Soap Opera Digest - May 15, 1990

BATHING-BEAUTY MADNESS

There are a lot of women who don't look forward to summer for one very simple reason - trying to fit into a bathing suit. And if you're an actress on a soap, the pressure can be even more intense. One person who can sympathise is Greg York, Y&R's costume designer. He's usually the one who makes the call to the actress to tell her to drop those extra pounds. "When Melody Thomas Scott came back from having her second child," remembers York, "she was a size ten, and in some outfits, a twelve. She's usually a four/six. They kept making references in the script to, 'Oh, the old Nikki's back.' No woman loses pregnancy weight that quickly. We put her in a lot of navy and dark colours, very tailored things.  "Melody was great. Over the course of six months, she gradually decreased in size, and we kept buying new clothes. We'd say, 'What size is she this week? The tens are too big? Great!' It was fun, because Nikki always changes clothes and has new things, anyway." But new clothes or not, Melody still had to face the ultimate test - the bathing suit. When the time came, York was there. "I called her when the swimsuit scenes [arrived], and that was the little extra push that sent her down into the four/six range. And she looked fabulous," York says.