ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: SOAPS & INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

Last week on The Bold and the Beautiful, Rick broke off his relationship with Maya to try to repair his marriage to Caroline. And while fans debate which woman is the better match for the Forrester heir—Caroline, who kissed his bother, or Maya, who jumped into bed with a married man at first opportunity (not to mention the more pressing question of whether Rick is good enough for either of them)—one topic has yet to come up. Rick is white, Maya is black. Nobody cares.

It wasn’t always this simple in soap-opera land.

In 1962, the short-lived PGP soap opera A Brighter Day made history by hiring the first African-American series regular, actor Rex Ingram. The show was canceled that September due to low ratings.

In 1966, Guiding Light hired daytime’s first African-American contract players, Billy Dee Williams and Cecily Tyson. The roles were later recast with James Earl Jones and Ruby Dee. Jones also appeared that same year on As the World Turns.

But the African-American characters were kept peripheral to the main action, and there certainly was not even a hint of interracial romance. That took several decades to develop. Check out Entertainment Weekly's five most memorable soap-opera interracial loves stories (and three honorable mentions) from GH, Y&R, DOOL, OLTL, ATWT, Santa Barbara and more that brought soap operas to where they are today at this link!