How old is Donna on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful?’

CBS’s The Bold and the Beautiful is more than three years older than I am, which should effectively shut down any arguments over the soap’s longevity.

Paired with fellow drama-soaked favorite The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful — commonly referred to as B&B — serves as one of the longest-running soap operas of all time. Its got some steep competition, in the forms of nearly century-old favorites like Guiding Light, but The Bold and the Beautiful has officially put out more than 9,000 episodes. That’s a lot of content, and through it all Donna Logan’s been a mainstay. She debuted with the show back in 1987, and her character’s appeared in a huge number of those 9,000 episodes that followed. She’s a staple of the longstanding program, and an enduring crowd favorite.

How old is The Bold and the Beautiful‘s Donna?

Donna’s been around from the very start, but her character’s portrayal by three separate actresses cause plenty of confusion among the Bold and the Beautiful fanbase. She was originally brought to life, between 1987 and 2001, by Carrie Mitchum, with a brief gap in 1991, when the character was played by Mary Sheldon. Donna took a few years off from serving as a central character between 2001 and 2006, when Jennifer Gareis took over the role.

When she first entered the story, Donna was still in the prime of her youth. She went from a lovelorn teen to a matchmaking adult over the course of a dozen or so seasons, gradually maturing alongside her sister, Katie. She took several hiatuses from the show, most notably that five-year gap between 2001 and 2006, and returned with plenty of drama in tow. It was soon revealed that a child she’d given up as a teen was working for her new husband’s company, and Donna soon became a young grandmother, alongside her long-lost high school fling.

These days, she’s listed among B&B‘s best characters ever, and for good reason. Based on the show’s timeline, and using my own father as a comparison, it seems like Donna is likely in her late 40s to early 50s. She was in high school back in the late 80s, after all, and — while the show doesn’t precisely mirror the real-world passage of time — her status as a grandmother all but necessitates that she’s at least in her 40s. She had Marcus when she was 18, and if he’s old enough to have a child of his own she’s almost certainly left her 30s behind.

No matter what age she’s supposed to be in the show, Donna looks great, and she’s got plenty of drama to help keep her young.