Eden Riegel

At 43 years old, Eden Riegel has this physical status:

Eden Sonja Jane Riegel (born January 1, 1981) is an American actress.

She portrayed Bianca Montgomery in the daytime drama All My Children, and propelled the character into a gay icon, as well as a popular figure within the medium.

Nominated previously on multiple occasions, she received a Daytime Emmy Award for the role in 2005.In addition to her work on All My Children, Riegel has guest starred in several prime time shows, as well as film, and starred as character "Eden" in the web series Imaginary Bitches.

She assumed the role of Heather Stevens on The Young and the Restless from April 2010 to November 2011.She is the voice director for Disney's animated TV series Amphibia.

Early life

Born to Kurt and Lenore Riegel on New Year's Day 1981 in Washington, D.C., Riegel was raised in a Virginia suburb and became interested in acting while watching her brother, Sam, perform dinner theater, which she later joined in for $10 a week. Her big break came when she won the role of Cosette in Les Misérables, leading to other roles on and off-Broadway. She graduated from the Professional Children's School and attended Harvard University, with ambitions to become a lawyer, but later left the institution. In 2000, she served as an intern at the White House for the summer.

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Career

Riegel portrayed Bianca Montgomery on the American ABC soap opera All My Children from July 2000 to February 2005. Bianca's daughter is kidnapped and changed with Babe Carey Chandler's son, Alexa Havins, during a 2005 baby swap storyline, Riegel also portrayed Bianca in a BBC soap opera One Life to Live. Riegel's character "comes out" to her mother, Erica Kane (Susan Lucci), becoming the first lesbian on a daytime soap opera at the time. The kiss between Bianca and character Lena Kundera (Olga Sosnovska) on American daytime television made history in 2003 when it became the first lesbian kiss to be seen on American daytime television. Bianca shares a kiss with close friend and confidante Maggie Stone (Elizabeth Hendrickson), making TV Guide's list of best same-sex kisses on television in 2005, with Lena out external. In 2004, Riegel's character was named as the first Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination's "Favorite OUT Image of the Year." Eden Riegel, the self-proclaimed lesbian community, was voted the seventh on the top ten list of Women We Love, with the comment, "We were overwhelmed with requests to add All My Children hottie Eden Riegel to our list this month."

Riegel was nominated for three Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series (2001, 2002, 2004), before winning the award in 2005. She received two Soap Opera Digest Awards in 2001 for Outstanding Female Newcomer and 2005 for Outstanding Younger Lead Actress. Riegel and his best friend and co-star Elizabeth Hendrickson left All My Children later this year, with their last show airing on February 24, 2005. Riegel continued to Los Angeles, California, to pursue other acting endeavors. In May 2005, she returned to the soap opera for a short time from December 16, 2005 to January 10, 2006. Miranda, the daughter of Bianca, was born accordingly. In a storyline relating to Bianca's sister Kendall's (Alicia Minshew) pregnancy and coma, Riegel returned to action from May 24, 2006 to mid-June. Riegel's return to All My Children as a contract player was announced in August 2006. On September 12, the actress appeared in her first scenes on television. In Los Angeles and New York, where All My Children tapes, Riegel travelled back and forth between her house and family. She departed from the show in 2007 after missing out on Kendall from Paris on August 14, 2007, and then in December for a Christmas visit.

Riegel and Tamara Braun decided to return to All My Children in 2008. Reese Williams, Bianca's new lover/girlfriend, and later wife, was a man who pushed Braun forward. Bianca's first broadcast on October 17, 2008. On October 30, 2008, Reese was followed by Reese. Riegel's return was partly to minimize the effect of Alicia Minshew's absence on the show, although Minshew's absence was partly to prevent her from attending her first wedding. The union between Reese and Bianca began in the first legal same-sex marriage in American daytime television. Riegel appeared on the show again in February 2009, but Soap Opera Digest informed her that she would return in spring 2009 to end the Reese and Bianca story.

In 2010, Riegel returned for a short time to All My Children's 40th anniversary. The character had been cited as too iconic to recast, but in 2010, Riegel resigned from the role permanently, and recast plans were subsequently revealed. Allerdings, on February 22, 2013, it was revealed that Riegel would reprise her role as Bianca in a guest-arc on the continuation of All My Children in Prospect Park.

Riegel played a small part in All My Children's daytime drama As the World Turns as an HIV patient appeared in Law & Order and depicted a minor character in the animated film American Pie. In the film The Prince of Egypt, she sang and did voice acting. She has also done voiceovers for animated TV shows such as Stitch! Bleach and Babel are two characters from the film. When portraying Bianca, she remained active in other acting fields, appearing in The Sex Lives of Superheroes in New York, playing a small guest role on American Dreams and appearing in the New York play The Sex Lives of Superheroes.

Riegel appeared in Year One, a Harold Ramis film starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, in 2008. The film is a comedy about two men wandering through history during Biblical times, and it was published in June 2009.

In the 2012 Vita port of Persona 4 Golden, Eden and her brother Sam Riegel portrayed Marie and Teddie respectively.

Riegel appeared in the web series Imaginary Bitches in 2008, portraying "Eden", a single girl who faces the painful reality that her best friends are all in serious relationships by creating some imaginary friends...which turn out to be complete b*tches. Eden's half-sister Tatiana S. Riegel, whose brother Sam Riegel wrote the script, has edited the program, and Andrew Miller created it. Heather Stevens took over the role of Heather Stevens on The Young and the Restless in 2010. She also appeared on ABC's Castle as the distraught uncle of a man who is killed in the episode.

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