‘Beyond The Gates’: Meet Michele Val Jean, the Writer Who Created Daytime’s First Ever Black Soap Opera

deadline.com:

When Sheila Ducksworth was named president of CBS’ new production partnership with the NAACP back in 2020, one of her first calls was to Michele Val Jean — a longtime writer on such soaps as The Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital, and Generations, the first daytime drama to feature a Black family.

Duckworth’s dream was to do that again — but this time, the cast would feature predominantly Black actors. And she knew that Val Jean, a writer she had met previously through Generations star Vivica A.

Fox, was the only soap veteran who could make it happen. “Generations was special for me because it was the first time I saw more than two or three characters who looked more like me, who had more of a lifestyle that I could identify with and wanted to identify with,” Ducksworth tells Deadline. “And as it turned out, Michele was the only Black writer in the room.

So when I moved out to California, I met Vivica and told her my dream to make a soap. And she said to me, ‘well, if you want to do that, there’s one person you have to meet.