Melody Thomas Scott — things you didn't know about The Young and the Restless star

Melody Thomas Scott has been acting since she was a child, but to devoted fans around the world, she is best known as Nikki Newman on The Young And The Restless. There’s much more to Melody Thomas Scott than just playing Nikki Newman, however.

Generations of The Young And The Restless fans have grown up with Nikki Newman, one of the longest continuously appearing characters on the show. But fans may not know that Melody Thomas Scott has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Here's more on that and other interesting facts you might not know about Melody Thomas Scott.

Melody Thomas Scott was taught by one of the best acting coaches in Hollywood

Thomas Scott started her acting career as a toddler, and she grew up with the guidance of one of the most experienced and well-known acting coaches in Hollywood. Ethel Meglin, the coach who also worked with screen legends Shirley Temple and Judy Garland, was Melody Thomas Scott’s first acting coach.

Her first film role was in a classic Alfred Hitchcock movie

Thanks to her natural talent and the skilled coaching she received, Thomas Scott was cast as the younger version of actress Tippi Hedren in the famous Alfred Hitchcock film Marnie. Although she wasn’t exactly thrilled to be working with the prominent director.

On a podcast for Soap Opera Digest, she said that Hitchcock was a stern director and was a little scary since she was only eight years old at the time she worked with him.

Melody Thomas Scott worked with Hollywood legends when she was a teen

In her teens, Thomas Scott acted with several legendary actors, including John Wayne (The Shootist), Kirk Douglas (Posse) and Clint Eastwood (The Beguiled). Because she started acting so early in life, by her teens, she was already known as a hard-working and professional actress. As a child and teen, she was cast in many popular shows of the era like The Waltons and Ironside.

She appeared in the popular TV sitcom The Nanny

The Nanny was a popular sitcom in the 1990s that is finding new audiences thanks to reruns and streaming platforms (currently streaming on Peacock). Thomas Scott appeared as herself on an episode called “The Heather Biblow Story,” where Fran Fine’s nemesis, Heather Biblow, got an acting job on The Young And The Restless.

She was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her work

Even though she has never won a Daytime Emmy for her work on The Young And The Restless, in 2024, Thomas Scott and her husband, producer Edward J. Scott, were given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Television Academy in recognition of their decades of work on The Young And The Restless.

She has played the same character for more than 45 years

In 2024, Thomas Scott hit the incredible milestone of having played the same character on the same soap for 45 continuous years. In an interview with The Today Show she talked about how grateful she was to have had the opportunity to have such a long career in Hollywood, where careers often don’t last.

Melody Thomas Scott wrote a memoir

Thomas Scott got into the details of her long career as an actress, her family life and her passions in her memoir Always Young And Restless. In the book she talks her childhood, what it was like to work with screen legends, how she managed to take control of her career in a time when that was difficult for women in entertainment to do and what it’s like to have worked on a top-rated soap opera for more than 40 years.

Melody Thomas Scott Fact File

Frequently asked questions about Melody Thomas Scott: