Early Life & Acting Career
Scott was born Melody Ann Thomas in Los Angeles, California. Her first film credit was as a child actress in the 1964 Alfred Hitchcock movie Marnie. After bit parts in movies in the mid-'70s (most notably in John Wayne's final film, The Shootist in 1976), she was offered bit parts on nighttime series such as The Waltons, The Rockford Files, and Charlie's Angels.
In 1979, at the age of 23, she began playing the part of stripper Nikki Reed on the daytime serial The Young and the Restless, choosing the part over a sitcom pilot that in the end was not picked up. She was a replacement for the previous Nikki, who had lasted six months. Over time, her character reformed and became an important part of Genoa City society, as she married Victor Newman (Eric Braeden). Scott has said, "It's a miracle for an actor to have a job last 28 years," although she finds it frustrating to go through periods when she doesn't have a storyline.
Scott was parodied in the satire publication The Onion in 1999, in which a picture was edited to show her holding a Daytime Emmy (that year, Susan Lucci won the Emmy after 19 nominations). The caption read "Awards Given Out Randomly To Skinny Blonde Women". She appeared on various game shows over the years, including Family Feud (with various Young and the Restless co-stars), Pyramid, Body Language, and Match Game.
Read more about this topic: Melody Thomas Scott
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life, acting and/or career:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success or financial independence after the chief reason for which we sought it has passed away.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“When committees gather, each member is necessarily an actor, uncontrollably acting out the part of himself, reading the lines that identify him, asserting his identity.... We are designed, coded, it seems, to place the highest priority on being individuals, and we must do this first, at whatever cost, even if it means disability for the group.”
—Lewis Thomas (b. 1913)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)