The 10 Most Underrated Actresses in Soaps

I did a lot of thinking about this one but it just seemed to me the playing field isn't as varied as it is for the men: soaps being a female-driven medium lend themselves to most of the actresses getting their due at some point. Women I considered for this list generally turned out to be long-time stalwarts who have been unjustly back-burned, like Leslie Charleson (Monica, General Hospital) and Judi Evans (you name it, she's played it) - more underused than underrated. So let's keep it simple.

1-10: Kelly Menighan Hensley (Emily, As the World Turns). For years, the female half of the Hensley acting duo has been consistently hitting it out of the park as one of the most interesting, desperate, misguided heroines on soaps. One Life to Live wishes Blair Cramer would be half as complex as Emily Stewart. After some initial years of standard manipulative bitchiness, Hensley and her character were given the chance to blossom under head writer Hogan Sheffer, who found ways to color Emily's relentless man-eating and friendless existence with a renewed family bond with her mother and sister. Once the writing led us to understand that Emily's ceaseless pursuit of the wrong (often married) men masked her underlying fear of abandonment, Hensley let loose. Thus, no matter the ridiculous plot twists (2006's kidnapping of Dusty was not a high point), Hensley makes Emily three-dimensional.

The real shame is that Hensley has no consistent male acting peer on World Turns, and thus generally cedes airtime to more classic soap heroines like Martha Byrne's Lily or Terri Colombino's Katie. Most memorable was her excellent pairing with the late Benjamin Hendrickson. Hal and Emily's romance, however improbable, was a high point thanks to the undeniable chemistry between the two actors. The recent sequences surrounding the news of Hal's death, ostensibly and justifiably an opportunity to kickstart stories for his son Will as well as his partner and ex-lover Margo (played by the superb Ellen Dolan) were, unsurprisingly to this viewer, dominated by Emily's reaction to Hal's death. The ignominious end to that relationship - and the questionable characterization in Emily's subsequent actions - were called into relief by Emily's realization that she had squandered her chances with Hal, the only really good man who had ever loved her, for pretty much no reason at all. As a viewer, I felt sad for Will and Margo and Barbara, but I wept for Emily. This girl has chops, and she deserves more stories that understand her character and play to her immense talent.