Bianca Montgomery

Bianca Montgomery

Bianca Christine Montgomery is a fictional character from the American daytime drama All My Children. In June 2010, Christina Bennett Lind replaced Eden Riegel, who portrayed the role from July 2000 to January 2010. Until Riegel assumed the role, the character was portrayed solely by child actresses: Lacey Chabert, Nathalie Paulding, Gina Gallagher, and Caroline Wilde. Jessica Leigh Falborn portrayed infant Bianca. When Riegel decided to permanently exit the role, plans to recast were confirmed.

The character is scripted as the daughter of Erica Kane and the late Travis Montgomery, born onscreen on February 8, 1988. Her birthday was revised to February 9, 1984 on January 31, 2002 by the show's producers, and her age was stated as 16 in 2000. The middle name given to the character is Christine, after her paternal aunt, Christine Montgomery, and she is portrayed as sweet-natured and well loved in the fictional community of Pine Valley. Shown to suffer from Reye's syndrome in infancy, as well as Anorexia nervosa later in life, she overcomes both with the significant aid of her family.

Outside of fiction, Bianca has emerged as a gay icon within the LGBT community. Newspapers such as The New York Times cite her as the first lead character on a major daytime drama to be a lesbian, and The Advocate calls her "the most famous gay soap role of all time". She has been the subject and study of various academic works, said to have inspired soap opera writers to begin with the scripting of sexual identities of tortured teen characters, and is a show heroine. Under Riegel's portrayal, her popularity has been cited as groundbreaking.