Michelle Stafford on AllMovie

Michelle Stafford launched a successful modeling career in her early twenties that led to her spending her formative years in Italy, where she quickly picked up the Italian language. She returned to the United States with a desire to act, and soon landed a part on the soap opera Tribes. She made a number of one-off appearances on television programs throughout the '90s, and also worked in theater. In 1994, the producers of The Young and the Restless cast Stafford as Phyllis Summers Newman, and she quickly became one of the most popular and respected performers in the cast, earning multiple Daytime Emmy awards and other industry accolades.