The unstoppable forward march of time. And a directing job.

Susan Flannery had become one of the grand dames of daytime drama when she finally opted to retire from the role of Stephanie Forrester on "The Bold and the Beautiful." She'd been playing the matriarch of the show's central Forrester clan for 25 years when she finally made the decision.

That's a long time in any one role, and it seems that Flannery wanted a chance to broaden her horizons a bit. She's since taken on a few behind-the-scenes roles, including directing a number of episodes of the innovative web series "Venice: The Series," as well as co-directing and producing the film "The Grove," also released online.

Both were done for Open Book Productions, the company started by her fellow soap-opera refugee Crystal Chappell (who has appeared on "Days of Our Lives" and "The Guiding Light," among other shows).

The method of Stephanie's exit from "The Bold and the Beautiful" was death after a prolonged (by soap opera standards, anyway) struggle with cancer, however her diagnosis wasn't an automatic death sentence. The show's writers started that storyline before Flannery had decided to leave.

"Susan has been talking about leaving us for a while now, but I knew that I could go into the cancer plot and come out of it two ways," head writer Bradley Bell told "TV Guide" magazine in an interview ahead of Flannery's final episode in 2012. "The primary goal is to honor both Susan and Stephanie and to give anyone who watches something beautiful to keep with them for a long time to come."

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