Represented by: Madelaine Petsch (2018-present )
Previous representations: Willa Holland (2007-14; 2015)
VITAL STATISTICS
Appearances: 2007-14; 2015; 2018-present
Parents: Danielle Taylor and Jimmy Trask (biological); Tom and Melanie Vanderbilt (adoptive)
Siblings: None
Children: None
Relationships: Currently single. Had flings with Spencer Ragan and Sebastian Jimenez. Had an affair with Mike Anatoli. Previously dated Travis Fisher.
Occupation: Law school graduate
SUMMARY
Teenage Elly came to King’s Bay to see her godmother, Danielle Taylor, after being devastated to learn that she was not the biological child of her parents, Tom and Melanie Vanderbilt. Danielle allowed Elly to stay with her, and Elly met and began dating Travis Fisher. But Danielle was harboring a secret: Elly was actually her biological daughter, whom she’d conceived during a period of reckless partying and given to her good friends Tom and Melanie to raise. When the truth about Elly’s parentage was exposed at a party in front of many people, the teen felt betrayed by Danielle, too. She and Travis ran away to Los Angeles, where they had sex for the first time before their parents tracked them down.
Elly eventually forgave Danielle and the Vanderbilts and worked on her relationships with all of them. She finally met her biological father, rough-around-the-edges Jimmy Trask, when he came to King’s Bay. Elly enrolled at King’s Bay University alongside Travis; she later roomed with his half-sister, Samantha, and helped Travis through the revelation that he had been switched at birth with Spencer Ragan. However, Travis became desperate not to lose Elly when she applied to study abroad, and instead of mailing her application, he threw it out so that she wouldn’t leave. Spencer eventually exposed the truth, which caused Elly to end things with Travis. Shortly after graduation, she left town to attend law school at Stanford.
In 2015, Elly visited to support Danielle, whose new husband, Ryan Moriani, had been murdered by the Footprint Killer. She also made amends with an apologetic Travis.
In 2018, Elly, now a law school graduate, came back to King’s Bay for Jimmy’s wedding to Kathleen Bundy. A panicked Spencer called her for legal help after he impulsively kidnapped his biological son, Peter. Elly masterminded a plan to help keep Spencer from facing charges: he would marry the child’s mother, Natalie Bishop, who was in a precarious legal situation of her own. Spencer and Natalie later asked Elly to join their legal team, which she agreed to do while helping Jimmy and Kathleen open their bar, The Wild Lady. The devious woman who had raised Spencer, Loretta Ragan, uncovered a secret from Elly’s past and used it to blackmail her into helping frame Jason Fisher so that Spencer and Natalie would be awarded custody of Peter. The plan worked, and a trapped Elly, ashamed of what she had done, insisted to everyone — including a determined Spencer, who had begun to care about her — that she’d had nothing to do with the messy outcome of the case.
Elly and Spencer continued to grow closer. She confided in him that, as a law intern, she had had an affair with a powerful partner at the firm, Mike Anatoli. Elly became pregnant as a result of the affair and had an abortion. In exchange for her keeping the affair from his wife, Anatoli told Elly that he had manipulated her bar exam results to achieve a passing score. Loretta was threatening to expose the truth, derailing Elly’s law career. Spencer accompanied her to California, where they forced Anatoli to admit the truth: Elly had passed the bar on her own, but Anatoli had wanted to maintain leverage over her. This admission finally allowed Elly to break free of Loretta’s control. She and Spencer gave in to their feelings and slept together, despite his marriage to Natalie.
She came into conflict with Travis and his wife, Rosie, when she represented her uncle Brent and Molly Taylor in a custody suit and dragged Rosie’s ugly family history out in court. Elly’s actions caused Sebastian Jimenez, Rosie’s brother, to break off their casual relationship. Elly was briefly a suspect in Loretta’s murder, though she was cleared, but she was forced to admit that she had seen Travis at Loretta’s home around the time of the murder, leading to his arrest. Spencer lashed out at Elly for keeping this secret but later leaned on her when his grief became overwhelming. He filed for divorce from Natalie, telling her that he was in love with Elly.