The Young and The Restless Storylines - The Brooks and The Fosters

The Brooks and The Fosters

The Young and the Restless co-creator William J. Bell originally conceived the show to center around the class conflict between two core families: the wealthy Brooks and the poor Fosters. Newspaper publisher Stuart Brooks (played by Robert Colbert) and his socialite wife Jennifer (Dorothy Green) had four daughters: Leslie (Janice Lynde), a pianist; Lauralee "Lorie" (Jaime Lyn Bauer), an author; Christabel "Chris" (Trish Stewart), a journalist; and Peggy (Pamela Peters Solow), a college student. Meanwhile, Elizabeth "Liz" Foster (Julianna McCarthy) was a factory worker and single parent who, after being abandoned by her husband William "Bill" Sr. (Charles H. Gray), was struggling to make ends meet while trying to raise three children: William "Snapper" Jr. (William Grey Espy), a medical student; Greg (James Houghton), a law student; and Jill (Brenda Dickson; later Deborah Adair and currently Jess Walton), a beautician and aspiring model.

Leslie and Lorie fought over first Brad Eliot (Tom Hallick) and then Lance Prentiss (John McCook). This love triangle stretched into four after Lance's sea captain brother Lucas (Tom Ligon) arrived in town. Although Lorie initially was little more than the bad girl who tormented pure sister Leslie, she became a lead in her own right as she battled her sister over custody of Leslie's son Brooks (Andre Gower), and then battled her psychotic mother-in-law Vanessa (K.T. Stevens) (who even killed herself just to frame Lorie for the crime).

Another love triangle formed between Chris, Snapper, and Sally. Desperate to gain an upper hand, Sally threw away her birth control pills and got pregnant by Snapper. Not knowing that he was the father, Snapper proposed to Chris. When they found out he was the father of Sally's child, Chris suffered a miscarriage. Eventually, Sally moved out of town, and Chris and Snapper reconciled.

Other stories included Bill returning to town and remarrying Liz before dying of cancer; Jennifer planning to divorce Stuart and marry her former lover and Liz Foster's brother Dr. Bruce Henderson (Paul Stevens), who was revealed to be Lorie's biological father; and Stuart and Liz marrying after Jennifer died of cancer.