Occupation: Archivist at Sunset Studios

Appearances: Season 6

Who’d Play Her: Carrie Fisher

The Keeper of Hollywood’s Buried Past: Denise worked in the archives at Sunset Studios, surrounded each day by photographs, production records, and forgotten evidence from the studio’s long history. To most people, she appeared to be little more than an eccentric employee with an encyclopedic knowledge of old Hollywood. In reality, Denise understood better than almost anyone how many scandals had been hidden behind the studio gates.

Denise had once dreamed of becoming an actress herself. Watching Alex Reynolds achieve the career and celebrity she had wanted left her deeply bitter, and years of working among reminders of Alex’s success only intensified that resentment. Stormy Blackthorne eventually witnessed Denise suffering an emotional breakdown in the archives over the failure of her own acting career.

Her knowledge became valuable when someone began targeting the aging stars connected to Jonas Lamont and the old Lamont 3 studio. Each attack was accompanied by an old photograph representing a death or scandal that Jonas and his fixer, Vaughan Novak, had concealed. Denise suggested to Nathan Blackthorne that the killer was probably someone Jonas had once trusted with the studio’s secrets, reinforcing the belief that the crimes were rooted in Hollywood’s buried past.

Denise’s own suspicious behavior briefly made her appear capable of being involved. Her access to the archives gave her the opportunity to obtain the photographs left by the killer, while her anger toward Alex revealed a far more volatile side than those around her had expected. However, the murderer was ultimately exposed as Marilee Walker, who was seeking revenge for the death of the child she had given up for adoption.

Denise also possessed crucial information about Keaton Hartley. When Eddie and Miranda investigated Keaton’s search for his biological parents, Nathan began to believe that he might be the young man’s father. Denise told Nathan that he was wrong and revealed that she knew the identities of Keaton’s real parents.

The truth was that Keaton was the son Alex had secretly given up after becoming pregnant by Deacon Edgewater when she first arrived in Hollywood. Denise’s knowledge showed how thoroughly she had studied—or perhaps quietly collected—the secrets of the people around her. Although she did not expose the truth herself, she understood the connection before nearly anyone else.