Kristian Alfonso (born September 5, 1964) is an American soap opera actress.

She began her career as a figure skating, gold medal champion, at the Junior Olympics . At the age of 13, a devastating accident ended her skating career and Kristian began modelling. By the time she was 15 she had appeared on the cover of over 30 magazines. Her career took off in 1983 when she started playing Hope Brady on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. During that time, her character fell in love with, and married, ruggedly handsome Bo Brady (Peter Reckell).

Kristian left the show in 1987 for a two-year stint on the night time soap opera Falcon Crest. She returned to Days briefly in 1990; this return culminated in the entire town of Salem believing that Hope had died.

She returned to the show for a third time in 1994 as "Gina," an amnesiac who looked a lot like Hope. She ended up being Hope, but not before a drawn-out storyline involving evil Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) brainwashing Hope into believing she was princess Gina von Amburg.

Praise and criticism

Kristian is a favourite amongst fans, much of this is due to her on screen chemistry with Peter Reckell, with whom she has won a number of Soap Opera Digest Awards, for Favourite Soap Couple. In 2002, fans voted and honoured Kristian and Peter as Daytime's favourite couple at the Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, where they were given a special Emmy plaque.

A vocal fan minority has succeeded in catching the attention of soap columnists, in an attempt to point out that Alfonso has lost much weight over the last decade. Naysayers usually hurl comments toward her such as "Eat a sandwich!", not unlike what Calista Flockhart experienced in the late 1990s.

Other credits

Kristian's other film and television credits include Army of One , Whatever Happened to Bobby Earl , Blindfold Acts of Obsession , Day of Redemption , Full House, Burke's Law, Murder, She Wrote, Melrose Place and Secret Lives .