Gary Reynolds (deceased) Phillip Chancellor II (deceased)
Derek Thurston (divorced)
Rex Sterling (divorced, first time)
Rex Sterling (deceased, second time)
Children
Brock Reynolds (son, with Gary) Jill Foster Abbott (daughter, with Arthur Hendricks)
Katherine 'Kay' Shepard Reynolds Chancellor Thurston Sterling Sterling is a fictional character on CBS daytime soap operaThe Young and the Restless. Kay is one of the only two original characters remaining from the show's early years (along with Jill Foster Abbott).
Although she was not on the show when it debuted, actress Jeanne Cooper has portrayed the role since 1973, making her the show's longest-serving cast member.
Before the revelation that they were mother and daughter, Kay and Jill's rivalry was a key plot element.
Kay's rivalry with Jill has been a key plot element since the 1970s, when Jill had an affair with Kay's then-husband, Phillip Chancellor II (John Considine, Donnelly Rhodes), resulting in Jill becoming pregnant with his son. Phillip subsequently died in a car crash caused by a drunken Kay, putting Jill and Kay at odds from that moment on. After years of torment from Kay, Jill turned the tables on her in 1999 when she discovered a letter penned by the now-deceased Phillip, naming Jill as the sole owner of the Chancellor Estate. Jill evicted Kay, who then found a legalloophole which resulted in Kay and Jill being forced to live at the Estate together.
Kay and Jill were mortified when, in 2003, they discovered that they were in fact mother and daughter. The revelation caused Kay to have a stroke. Yet there was a greater sadness attached to this newly-revealed family connection. For years, Jill's son Billy Abbott and Kay's granddaughter Mackenzie Browning had been in love. Finally, the two were married. However, the mother-daughter connection between Kay and Jill meant that Mackenzie and Billy were first cousins. A horrified Jill managed to inform the newlyweds of the shocking news before the marriage was consummated. Heartbroken, Billy and Mackenzie had their union annulled, and the two separately left town. Jill helped her mother to recover and the two eventually resolved their differences.
Despite several obstacles along the way, the two former enemies have begun to form a true mother-daughter bond. Nevertheless, their feud was decades old, rivalled only by Kim-Susan (As the World Turns) and Viki-Dorian (One Life to Live) in longevity and popularity. It remains to be seen if Kay and Jill can continue to be cordial, but recent events are threatening to cause their deeply-rooted emnity for one another to resurface. Kay began to have disturbing nightmares involving a baby. She soon determined that they were actually fragments of a repressed memory. Eventually Kay recalled that years ago -- unable to accept the fact that Jill had given birth to a child with her deceased husband Phillip -- she kidnapped the baby, and gave him to another woman, who was to place the child with a different family. The woman then gave Kay a different baby that Jill raised as her son Phillip Chancellor III. While Jill adamantly refused to believe this at first, DNA testing of Phillip's remains has confirmed that he was not Jill's biological son.
