Bobbie Eakes Bio
(Episode 522-)
Bobbie Eakes stars as Macy Alexander Forrester, the daughter of fashion mogul Sally Spectra, on the daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful.
Bobbie has been able to explore a character battling a myriad of problems, including a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, alcoholism, and throat cancer, while always struggling to find happiness with the love of her life, Thorne Forrester. In 1998, she earned the Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress.
"On the surface, Macy is sort of the girl next door," Bobbie explains. "She's very likable yet she has a lot of complexities. She's an alcoholic and has gotten into a lot of trouble because of it. But her struggles also make her very human."
The youngest of five daughters born to an Air Force family in Warner Robins, Georgia, Bobbie began her entertainment career as a young girl performing as part her sisters' singing group. She joined her first professional band at the age of 16 as the lead singer in a traditional country and blue grass band near Macon, Georgia. "Stagecoach was the name of the band and it was all retirees and me," Bobbie recalls with a smile. "The leader of the band was a retired doctor and built a music hall out in the middle of nowhere. It was a family venue, no alcohol, just bring the kids and dance and listen to bluegrass and standards and traditional songs. He heard me sing in a musical in high school and asked me to be their lead singer. It was great. These guys just wanted to get up there and have fun and we did."
Later, following in her sisters' footsteps, Bobbie competed in the Miss Georgia Pageant. She was the second sister in the family to win the title of Miss Georgia and emerged from the Miss America Pageant as a Top Ten Finalist.
Shortly after, Bobbie moved Los Angeles to pursue her musical career. She sang with several Los Angeles based bands and did session and demo work. She was singing in a club when she was asked to audition for the band, Big Trouble. The band signed to Epic Records and recorded an album produced by Grammy and Oscar winner, Giorgio Moroder.
"When I moved to LA I was very determined not to spread myself too thin," Bobbie recalls. "I thought it would be best to concentrate on one thing and my first love was music. But, one of the first things to happen for Big Trouble was that we were hired to be the house band on a television comedy series. When we did that, they started using some members of the band for small bit parts in the comedy sketches."
After working with great comic actors like Jan Hooks and Kevin Pollack, Bobbie started building her television credits with guest roles on primetime sitcoms and drama series. After Big Trouble broke up due to creative differences, Bobbie read for the role of Macy on The Bold and the Beautiful.
"I thought it would be a six month role and it turned out to be 11 years," Bobbie said. "The great part for me, because I really was a singer first, is that they immediately started having me sing on the show with my co-star, Jeff Trachta who played Thorne. We got creative with video montages and in European markets they started cutting them from the show and putting them in rotation on their video shows."
The demand for music from the characters Macy and Thorne in Europe lead to a recording contract with a record label in Amsterdam. Bobbie and Jeff had a No. 1 hit with the cover tune What's Forever For. Bobbie and Jeff recorded an album and began a concert tour, playing to sold-out crowds all over Europe, South Africa and Australia.
Although her music career was quite successful, it was based on romantic ballads from The Bold and the Beautiful story lines. "I wanted to get more into the music that I grew up singing," Bobbie says. "I've always loved country music and that's the kind of music I wanted to record." Bobbie headed to the country music capitol, Nashville, Tennessee, to work with noted producer Don Cook. Her duet with country star Collin Raye, Tired Of Loving This Way became a video hit and introduced Bobbie to legions of country music fans.
In the spring of 2001, Bobbie began filling in as a host on the Great American Country video network. In June, the network offered Bobbie a full-time position as the host of their all-request video show, CRL. "Ironically, I studied broadcast journalism at the University of Georgia and the practical side of me intended to finish my education and work in broadcasting," Bobbie says. "When I finally made a decision to go to LA and pursue music, I had the idea in my head that I could always go back and get my degree. Even though I got sidetracked, it's always been in the back of my mind. So when the CRL hosting job became available, I was very excited."
The hosting gig isn't all that awaited Bobbie when she moved to Nashville. On moving day, Bobbie read for the role of Mama in the feature film Charlie’s War. Bobbie's co-stars include Lynn Redgrave, Olympia Dukakis and Diane Ladd. “I play Charlie's mom," Bobbie says. "Charlie is a six year old in 1944. The movie tells the story from Charlie's point of view. She lives with her mother and grandmother at her grandmother's house while her father is fighting WWII. That experience affected her as an adult and lead to relationship problems with her sister. The film is played in flashbacks and at the end, Olympia Dukakis, who is Charlie as an adult, has to work out the issues with her sister—played by Diane Ladd—by reflecting back on the summer of 1944. Most of my scenes were with Lynn Redgrave, who played my mother-in-law in the 1944 scenes. I learned so much from Lynn. She was a joy to work with and taught a lot of us from her experience."
Bobbie made a sensational return to the character of Macy Alexander when her character was brought back from the dead, only to have her die again in a freak accident. "You never know (this is daytime), I may still be back," Bobbie admits.
Bobbie lives in New York with her husband, writer/actor David Steen. She celebrates her birthday on July 25th, stands 5' 5" and has brown hair and hazel eyes.
