Krista Allen’s 1st Role Was ‘Shelley in Bikini Bar’ on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’
Krista Allen has been around the block as an actor. When she first came to Hollywood, she wasn’t that interested in a career in the limelight, but she tried her hand at it just for fun.
An early role that she landed on The Bold and the Beautiful changed her mind about being an actor and sent her down a different path. Now she’s back on the same set but in a much different role.
‘Shelly in Bikini Bar’
In an interview with Soap Opera Digest, Allen shared that when she came to Los Angeles, she wasn’t looking for a career but for adventure. However, she met someone in the business, and she seemed to land her first acting job almost on a whim.
She appeared on The Bold and the Beautiful as a character that’s only described as “Shelly in Bikini Bar,” and according to her, she wasn’t very well prepared for the role.
“I was such an incredible actress already that I kept looking directly into the camera,” she explained. “I didn’t know what a mark was. I didn’t know any of this stuff.”
The role wasn’t destined to be her big breakthrough since it was only supposed to last for two episodes. But appearing on the daytime drama did change things for Allen. As an introvert and someone who grapples with social anxiety, she found that taking on a character made it easier for her to interact with other people.
She decided to pursue acting seriously. On the advice of her manager, Allen took an acting class and actively started pursuing work. Her career soon took off.
An eclectic career
Allen’s decision to go all-in on acting quickly panned out. According to IMDb, she first landed small parts on big shows such as Married…With Children and Friends. She got her first starring role in a movie called Emmanuelle: First Contact. The saucy franchise (there were two Emmanuelle movies) featured Allen as Emmanuelle, a woman who greets intergalactic explorers to teach them about human sexuality.
Of course, not all her acting credits are about love in space. She also worked her way up to significant roles in big movies, such as Anger Management, Liar, Liar, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. In 2015, she starred in Significant Mother, a comedy on CW. She also performs as a stand-up comedian. But recently, her busy career brought her full circle.
Back to ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’
Along the way, Allen became passionate about learning about how difficult life experiences affect people.
“So I went back to school, and I started studying neuroscience and epigenetics, and I started really understanding how trauma affects the body,” she said. It was during this time that an opportunity came up to return to a set from her past.
The Bold and the Beautiful needed an actor to play Taylor Hayes, the long-time love interest of Ridge Forrester. Because of what Allen was studying, the fact that Taylor is a psychiatrist intrigued her. The List reports that in December 2021, Allen took over the role of Taylor. The character had been played by Hunter Tylo since 1990, the entire time Taylor has existed on The Bold and the Beautiful.
Naturally, viewers have been watching closely to see if Allen is able to fill Tylo’s considerable shoes. Whether it’s because of her early practice on the set as “Shelly in Bikini Bar” or just because of her skills as an actor, Allen seems to have fit into the role with ease.
