Louise Sorel

A flashy, aggressive, cold and calculating villainess and eternally hopeless meddler on a number of daytime soap operas, Louise Sorel has given her opulent, show-stopping characters major doses of humor and grit that have allowed her to become one of daytime's more popular figures for over six decades. Of Jewish heritage, Louise, whose roots are in theatre, was born on August 6, 1940 in Los Angeles to entertainment professionals. Studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, she made her Broadway debut playing a teenager in the 1961 comedy "Take Her, She's Mine" starring Art Carney and also had subsequent roles in "Lorenzo" (1963) and "Man and Boy" (1963). Her initial interest obviously was sparked by her actress/concert pianist mother Jeanne Sorel, and father Albert J. Cohen, who produced films in the 1940s and 1950s. Louise went on to co-star on Broadway with Rita Moreno in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" in 1964 and appeared with George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst as Princess Alais in the 1967 Bucks County Playhouse production of "The Lion in Winter." Given a bit part (billed as Jacqueline Sorel) in the exploitation teen film Eighteen and Anxious (1957), Louise, in 1964, married comic actor Herb Edelman, best known for his recurring role of Bea Arthur's ex husband Stan in The Golden Girls (1985). Around this time, she began setting her sights on TV drama, appearing on various dramatic shows including "Dr. Kildare," "The Defenders," "The Trials of O'Brien," "Route 66," "The Rat Patrol," "The Virginian," "Run for Your Life," "Star Trek," "The Big Valley," "The Fugitive," "Night Gallery," "The Bold Ones," "Banacek," "Hawaii Five-0," "Owen Marshall," "Kojak," "Hart to Hart," "The Incredible Hulk," "Ironside" and several episodes of "Medical Center," as well as a recurring part on the short-lived nighttime soap opera The Survivors (1969) starring Lana Turner and George Hamilton. In a change of pace, Louise turned to comedy as Don Rickles' wife on his poorly-received series The Don Rickles Show (1972). Though she divorced Edelman in 1972, Louise nevertheless co-starred with him again in the failed sitcom Ladies' Man (1980). She met second husband actor Ken Howard in 1972 while appearing with him in a Philadelphia stage production of "Volpone." They married a year later but divorced a couple of years later in 1975. Appearing in support in the films Plaza Suite (1971), Every Little Crook and Nanny (1972), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Where the Boys Are (1984), and Crimes of Passion (1984), Louise moved quite steadily ahead not only with a regular role in the short-lived comedy series Ladies' Man (1980), but with co-star/featured roles in the TV movies The Girl Who Came Gift-Wrapped (1974), The Mark of Zorro (1974), When Every Day Was the Fourth of July (1978), Mazes and Monsters (1982), Sunset Limousine (1983) and A Masterpiece of Murder (1986). Various daytime soap operas reinvigorated Louise's career tenfold in the late 1980s. She began her road to sudsy infamy in 1984 as the eccentric archvillainess Augusta Lockridge for the entire run of Santa Barbara (1984). From there she was given recurring roles as Judith Sanders on One Life to Live (1968) and as Donatella Stewart Port Charles (1997). In 1992, Louise joined the cast of Days of Our Lives (1965) as the manipulative Vivian Alamain. By the time she left in 2000, she had won five Soap Opera Digest Awards. More recently, Louise has had devilish fun in the quirky soap Passions (1999) and in a recurring role on the political drama Beacon Hill (2014).