Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman) have both faced pink slips due to what was then reported — their refusals to take a pay cut on daytime’s #1 rated soap. Immediately, a casting call went out for the role of Jill when Walton refused her pay cut, and the character of Nikki was written out for a few months when Scott decided to play hardball in her contract negotiations. Eventually, negotiations came to a positive conclusion and both actresses remained with the show. Now TV Guide Canada‘s Nelson Branco is reporting that, Braeden, whose contract isn’t up until 2010, has been written out of the show.
According to his agent, Braeden has taped his final scenes, for now. As Y&R has done with other cast members, they’ve asked the Emmy winner to take a pay cut in the middle of his current 13-week cycle.
Nelson Branco shed light on the issue that is creating the problem during negotiations. “Actors like Braeden and Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki), who this past summer was written out after she balked over the same issue, are furious; not over the fact that they are being asked to take pay cuts but that they are being expected to re-negotiate their contracts during their 13-week cycles,” Branco wrote. “It is important to note that they are willing to take pay cuts but at the end of their contracts.”
Braeden’s rep told Soap Opera Digest that the actor is currently in talks with the show and may or may not return. Recent gunshot wound victim Victor, who is about to receive brain dead god daughter Colleen Carlton’s (Tammin Sursok) heart, will reportedly go on vacation with Nikki sometime after the surgery to accommodate the actor’s absence. According to Branco, during Braeden’s last day on set, the actor gave a speech to the cast saying he may not come back, thanking the cast and crew for the memories.
Braeden joined the soap in 1980 as business tycoon Victor Newman, one of daytime’s most iconic roles. A German immigrant who came to the United States in 1959, Braeden was once awarded the Federal Medal of Honor by the President of Germany for promoting a “positive, realistic image of Germans in America.” The former semi-pro soccer player has appeared in the blockbuster film Titanic and Escape From the Planet of the Apes, as well as in television shows such as The Nanny and How I Met Your Mother.
TVSource Magazine will keep you updated on this story as it develops.
Editor’s Note: We’re of the belief you should honor the agreement already in place. The fact that the contracts of Braeden and others aren’t being honored is what is disappointing. If you want the man to take a paycut, wait until his CURRENT deal expires. It’s the right thing to do.
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