Beyond the Gates guest star Jennifer Holliday has a secret soap opera past 

Beyond the Gates is making a lot of "dreams" come true on next Friday's episode when Broadway legend Jennifer Holliday appears on the CBS soap opera. Holliday is best known for her role as Effie Melody White in Dreamgirls, which later became a motion picture! What some fans may not know is that this is not Holliday's first soap opera appearance!

Beyond the Gates, Wired for Sound

In the early 1980s, Holliday appeared on Guiding Light, playing herself. She sang at Springfield nightclub Wired for Sound, which was owned and managed by the characters of Tony Reardon (Greg Beecroft) and Floyd Parker (Tom Nielsen)

Other real-life singers who performed songs on GL during this time included The B-52's, Neil Sedaka, Bertie Higgins, and Ashford & Simpson.

Holliday sang the song "I Wanna Be Where You Are," which was written by Arthur "T-Boy" Ross and Leon Ware for Michael Jackson.

From Broadway to Springfield to Fairmont Crest

Holliday was a mere 18 years old when she landed her first Broadway show, Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, which earned her a 1981 Drama Desk Award nomination. Three years later, she landed the role of Effie Melody White in Dreamgirls, in which she sang the song "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going."

Holliday won the Tony Award, which honors the best and brightest in Broadway, in 1982 in the category of Best Leading Actress in a Musical. She also won a Grammy Award for her performance. Jennifer Hudson (The Jennifer Hudson Show) thanked Holliday in her Oscar acceptance speech when she won the Academy Award for playing Effie in the feature film Dreamgirls.

Curiously, Holliday did not have a guest spot or cameo in the Dreamgirls film, but she and Hudson appeared together on the BET Awards in 2007, as they performed "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going."

Holliday has quite a few TV credits on her resume, too. She appeared on The Love Boat as Dr. Charlene Thomas, Ally McBeal as choir director, Lisa Knowles, Happily Divorced, and Touched by an Angel.

There's no word yet on who Holliday will be interacting with on BTG. However, as viewers of the show are aware, Anita Dupree (Tamara Tunie), is a former member of The Articulettes, a singing group comprised of Anita, Sharon Winger (Bonita Brisker), and Tracy Tyler (Maria Howell). It'd be logical that Holliday knows the Articulettes from their performing days.

Currently, Anita is battling breast cancer. Perhaps, Holliday will visit the Dupree family matriarch and give her the will to live? Don't miss Holiday's guest spot on Beyond the Gates next week.

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Michele Val Jean is BTG's executive producer, creator, and head writer. The series stars, in addition to Tunie, Clifton Davis as patriarch Vernon Dupree. The setting for BTG is the prestigious gated community known as Fairmont Crest .

Catch all-new episodes of Beyond the Gates on CBS and Paramount Plus.

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