31 Facts About Eve Russell

Eve Russell is a fictional character on the American soap opera Passions, which aired on NBC from 1999 to 2007 and on DirecTV from 2007 to 2008.

Eve Russell's casting was part of NBC's attempt to include a racially diverse ensemble on daytime television.

Eve Russell based her performance on Joanne Woodward's role in the 1957 film The Three Faces of Eve and Catherine Halsey from Ayn Rand's 1943 novel, The Fountainhead.

Eve, part of Passions Russell family, is introduced as the perfect wife of T C Russell and mother of Whitney and Simone.

Eve Russell received eight nominations for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series, winning at the 38th NAACP Image Awards.

Eve Russell initially rejected the offer to play Eve Russell, but she was repeatedly contacted by NBC about the role over several months before her agent convinced her to audition for Passions' casting director Jackie Briskey.

Eve Russell has cited Eve as helping to expand the TV representation of African Americans and interracial relationships.

The soap opera's official website stated that Eve Russell was the "beautiful and compassionate town doctor" who was enjoying a successful career; she was described as an altruist by John Berlau of The Atlas Society.

The actress had a more difficult time when Eve Russell began behaving in morally questionable ways to protect secrets about her past.

Eve Russell felt that the change in Eve's character made the role challenging on an emotional level, comparing the experience to "getting a jail sentence and you're expected to go along with it without any explanation" or "the gods messing with somebody with no reason but to mess with them".

Eve Russell later connected Eve's shame of her past life with Julian and inability to tell her family to Lavinia Kingsley's regrets about her youth in the 2002 comedy film The Banger Sisters.

Ross added that Eve Russell respected Ivy's "ability to take charge" instead of "always tiptoeing around and walking on eggshells".

Eve Russell understood Ivy's schemes to blackmail Eve as an attempt at a deeper connection; as "the closest thing to a friend that Ivy had", Eve interpreted their relationship as a desire for friendship.

Eve Russell felt Eve was written as a fully realized person with her own story, rather than as a "walking, living philosophical statement" about race relations.

Eve Russell went on to equate the Julian and Eve's love story to that of Romeo and Juliet.

The series changed Eve Russell's family, identifying her parents as Warren Johnson and Ruby Lincoln and introducing Mr Sanbourne as her stepfather and Liz Sanbourne as her adoptive sister.

Eve Russell becomes close friends with fellow jazz singer Crystal Harris.

Crystal, the only person Eve Russell tells about her pregnancy, helps deliver her son.

Eve Russell marries T C and has two children, Whitney and Simone.

In 2002, Liz arrives in Harmony to seek revenge on her sister, who left her in an abusive household, but Eve Russell keeps Liz's identity as her adoptive sister a secret from her family and the town.

Overwhelmed by Liz's desire for vengeance and the search for her child, Eve Russell is unaware of Whitney's relationship with Chad.

However, Eve Russell cannot accept her son's criminality and incestuous, adulterous affair with Chad Harris-Crane and begins abusing drugs and alcohol.

Eve Russell dies, but is resurrected when witch Tabitha Lenox renounces magic and becomes a born-again Christian.

Several Eve Russell-related items were offered for sale, including a medical coat splattered with blood from her botched surgery on Julian and a framed copy of her medical degree.

Eve Russell appreciated the show's representation of "a full African American family" on daytime television with serious storylines, not "just a flash in the pan".

Eve Russell said the chance to work with Tracey Ross, who he called the it girl for the African American community following her appearance on Star Search, influenced his acceptance of the role.

Eve Russell said that Vincent giving birth to his father's child made her "physically nauseous" and she could only complete the birth scenes after the show's acting coach, Maria O'Brien, convinced her of "[their] comedic possibilities".

Eve Russell has been widely praised by television critics and viewers.

Eve Russell was listed as number eight of the top-ten most beautiful soap actresses by TV Guide, who called her the show's most talented actress.

Coker argued that Eve Russell turned Julian into a "harmless, gentle, lost soul", and preferred the times when Julian was a "drinking, cheating louse" instead.

The role of Eve Russell earned Ross several award nominations, and she was praised for her representation of an African American character on daytime television.