Hunter Tylo is best known for her long-running role as Dr Taylor Hayes on daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.
Twice appearing on People magazine’s list of ’50 Most Beautiful People In The World’, Tylo was well-known for her stunning good looks and outrageous storylines.
But in real life, Tylo has been forced to endure almost as much heartache – if not more than – as the character she played, across three marriages, including to late actor Michael Tylo, the death of one of her children, and another’s childhood cancer battle.
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Born Deborah Jo Hunter on July 3, 1962, in Fort Worth, Texas, according to IMDb, Tylo started out as a fashion model in the late 1970s and early 80s before appearing in plays in Dallas, Texas.
She married first husband Tomas Morehart on July 18, 1980, just weeks after her 18th birthday. The two had already welcomed son, Christopher, but divorced in 1984.
Around that time, she appeared in the film The Initiation under her married name, Deborah Morehart.
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The following year, she won a role in the TV soap, All My Children, where she met her second husband Michael Tylo, an actor on the show.
The two married on July 7, 1987, and welcomed son Michael ‘Mickey’ Jr the following year.
Tylo began using the professional name Hunter Tylo, and in 1989 she was cast as Marina Toscano in Days of Our Lives.
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Her character was killed off after just a year, and Tylo decided to quit acting and enrolled at Fordham University in New York with plans to study pre-medicine. She and Michael were preparing to move when she was offered the role of psychiatrist Dr Taylor Hayes on The Bold and the Beautiful.
She began starring as Taylor in 1990 and the show brought instant stardom including lucrative advertising deals.
She twice appeared on People magazine’s coveted ’50 Most Beautiful People In The World’ list, including in 1993.
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Lawsuit
At the height of her fame, Tylo decided to leave The Bold and the Beautiful in 1996 to take up a role in the new primetime show Melrose Place. But before she could start filming, she was fired by producer Aaron Spelling after he found out she was pregnant.
Her role of Taylor McBride ended up going to Lisa Rinna and Tylo, who gave birth to daughter Izabella in 1997, returned to The Bold and the Beautiful.
She sued Spelling for discrimination, later winning a payout worth about $6 million.
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Daughter’s cancer
Tylo and Michael welcomed another daughter, Katya, in 1998.
But just weeks after her birth, Tylo’s mother’s intuition told her something was wrong.
She later told CNN that from two weeks of age, her daughter would cry all the time and appeared to be in pain.
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Later, Tylo noticed a problem with her daughter’s eye.
“I looked down at her and I saw something milky white beneath the black part of the pupil. When she turned her head a little, it made a red flash, similar to the way a pet looks,” she said.
Katya was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer. She underwent surgery to remove her right eye, followed by months of chemotherapy to shrink tumours in her left eye.
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Tylo later credited prayer for saving her daughter’s left eye, which at one point doctors thought would also have to be removed.
She detailed her daughter’s cancer battle in her 2000 book, Making a Miracle.
Divorce and romance with co-star
Tylo and Michael announced their separation in 2005. At the time, Soapcentral.com quoted Tylo as saying it was her husband’s choice to move out and she didn’t know where he was.
Tylo said that while she did not believe in divorce, “there were a lot of issues that were not being addressed” in the marriage.
The couple had separated once before in 1994 before reconciling, but Tylo did not hold out much hope they would get back together and they eventually divorced.
Following the separation, Tylo went headlong into a romance with co-star Ronn Moss, who played her onscreen on-off husband Ridge Forrester, although she did not reveal this until a 2014 interview with Aussie publication New Idea.
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She said her connection with Moss started as soon as they began working together in 1990, but at the time they were both married.
“I was married to Michael Tylo. He was very threatened by Ronn and the chemistry we had onscreen – we definitely connected with an intense passion. So I did everything in my power to push Ronn away,” she said.
She said nothing happened between the pair until she returned to the show in 2005.
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“We were both single, and I guess we finally felt free to show our feelings for each other without the fear of upsetting our spouses,” she said.
Son’s death
In 2007, Tylo’s son Michael Jr was found dead in a swimming pool at her Las Vegas home.
Reuters reported at the time that Michael, then 19, was found fully clothed in the pool.
He had been at the house with his older brother Christopher when he suffered a seizure and fell into the pool.
The actress was at her Los Angeles home when she learned of his death. She later joined forces with The American Epilepsy Outreach Foundation to raise awareness about the condition.
In an interview with Soap Opera Digest in 2008, she revealed her son first started having seizures in 2005 and they worsened over time but claimed a therapist discouraged him from taking medication.
“If he had been treated at an earlier stage with a much more aggressive approach, the seizures wouldn’t have built upon themselves to the magnitude they did,” she said.
“There’s a part of my heart and soul that can never be replaced or healed. There are no words for that kind of loss. I watched him grow up for 19 years,” she said.
“I go to Mickey’s grave site a lot and tell him that I’m going to do everything I can to help other people.”
Remarriage and annulment
In 2008, Tylo filed a restraining order against then boyfriend, Corey Cofield, claiming he had acted violently towards her and her children.
On November 29, 2009, Tylo married Canadian artist, producer, songwriter and manager Gerson Archila in a private ceremony in Las Vegas just 27 days after their first date.
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The star released a statement at the time which said, “God has blessed me in the most special of ways… God has redeemed my life and future. My season of sadness has ended. We are a very happy family.”
In 2009, the National Enquirer referred to his “bad boy past.”
The marriage was annulled on August 30, 2018, reportedly due to Gersson’s “poor moral character” after he was found to have hidden details of his past, including convictions for spousal abuse, automobile theft, drug paraphernalia and false identity.
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After years of playing Dr Taylor Hayes on The Bold and the Beautiful, including from 1990 to 2002, 2004 to 2014, and 2018 to 2019, Tylo left the show for good in 2019.
The role was played by Krista Allen from 2021 to 2023 before Rebecca Budig took over the role this year. Not much is known about what Tylo, now 62, has been up to since leaving the series.
She is thought to live in California. A Facebook page purporting to be hers has not been updated since 2018.
If you need someone to talk to about domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT or visit White Ribbon Australia at whiteribbon.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
