Actor and writer James Houghton, best known for his work in soaps, died on Aug. 27, 2024, The Hollywood Reporter has just announced. He was 75. The son of Buck Houghton (remembered for producing 102 episodes of The Twilight Zone), James began his acting career in 1959, and went on to costar in McKeever and the Colonel, The Young and the Restless (as attorney Greg Foster), Code R, Knots Landing (as ladies’ man Kenny Ward), and The Colbys (as Senator Cash Cassidy). As well as many other TV one-offs, Houghton appeared in such films as I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Sweet Sugar, One on One, and More American Graffiti. He also wrote many Y&R and The Bold and the Beautiful scripts, winning six Emmys. Shooting soaps, even into the 1980s, he said, “was what you call ‘live to tape.’ You shot the whole thing live like it was a play—there was no going back and, short of a wall falling over on somebody, really they didn’t stop tape. So you didn’t wanna have to watch the show and see your mistakes. Nobody did.” When Knots Landing came out in a DVD set, Houghton said that “I think it wasn’t seen as a great source of revenue, and so nobody fought very hard for a slice of it – and, lo and behold, it’s a huge source of revenue and we don’t really get much out of it. I don’t expect to get more than 25 cents out of – really, I literally expect to get a check for fifteen dollars and that’ll be the end of it.”
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