Co-stars pay tribute to YR star St. John
Co-stars past and present are remembering Young and the Restless actor Kristoff St. John, who died on Sunday after being found in a home in California. He was 52.
Eric Braeden, who plays the menacing Victor Newman on the show, tweeted that he had “no words” after the death of his “brotha” on Monday. The longtime soap star expanded on his thoughts in an interview with People magazine.
Braeden explained how St. John was affected by the loss of his son Julian, who died of an apparent suicide in 2014 while in a mental health facility.
“He was deeply, deeply caring about his son and deeply wounded by his son’s death,” Braeden told the outlet.
“I think we all sort of tiptoed around what obviously weighed most heavily on his heart and his soul — and that is the death of his son,” Braeden said. “How do you discuss something so fundamentally tragic as that with even a friend? You don’t want to touch that wound.”
One of Braeden’s most vivid memories of his co-star was watching St. John deliver the eulogy at Julian’s funeral.
“That was one of the most moving moments I’ve ever been a part of,” he said.
Remembering his colleague’s warmth, Braeden said: “Colleagues loved him, the crew loved him, I don’t think a person that he worked with didn’t love Kristoff. He was just a great guy — funny, intelligent [and] always would listen to what anyone had to say about anything.”
Braeden also spoke of St. John’s professionalism and how he made working on a soap opera look easy.
“He knew his stuff,” he said. “Doing daytime is far harder than theatre or nighttime or film. Far harder. People have pages of dialogue to run and what we do as actors is we memorize it to the point that it becomes real. That sounds easy, but it’s difficult. He was a master at it.”