Victoria Rowell

A highly attractive, black actress who spent much of the 1990s doing double duty on CBS--in daytime as Drucilla Barber Winters on "The Young and the Restless" and in primetime as pathologist Dr Amanda Bentley on "Diagnosis Murder." Victoria Rowell was nominated for Daytime Emmy Awards for during her years (1990-98) on "The Young and the Restless" but is probably recognizable to an entirely different audience as Eddie Murphy's lobbyist love interest in the 1992 feature film "The Distinguished Gentleman."

Born in Portland, Maine, she spent much of her youth as a foster child. At age 15, she joined the American Ballet Theatre's junior company but eventually gravitated to acting. A protege of Bill Cosby, Rowell made her film debut in "Leonard, Part VI" (1987) and than several appearances on "The Cosby Show" (NBC). She went on to hone her thespian skills in recurring roles on NYC-based daytime dramas like "One Life to Live" (ABC) and "As the World Turns" (CBS) before heading to L.A. to join "The Young and the Restless." Within three years, Rowell was cast in the primetime series as well, juggling both with motherhood.

CBS supported the actress and also tapped her for showcase assignments like hosting "All American Thanksgiving Day Parade" in both 1995 and 1996 and the "Orange Bowl Parade" in 1996. She added TV-movies to her credits, appearing alongside Mario Van Peebles in "Full Eclipse" (HBO, 1993), fighting a force turning cops into werewolves, and played a special prosecutor investigating a murder in the family of a law enforcer in "Secret Sins of the Father" (NBC, 1994).

Rowell had one of her most sensuous roles as a woman who feigns illness to lure a philandering doctor to her bedside in "Dr. Hugo," a short directed by Kasi Lemmons, which has often appeared on the Lifetime Channel packaged with other short films directed by women. Rowell also co-starred in the feature film "Dumb and Dumber" (1994) as the athletic beauty to tussles with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, and in "Barb Wire" (1996) as a futurist rebel.