Susan Walters Has a Higher Net Worth Than Many Soap Opera Stars (2024)

Taking a look at a celebrity’s net worth has become a way to gauge their success and influence in the entertainment industry and beyond. When it comes to actors, there is certainly something of a hierarchy for status, and soap opera stars frequently make less than their primetime and big-screen counterparts.

A possible exception, however, comes from Susan Walters. Walters — who recently returned toThe Young and the Restless — has a higher net worth than many other stars in daytime soaps.

Susan Walters got her start in soap operas

Susan Walters moved from Atlanta to New York when she was 18 with her sights set on breaking into the entertainment industry. She found a successful path through modeling and TV advertisem*nts, and in 1983, she got her first big break: a recurring role on an ABC soap calledLoving. As Walters’ IMDb profile shows, a few other TV appearances dot her filmography in the 1980s. She had a recurring role onHotel and another onNightingales.

The following decade saw her jumping from TV role to TV role with parts onDear John,Melrose Place, andThe Big Easy. It wasn’t until 2001 that Walters landed the part that made her most famous: Diane Jenkins onThe Young and the Restless.

Susan Walters has a high net worth for a soap opera star

Walters took over the part of Diane Jenkins from actor Alex Donnelley. The established character took a dramatic turn and went from a heroine of Genoa City to a troublemaker, and Walters portrayed her from 2001 to 2004. After that, the part was revived in 2010 with actor Maura West in the role. That revival was short-lived as Diane became the victim of one of the show’s famed murder mystery plots.

Being dead is no barrier on soap operas, and fans were delighted to see Diane Jenkins come back to Genoa City in recent episodes. They were even more delighted that Susan Walters came back to take on the part — though she almost missed the phone call about the revival!

Getting to reprise her part onThe Young and the Restless also gave Walters’ considerable net worth an additional bump. The star is worth an estimated $4 million according to Celebrity Net Worth.

‘Young and the Restless’ is known for higher salaries

Many soap opera stars are not paid as much as their primetime counterparts despite what is often grueling film schedules and fast-paced demands for script memorization. Since most soaps air daily and can total thousands of episodes over their run, the set is run much different from a primetime series that only airs for a season at a time. The huge cast and limited budget means that many soap opera stars are not raking in the riches the way other actors are.

That said,The Young and the Restless is known for being among the highest-paying soap operas. The long-running soap has managed to stay on the air while many of its daytime competitors were taken over by cooking-centered programming and talk shows. WhileAll My Children,As the World Turns, andOne Life to Live all saw their runs come to an end,The Young and the Restless keeps trucking along and has been since 1973. Some actors have been in their roles with the series for decades, and Genoa City shows no signs of wrapping up its drama anytime soon.

Diane Jenkins’ return is just one of the ways that the show creators keep fans abuzz about the series. Their higher-than-average salaries allow them to entice headline-grabbing stars into helping them generate even more attention.