Bianca Montgomery | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Eden Riegel as Bianca Montgomery
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All My Children character | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Duration | 1988–98, 2000–11, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||
First appearance | February 8, 1988 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Last appearance | July 15, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Created by | Lorraine Broderick | ||||||||||||||||||||
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One Life to Live | ||||||||||||||||||||
Classification | Former, regular | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Residence | Pine Valley, Pennsylvania | ||||||||||||||||||||
Christina Bennett Lind as Bianca Montgomery
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Family | Kane |
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Parents |
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Half-brothers |
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Half-sisters |
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Wife | Reese Williams (2009–11) |
Daughters |
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Grandparents |
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Aunts and uncles |
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Nephews |
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First cousins |
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Bianca Montgomery is a fictional character from the American daytime drama All My Children. Until Eden Riegel assumed the role, portraying the character from July 2000 to January 2010, the character was portrayed solely by child actresses; Lacey Chabert, Nathalie Paulding, Gina Gallagher, Caroline Wilde and Jessica Leigh Falborn. When Riegel decided to permanently exit the role, plans to recast were confirmed; in June 2010, Christina Bennett Lind replaced Riegel, and remained on the series through the original television finale episode, which aired September 23, 2011. In February 2013, it was announced that Riegel would be reprising her role as Bianca in a guest-arc on Prospect Park's continuation of All My Children.
Bianca is scripted as the daughter of Erica Kane and the late Travis Montgomery, born onscreen on February 8, 1988. Her birthday was revised to February 9, 1984 on January 31, 2002 by the show's producers, and her age was stated as 16 in 2000. The middle name given to the character is Christine, after her paternal aunt, Christine Montgomery, and she is portrayed as sweet-natured and well-loved in the fictional community of Pine Valley. Shown to suffer from Reye's syndrome in infancy, as well as anorexia nervosa later in life, she overcomes both with the significant aid of her family.
Outside of fiction, Bianca has emerged as a gay icon within the LGBT community. Newspapers such as The New York Times cite her as the first lead character on a major daytime drama to be a lesbian, and The Advocate calls her "the most famous gay soap role of all time." She has been the subject and study of various academic works, said to have inspired soap opera writers to begin with the scripting of sexual identities of tortured teen characters, and is a heroine. Under Riegel's portrayal, her popularity has been cited as groundbreaking.