Meg Bennett

Meg Bennett, born Helen Bennett on October 4, 1948, in Pasadena, California, was an American actress, television writer, and model who died on April 11, 2024, at the age of 75. The eldest daughter of a printing company executive and a psychologist, she studied drama at Northwestern University, where she was also elected homecoming queen. During college breaks she performed in summer stock productions and worked as a model, including an appearance in Life magazine. She adopted the professional name Meg because another actress named Helen Bennett was already registered with the Screen Actors Guild.

Her path to New York began in 1971, when she was hired as the Cadillac Eldorado convertible girl for a New York auto show, a job that prompted her relocation to Manhattan. Once there, she competed on the game show Three on a Match, where she won $10,000 in prizes and held the title of undefeated champion. She also made occasional appearances as a panelist on Match Game. In 1972, Bennett joined the original Broadway cast of Grease, a credit that helped establish her professional profile in New York. That production led directly to her being cast on the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow in 1974, where she played the role of Liza for three years before relocating to California.

Following a bout of hepatitis, Bennett returned to acting and was cast as Julia Newman on The Young and the Restless in 1980, a role she played on and off through 1987, with additional appearances in 2002, 2018, and 2020. Her facility with scripts on set caught the attention of series creator Bill Bell, who invited her to write for the show in 1981. She subsequently performed double duty as both actress and script writer on the series through 1987. Her writing career expanded to include work on The Bold and the Beautiful as a script writer from April 1987 through March 1989, and later as Executive Storyline Consultant from August 2002 through October 2004. She also wrote for Generations from 1989 to 1990, Santa Barbara from 1991 to 1993, and served as Associate Head Writer and then Co-Head Writer of Sunset Beach from 1997 through August 1998.

Bennett's longest ongoing writing association was with General Hospital, where she worked as a breakdown writer across multiple stints beginning in 1987. She shared a Daytime Emmy Award with the General Hospital writing staff in 1995 and received additional Emmy nominations for that series in 1997 and 2000. She also earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for her writing on The Bold and the Beautiful in 2003 and a nomination for The Young and the Restless in 1986. Her work on General Hospital and Santa Barbara brought her multiple Writers Guild of America wins, including victories for the 1991 and 1992 seasons on Santa Barbara and for the 1994, 1995, and 1997 seasons on General Hospital. In addition to her writing work, she appeared on screen as the character Allegra Montenegro on General Hospital in August 2005 and as Megan Richardson on Santa Barbara in 1989. She was dismissed from General Hospital in 2011 following Garin Wolf's promotion to head writer.

Bennett met her husband, writer Robert Guza Jr., when both were hired to write for a soap opera, and the two collaborated professionally across multiple series. In 2003, they purchased a Beverly Hills home previously owned by Boris Karloff and later by Gregory Peck, for $2.8 million. Bennett died from cancer on April 11, 2024.