Jill Farren Phelps is an American television producer. She is known for her work with American soap operas, having served as executive producer of Santa Barbara, Another World, Guiding Light, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless.
Background
Jill Farren was born in New York City and earned a BFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She became a stage manager at McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey before becoming a production assistant for various New York stage productions. She has since worked as an executive producer at all three major U.S. television networks producing six daytime dramas, as well as two prime-time dramas on cable television. and later on Santa Barbara before she started producing. During Phelps' time at Santa Barbara, the show won three consecutive Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series (1988 - 1990). She scored four more Emmy victories in the same category while serving as executive producer at General Hospital (2005, 2006, 2008, and 2012).
On December 1, 2011, it was announced that Phelps' run in the television industry was coming to end, and that she would be replaced as General Hospitals executive producer by former One Life to Live executive producer Frank Valentini. In January 2012, Phelps accepted a position as executive producer of Hollywood Heights, a night-time soap opera airing on Nick at Nite.
Santa Barbara
In 1984, Phelps was hired as a music director after previously working in a similar capacity at General Hospital. She rose through the ranks, and was later promoted to producer. In 1987, when executive producer Mary-Ellis Bunim was let go, NBC Daytime named Phelps executive producer.
One Life to Live
After Phelps resigned as executive producer of Another World, ABC Daytime hired her to be the executive producer of One Life to Live in 1997.
Phelps was replaced by former One Life to Live executive producer Frank Valentini in January 2012.
General Hospital: Night Shift
In 2007, Phelps served as the executive producer for the first season of SOAPnet's prime time General Hospital spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift.
The Young and the Restless
In July 2012, following the firing of executive producer and head writer Maria Arena Bell and co-head writer Scott Hamner, Sony Pictures Television appointed Phelps executive producer of The Young and the Restless, alongside the show's former head writer Josh Griffith. She was let go from the show in June 2016.
Phelps returned to The Young and the Restless as a producer in August 2025.
Controversies
Firing of Anna Lee
In 2003, Phelps did not renew the contract of nonagenarian veteran screen and television actress Anna Lee, who had portrayed matriarch Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital for a quarter of a century. According to fellow cast member Leslie Charleson, Lee had been promised the role for life by former executive producer Wendy Riche. Charleson said in 2007, "The woman was in her 90s ... they fired her, and it broke her heart. It was not necessary." Lee died of pneumonia the following year, aged 91.
The Young and the Restless sets
Among other changes at The Young and the Restless, Phelps' (and head writer Josh Griffith) revamped some long-running sets. In 2012, the Newman Ranch was destroyed by fire in a storyline, with Entertainment Weekly noting, "Who won't miss the way-too-compact Newman ranch?" The magazine praised the set's successor, Victor Newman's penthouse, calling it "a welcome step in the right direction".
However, polled fan reaction was largely negative to the 2016 revamp of the Chancellor mansion set. Phelps was dismissed in June 2016, following CBS' decision to promote Mal Young to the executive producer position.