The soap opera “The Young and the Restless” celebrates its 50th anniversary this month as the No. 1 daytime drama for 35 consecutive years. Created by the late William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, “The Young and the Restless” concerns the goings-on of several Midwestern families. Among the cake-flinging food fights and evil twins, there have also been important firsts — it aired the first live facelift on TV, became the first daytime drama character to have a mastectomy and, perhaps most importantly, it welcomed leading Black actors in the 1980s before many other soaps.
