Kate Linder

Kate Linder received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 10, 2008, where then-LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Y&R co-creator Lee Phillip Bell and castmate Jeanne Cooper spoke at her well-attended ceremony. Linder is celebrating her 41st year as Esther Valentine on The Young and the Restless and she had a year-longexhibit commemorating her 40th anniversary at The Hollywood Museum last year.
 
Kate’s character travels to Los Angeles to join The Bold and the Beautiful with episodes airing every weekday from October 25 to 31. It’s a dream come true for both Kate and her character!
 
Her feature film roles include Hysteria (2012), Erased (2013), Miss Meadows (2014), Garry Marshall’s Mother’s Day (2016), Voice from the Stone (2017), The Charnel House (2017) and Echo Boomers (2020). Linder’s next feature is Charlie Matthau’s Book of Leah, and she was in Saban Films’ A Little White Lie, with Kate Hudson and Michael Shannon, that was released in theatres last March.
 
If you’re Kate Linder, you don’t quit your job as a United Airlines flight attendant because you’re cast for a one-day, one-line role on The Young and the Restless. Linder has done both jobs simultaneously for the 41 years she’s been on the #1 rated soap opera (that’s #1 for over three decades!) in daytime television — with the resulting confusion among passengers creating funny and unusual anecdotes. The passenger/fan response has been overwhelming and incredulous. Fortunately, she’s been working only the first-class section for decades and unlike Linder, none of her co-workers there have graced the covers of soap opera magazines. She was preparing for take-off on a flight when the late Johnny Grant called to inform her that she had been selected for a Star on the Walk of Fame. Linder is also active with the USO, visiting troops in the US, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Korea and Guantanamo Bay.
 
Linder was elected Governor of the Performers Peer Group last year for the TV Academy (who run the Emmy Awards) after previously serving as the Daytime Programming Peer Group Governor. She also served as a longtime board member for SAG-AFTRA.
 
Linder, as Esther Valentine (the character’s last name was the result of a national contest with Linder making the final call, as she was married on Valentine’s Day on real life), who spent decades as the confidante/ housekeeper to the soap’s wealthy and powerful matron, Katherine Chancellor (portrayed by the late Jeanne Cooper). Now her character is the manager of Crimson Lights, the soap’s local coffeehouse and hangout, and she is also the receptionist at Chancellor/Winters, the rising corporate powerhouse. Despite newer occupations, she is often called upon to add a touch of humor to the show and Esther remains perennially unlucky in love, with two brief marriages to con men only after the Chancellor fortune.  She and her boss were twice kidnapped in pursuit of that same fortune. 
 
Kate is an eternal optimist and tireless worker for many charities. She was named the celebrity spokesperson for The ALS Association in 2005 after her late brother-in-law’s diagnosis in 2004. She addressed Congress in Washington, DC and frequently lobbied Congress for more funds to fight this disease with no cure. Kate travelled the country to participate and encourage other volunteers at the ALS Association’s fundraisers and Walk to Defeat ALS events and remains very active with ALS Golden West as their celebrity ambassador. Linder is also active with many AIDS charities, Habitat for Humanity and the Los Angeles Mission. In addition, Linder has hosted annual charity teas with a rotating group of her castmates including more than 20 in Vancouver starting in1998 for Canucks for Kids and other local charities, two in Calgary and ten in Toronto for March of Dimes Canada’s Conductive Education program. She will host her next charity tea in June with a different charity. For the past several years, Linder has proudly served as a Grand Marshal for the Lupus Foundation of America’s Walk to End Lupus Now.