Young And Restless Rewind: Sharon Case Marks 30 Years As Sharon!

On September 7, 1994, Sharon Case assumed the role of Sharon Collins on Young and Restless, which had previously been played for a short time by Monica Potter and Heidi Mark. As the Daytime Emmy-winning star marks the 30^th anniversary of her debut, Soap Opera Digest looks back on the epic storylines she has played out as Sharon.

1994-1999

Sharon Collins was introduced as a teenage beauty from a family of modest means who caught the eye of Nicholas Newman, the wealthy son of tycoon Victor and his wife, Nikki, despite his involvement with Amy Wilson. Nick wooed Sharon away from the guy she’d been dating, Matt Clark. Vengeful Matt then raped Sharon, who was tormented by memories of the vicious attack but kept mum both to Nick and to her mother, Doris. Nikki was opposed to Nick and Sharon’s relationship, characterizing her as a gold-digger. After Nick and Sharon got engaged, Matt spitefully told Nick the secret Sharon had been harboring: when she was 16, she’d gotten pregnant by her high school boyfriend, Frank Barritt, and given up the resulting baby for adoption. Later, Nick learned about the rape and went off to confront Matt, only to find him lying in a pool of blood after being shot. Amy was the shooter, but Matt pointed the finger at Nick, who went to jail. Once he was exonerated, Sharon and Nick tied the knot in 1996.

Royal Flush: Case told Soap Opera Digest in 2022 that she “felt like a princess” in the gown Sharon wore at her first wedding to Nick (Joshua Morrow).

Sharon got pregnant but went into early labor after falling on the ice. Little Noah was born prematurely but pulled through. Meanwhile, Sharon’s best friend from home, Grace Turner, along with her boyfriend, Tony Viscardi, tracked down the little girl Sharon had given up for adoption, Cassie, who had been adopted by neglectful Alice Johnson. Alice’s mother, Millie, agreed to let them bring Cassie to Genoa City. Grace kept Cassie’s true identity from Sharon and seduced Nick. Nick had a bad reaction when Cassie’s true identity came to light, but came around, and Cassie moved in with Sharon, Nick and baby Noah. Their happy family was splintered, however, when Sharon found out about Nick’s affair with Grace. Sharon and Nick reunited when Alice resurfaced to fight for custody of Cassie. In the end, Sharon and Nick prevailed, and Nick legally adopted Cassie. Sharon and Nick became the proprietors of Crimson Lights.

Mother May I: Case admitted to Digest in 2023 that when Sharon first became a mother with the introduction of baby Noah and young Cassie (Camryn Grimes), “I was kind of blindsided because I had also just never thought about it. I play a character who is younger than I am in real life, so motherhood just wasn’t something I thought would be coming around the bend anytime soon.”

2000-2004

After a stint in prison, Matt returned to town with a new face and an alias, Carter Mills. As Carter, he framed Nick for drug-dealing and cozied up to an unwitting Sharon. “Carter” drugged Sharon and made several attempts to rape her. He wound up dying, but not before claiming to Nick that he had raped Sharon again. So, when Sharon learned she was pregnant, she fretted that the baby could be Matt’s. Nick and Sharon fought over the paternity test he demanded, and Sharon ended up giving birth to a stillborn girl, who proved to be Nick’s biologically. Sharon blamed Nick for the baby’s sad fate and in 2002, after she spied Nick smooching another woman, she herself landed in bed with another man, Diego Guittierez. She and Nick worked things out, but when she confessed to her tryst with Diego, he jumped in bed with Grace. Nick and Sharon separated, and Nick was floored when he saw Sharon kissing his father, Victor! Her life in shambles, Sharon decided to leave town. When she returned months later, she and Nick reconciled.

Eyes On The Prize: Cameron’s (Linden Ashby) early obsession with Sharon fuels story to this day.

In 2003, when Cameron Kirsten showed up in town to make a business deal with Newman, Sharon panicked — while out of town, she had slept with Cameron, and after, he had beaten her badly. Cameron threatened to tell Nick that they’d been lovers. He lured Sharon to a hotel room and tried to rape her. In self-defense, she struck him with a champagne bottle, seemingly killing him. Larry Warton took Sharon and Nikki into the sewers, where he had moved the body. But surprise! The corpse turned out to belong to Frank, Cassie’s bio dad. Sharon became a suspect in his death and as for Cameron, he was very much alive and had framed Sharon for Frank’s murder. Nick and Sharon ultimately cleared her name and turned Cameron over to the police. Sharon became the spokesperson for Jabot (and later, for Newman’s line of cosmetics).

2005-2009

Sharon’s life took a devastating turn when Cassie sneaked out of the house to a party and got behind the wheel of a car when an inebriated Daniel Romalotti passed out. She crashed the vehicle and eventually passed away. As they reeled from Cassie’s death, Sharon and Nick grew apart. Sharon slept with Brad Carlton — her sister-in-law Victoria’s husband — after discovering that Nick was having an affair with Phyllis. Sharon went through a kidnapping ordeal, taken captive by a past enemy of Brad’s alongside J.T. Hellstrom. Once she was saved, Sharon and Nick divorced, and Sharon took up with Jack Abbott. Phyllis blackmailed Sharon over the affair, and in 2007, while they bickered on a cliff, Sharon’s bestie, Drucilla Winters, tried to run interference. Dru slipped to her presumed death. Sharon wed Jack, then survived a plane crash and the collapse of Clear Springs’s underground parking structure. Jack, Nick, Phyllis and Sharon collaborated on a new magazine, Restless Style. Sharon slept with Nick and Billy, and also began having blackouts and shoplifting. When Sharon learned she was pregnant, she didn’t know who the father was (Billy, Jack or Nick). She reconciled with Jack, but Jack flipped when he found out she’d been intimate with his brother. A paternity test determined that Nick was the father of the baby girl Sharon was expecting (just as Cassie had prophesized). She and Jack divorced. Nabbed for theft, Sharon was institutionalized. In the mental hospital, she gave birth, but thanks to the trickery of Adam Newman and Dr. Taylor, her newborn, Faith, was given to an unwitting Ashley, while Sharon was told her baby had died. Sharon took up with Adam and married him.

Hope Springs Eternal: Sharon found what she believed would be a lasting love with Adam (then-Michael Muhney). Case told Digest in 2018 that she and Muhney “performed very similarly as actors, like we had both trained in the same acting class. We would go at our scenes in a very different way than how I worked with anyone else here. Rehearsals were always fun and interesting with him.” 

2010-14

The truth about baby Faith unraveled in 2010 and Ashley returned the baby girl to Sharon. Her marriage to Adam was over, and Nick and Sharon got engaged again — but he called it off when she slept with Adam. Sharon was found guilty of murdering Skye Lockhart (she was, of course, innocent); Adam helped her escape from the courthouse, but she was carjacked and presumed dead. After a romance with a vet in Arizona, Sam Gibson, Sharon was extradited back to Genoa City in 2011. Sharon’s attorney, Avery Clark (Phyllis’s sister), got her a new trial and eventually the charges were dropped. Sharon blasted Adam for withholding evidence that could have exonerated her months prior, but soon fell back into bed with him. Nick and Sharon battled for custody of Faith. In 2012, the Newmans were floored when Sharon married Victor. The union was annulled after Sharon bedded Adam, but soon, she rekindled things with Victor and they remarried. Victor promptly vanished; Sharon used his proxy to seize control of Newman (temporarily). Sharon began stealing again, had Victor declared legally dead and tied the knot with Tucker McCall. Victor returned to town and had their marriage annulled. He also had Sharon arrested for fraud, among other charges. At a psychological low, Sharon set the Newman ranch house ablaze! Adam covered for her as she fell under suspicion of arson. Sharon was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and wrestled with her feelings for Adam. Sharon tampered with Summer’s paternity test so that it would indicate that Jack, not Nick, was the father of Phyllis’s daughter — a misdeed she confessed to a hallucination of Cassie. Phyllis caught on, but before she could expose her, she fell down a flight of stairs and was rendered comatose in 2013. Sharon plotted to thwart Nick’s marriage to Avery. Nick realized Sharon was not taking her medication, but she eventually went back on her meds. Sharon and Nick became lovers again in 2014, but Sharon was experiencing jarring encounters with an apparition of Cassie. “Cassie” turned out to be a young woman named Mariah, who had been hired by Victor to gaslight Sharon. Sharon grew close to Mariah, but read her the riot act when she caught Mariah trying to seduce Nick. Nick then shocked her with the news that Mariah was Cassie’s twin, who had been snatched at birth by cult leader Ian Ward. Mariah and Sharon began to forge a mother-daughter relationship, and Sharon accepted Nick’s marriage proposal. But their wedding came to a halt when an out-of-her-coma Phyllis showed up! Later, Sharon was forced to confess to changing Summer’s paternity test and fleeing the scene of Phyllis’s fall. Nick dumped her.

Hello Again: Sharon learned that she had another daughter, Cassie’s twin, Mariah (Camryn Grimes).

2015-19

Nick and Sharon battled for custody of Faith; Nick won. After Sharon beat bogus murder charges (for the deaths of Austin and Courtney), she and Dylan McAvoy (Nikki’s surprise adult son with Paul Williams) became lovers. She began working at Crimson Lights and got pregnant by Dylan, but miscarried, concealing this from Dylan when he proposed. Sharon then lied to Mariah that she was pregnant again and checked herself into Fairview. Sharon was led to believe by her psychiatrist, Dr. Anderson, that she really was with child. Sharon had a hysterical pregnancy and when Dr. Anderson handed her “her” baby (who was really Nick and Sage’s son, who they believed had died), she was overjoyed. She and Dylan doted on the newborn boy, who they dubbed Sully, and tied the knot. Nick figured out that Dr. Anderson was a woman from his past out for revenge. He and Sharon discovered her dead. In time, the truth came out: Patty had killed Dr. Anderson, and Sharon got a DNA test that confirmed to her that Sully was not her child. Sage realized “Sully” was her son and confronted Sharon, but was killed in a car wreck before she could tell Nick. Sharon was ultimately forced to come clean, and both Nick and Dylan were left reeling. In 2016, Dylan signed Crimson Lights over to Sharon and went into Witness Protection. Sharon studied to become a therapist and took Scott Grainger as a lover. Sharon exposed a sex slave ring. Sharon and Scott split when he slept with Abby. In 2017, Sharon helped reveal to Nick that Christian was Adam’s son, not his, and they got close again. When Nikki clobbered J.T. to stop him from physically harming Victoria and J.T. appeared dead, Sharon colluded with Nikki, Phyllis and Victoria to hide the body. Sharon and Nick got engaged again, but she called it off over his obsession with getting back at Victor. Sharon got friendly with cop Rey Rosales and was hired by the GCPD as a victim liaison. Nick and Sharon planned yet another trip down the aisle, but she dumped Nick at the altar after learning he’d had a one-night stand with Phyllis. Sharon spilled the beans to Rey about J.T.’s “death” and Nikki, Sharon, and Victoria were convicted. Rey helped them escape to lure J.T. out of hiding, which got them out of serving time. Rey and Sharon became lovers. Sharon was rocked to encounter Adam, who had been presumed dead, and Rey called it quits with Sharon over her pull to Adam. Sharon slept with Adam, then reconsidered and got back together with Rey. Late in 2019, Sharon found a lump in her breast.

Can You Dig It? Sharon schemed with (from l.) Phyllis (then-Gina Tognoni), Victoria (Amelia Heinle) and Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) to cover up J.T.’s apparent demise at Nikki’s hands.

2019-24

Sharon underwent chemo and family and friends supported her through treatment for her cancer. Eventually, she was given a clean bill of health. Though she shared a kiss with Adam that was photographed and went public, Sharon swore to Rey (Jordi Vilasuso, below) that it didn’t mean anything and they got married. Sadly, Rey soon died after having a heart attack while driving. Sharon grieved but was delighted when Mariah wed the woman of her dreams, Tessa, and later, when they adopted a baby girl, Aria. In 2023, Sharon was horrified when Cameron Kirsten resurfaced, killed Faith’s cat, then kidnapped Faith. Nick and Sharon went after them and Sharon wound up stabbing him to death. Sharon was shocked when she subsequently inherited all of Cameron’s personal assets, including his company, Kirsten Inc. Sharon began a relationship with Chance Chancellor, but she ended it in 2024 when she realized Summer had feelings for him. Sharon then rebranded Cameron’s company, relaunching it as Cassidy First. But just when it appeared that Sharon was in a stable place, she stopped taking her meds again, and began having hallucinations — most worryingly, of Cameron….

Till Death Do Us Part: Sharon was widowed after hubby Rey (Jordi Vilasuso) suffered a fatal heart attack.