Former soap star’s perseverance inspires girls

COSTA MESA — Amy Gibson had a young audience to captivate at Orange Coast College, and she started with a shocker.

“Do you guys like my hair?” the former daytime television star asked a crowd of 60 middle and high school-age girls, who attended her presentation as part of Girls Inc.’s summer Eureka! program.

Gibson held up a few strands of her glistening reddish-brown mane, and the girls voiced their admiration. Then she shared a secret had that eluded TV audiences for two decades.

“It’s not mine,” Gibson said. “I have none.”

There is much about Gibson, who starred on “The Young and the Restless” and “General Hospital,” that might surprise a casual observer. A millionaire entrepreneur, she was once so poor she lived out of her car between jobs. A successful actor, she once failed 84 auditions in a row as a teenager.

The biggest challenge she faced, though, was losing her hair as a teenager to the rare disease alopecia areata — and it was that challenge, she told the Girls Inc. audience, that inspired her to launch a wig business after retiring from acting.

“This destiny thing, where we’re going to end up, is not a matter of chance,” said Gibson, whose company Amy’s Presence makes more than $1 million a year. “It’s a matter of choice.”

Gibson’s presentation was one of the first events in this summer’s Eureka! program, in which seventh- through ninth-grade girls take math and technology classes, learn college and job skills and participate in a number of activities to boost self-confidence. The program, which runs five days a week, is scheduled this year to include rock-climbing and trips to the beach and the Orange County Fair.

A number of the girls said Gibson’s stories of perseverance had inspired them.

“I loved how she’s so positive and she doesn’t give up,” said Angie Quigley, 13, of Santa Ana.

She added that Gibson’s message was important during the teenage years, when many young people felt a desire to blend with the crowd.

“We’re more gullible now with peer pressure, and those negative thoughts come into our minds,” she said.

Chantalle Lopez, 13, of Norwalk said listening to Gibson had steeled her resolve to pursue her own dream.

“She gave me more confidence in becoming an anchorwoman,” she said.