Before John McCook agreed to play the patriarch on a new soap opera called "The Bold and the Beautiful," he had already played a younger leading man on the series' sister soap, "The Young and the Restless."
As Lance Prentiss, he was the show's top heartthrob, which made him hesitant to take on a more mature role when Bill Bell, the creator of "Y&R," asked him to take on the role of Eric on the new soap he had in development.
"I was on the fence about it," McCook Soaps.com in March 2021. "But they kept calling my agent and saying, 'Bill Bell really wants to see you.' We hadn't seen each other in seven years, and the first thing he said was, 'I thought you'd be older!' I suggested perhaps I wasn't right for the part."
That's what led McCook to dye his hair with salt-and-pepper streaks, which became his signature look as Eric for decades, according to IMDb.
As McCook celebrated 34 years of bringing Eric to life, he told Soaps.com that his long run on "B&B" is a sign of acting success.
"Being on this show and, to back up even further, to be able to be an actor all these years and be able to make a living at it... It's such a cliché to say it's been a blessing, but it has," McCook said. "The very definition of a stunningly good job in show business is a long run on Broadway, a TV series, or a soap opera."
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