Actors Susan Walters and Linden Ashby fell in love fast. The pair met in 1985 working on the soap opera Loving and married just six months later.
Fast forward to 2023, and the couple are still going strong. Walters and Ashby returned to their respective roles as the infamous Diane Jenkins and Cameron Kirsten on CBS’ beloved soap The Young and the Restless. While their characters didn’t frequently interact in Y&R’s Genoa City, it’s still a full-circle moment for the longtime couple, who have soaps to thank for their fateful meeting.
Walters and Ashby have been acting partners several times before, and even decades later, the pair help each other run lines and hone their craft. “As far as my job on The Young and the Restless, [Ashby] should be getting three quarters because he would run lines with me every night. You know he’s been amazing,” Walters shared in with People in 2022.
Here’s what to know about Susan Walters and Linden Ashby, the married soap opera actors and parents to two daughters.
They’re from the South
Both Walters and Ashby hail from southern states. Walters was raised in Atlanta and moved to New York City at 18 to model; she started acting shortly thereafter. Ashby grew up in Atlantic Beach, Florida. After dropping out of college, he also moved to N.Y.C., where he studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Both actors have impressive résumés
Walters and Ashby primarily work on TV. Walters got her start on the ABC soap Loving, which ran from 1983 to 1995. She played Lorna Forbes from 1983 to 1986. Later, she played Priscilla Presley in the two-part TV film Elvis and Me (1988) and appeared on Melrose Place, Seinfeld, The Flash, The Vampire Diaries and Murder, She Wrote, among many others.
Loving was also Ashby’s first major project; he was the second actor to portray Curtis Alden. After Loving, Ashby appeared in the TV miniseries Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story, Melrose Place, Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless. He starred as Sheriff Noah Stilinski on all six seasons of MTV’s Teen Wolf and its TV movie sequel. Ashby has also acted in many films, including Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil: Extinction, Wyatt Earp and Purple Hearts.
They met on set
The young working actors met in 1985 on the set of Loving, where they played cousins Lorna and Curtis. Not long after, they were on their way down the aisle.
“We started dating in October, and we were married within six months of our first date,” Walters told Soap Opera Digest in 2022. “Years later, I said to my mom, ‘You never said anything about the fact that I was marrying this person after knowing him for less than six months and I was only 22. What were you thinking?’ ”
They’ve worked together multiple times
The couple have appeared together in several projects, including Melrose Place and Teen Wolf, in addition to their roles on The Young and the Restless. In 2022, they co-directed two Lifetime TV movies, The Wedding Arrangement and Nightmare Neighborhood Moms.
Walters and Ashby married in April 1986
The couple got engaged in January 1986 and tied the knot on April 19, 1986, at the Children’s Chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Church in N.Y.C. The actors didn’t get time off from work for their wedding and made it happen fast.
“We worked that previous Friday and that following Monday. It was kind of crazy,” Walters told Soap Opera Digest.
She and her dad ran eight miles in Central Park that morning, and she did her mom’s makeup as well as her own. On the way to the venue, the couple happened upon a horse-drawn carriage and took it to the church. The bride wore a white gown with puffed sleeves.
They have two daughters
Walters and Ashby welcomed their first daughter, Frances Grace Ashby, on June 6, 1991. Younger daughter Savannah Elizabeth Ashby joined the family on Nov. 21, 1992. The couple are also proud grandparents to Grace’s daughter, Nora Frances, born in 2022.
While their daughters are grown up, Walters and Ashby have cultivated a busy family life in Los Angeles. “She’s not my mom, but she is the mom of my kids, and the grand mom of my grandkids, and the woman I love more than anything else in the world,” Ashby wrote of his wife on Mother’s Day in 2023.
They love to bike
Walters, Ashby and their kids love to hit the bike trail as a family, according to her Instagram. They have traveled around the country to enjoy the scenery on two wheels, and baby Nora even has her own stationary bike! Ashby also enjoys surfing and golfing.
Walters and Ashby returned to The Young and the Restless after a 20-year break
Walters first played Diane on Y&R from 2001 to 2004. The actress returned briefly in early 2010; in October, actress Maura West took over the role until Diane was presumed dead in 2011. But in true soap opera fashion, the character returned 11 years later to reveal she had actually faked her death.
“It just felt like we had just done this, you know, it didn’t feel like 20 years have passed,” Walters told PEOPLE of her return to Genoa City.
Ashby also returned to Y&R after a long hiatus; in 2003, he departed the series when his character Cameron was sent to prison for murder. In 2023, Cameron returned after being released from prison, vowing to get revenge on Sharon Newman. She later kills him.