Jerry Douglas

Jerry Douglas was an American actor who spent 25 years playing John Abbott, the patriarch of the fictional Genoa City, on the daytime serial The Young and the Restless. Born Gerald Rubenstein in Chelsea, Massachusetts, he studied at Brandeis University and at law school in Boston before dropping out and moving to California to audition. In March 2006, after a quarter century with the show, he departed in a storyline exit tied to the Tom Fisher murder case, and his character was killed off. He remained for several months, was returned to contract that June to play the character's ghost, and left for good on August 18, though he still made occasional appearances. In March 2008 he appeared as Alistair Wallingford, a drunken hack actor in a gaslighting plot, and was written out months later. In 2007 he released a jazz standards CD, The Best Is Yet to Come, and performed in concerts across the United States and Canada.