Scott Jenkins braved lions and elephants, but almost got wiped out by Santa Barbara !

 Soap Net, 1987

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Scott Jenkins took the long road to Hollywood. Born in Ohio, under the sign of Taurus, he wasn't quite sure where to call home. His father worked for The Voice of America and his job forced the family to move around a lot. "We spent five years in Washington, D.C.," Scott explained, "then four years in Nairobi, Kenya, back to D.C. for three more years, then four additional years in Kenya, three years in Taiwan, where I attended high school and started my radio career on the Arms Forces Network. Next, I returned to D.C. and worked for WPGC-FM for two years, six months as WIFI-FM in Philadelphia, then a hitch working for Trans-America Video in Los Angeles for six months, a year in D.C. at WPGC-FM again and four years in Denver with KIMN-AM and KPKE-FM."

"After ten years in radio, I started getting bored. I got an agent in Denver, did some television commercials, radio voice-overs, and hosted television movies on a local station. Then one day I got a call to read for Search for Tomorrow, but I didn't get the part. A while later, Paul Decker came through town and read me for an NBC soap, but nothing came of it, either. Then in October, my agent called and told me they were reading four actors in Denver for a part on Santa Barbara. I read on a Tuesday and was told on Wednesday they were screentesting two of us... I was one of the two ! When I arrived in Los Angeles, I found there were two of us from Denver, two from L.A. and two from New York. When I flew back to Denver after the test I figured I didn't get the part. Thursday, I got a call from my agent that they had decided to use me as Brian Bradford. They wanted me to fly out on Friday and start shooting on Monday. I quit my job at the radio station, gave up the house I was living in and prepared to fly to L.A.. Just before leaving for the airport, I was celebrating with my agent when word came they had decided to cast Kyle Secor, who tested at the same time as me, in the role of Brian. I was standing there with a glass of champagne in my hand at the time. But, the story does have a happy ending... Three hours later they called back and said I had the role of Warren Lockridge."

"So I moved to L.A. as planned, but they decided to end some storylines before bringing Warren back. They told me to get a lot of sun and work out of a gym while I was waiting to start. I also used the time to drive around L.A. and get to know the area. I had only a couple of days to find a place to live and I needed a place that would allow my dog, a Malymute named Chai. Chai is a sled dog and is part wolf !"

Had Scott watched many soaps before joining daytime television ? "I usually worked nights at my radio jobs so the only soap I ever got to watch much was General Hospital because it came on later in the day than most of the others. Santa Barbara is on at 10 a.m. in Denver, and if I woke up early and turned the TV on, I would watch it through one eye. I really didn't have much time to watch TV, I did a lot of skiing and bike riding on my 10 speed bike."

We asked Scott to share something of his Kenya experience with us and he offered. "My parents, who have retired and now live in Huntsville, Ohio, and I lived in Ngong Hills, outside Nairobi where we raised horses and chickens. We used to have leopards came through our place a lot. One almost got one of our dogs. Monkeys would came through, raid the chicken coop and throw eggs around. One time, while on safari, we came face to face with a lion and had elephants march through our camp, we had to run to our Rover until they'd gone !" Scott hopes this job on Santa Barbara lasts a long time... afterall, he's already been through being fired from the show once !