Bill Strickland didn't recognize the strikingly beautiful woman who walked into the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild a few weeks back.

But the reaction of his students who leapt out of their seats and peered out of art studios and cooking classes told him this -- she was a celebrity.

Students did triple-takes and stuttered "Drucilla" incredulously as they crowded around Victoria Rowell, who played the sultry character on the CBS daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless."

Rowell happily obliged by signing her autograph and mugging for photos.

She had come to Pittsburgh as part of a national tour promoting her new book, "The Women Who Raised Me" -- a memoir about being born a ward of the state of Maine and being nurtured by a series of loving foster mothers and mentors.

But she made a detour to the North Side in a limo because it was the arts -- specifically classical dance -- that she said helped her beat incredible odds as a foster child.

And in her devotion to those artistic pursuits, she found a kindred spirit in Strickland, who has spent years building up the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild as a way for at-risk youth to change their lives through the arts and career training. The nonprofit group serves about 3,000 Pittsburgh Public School children, many of them at-risk, with instruction in ceramics, design, digital arts, photography and other skills.

The TV and movie actress was so wowed by the gleaming North Side center, with its photo studio and orchids and sculpture, that she has decided to support Strickland in his bid to open another arts center for city youth in Los Angeles.

"It is beyond great," she said. "I was absolutely amazed by culinary school, the visual arts center and the whole jazz component and the sound stage where luminaries like Dizzy Gillespie performed. The hot house orchid component is equally breathtaking. People learn how to grow orchids, one of the most difficult things to grow."

As an actress and national advocate for children in foster care, Rowell told Strickland that she would give him support for the center, still in the planning stage to open in a few years, and enlist the help of actors and advocates for foster children. She sees an especially strong demand for such a program in Los Angeles, a city she says has a high proportion of African-American children in foster care.

"I would support it wholeheartedly," said Rowell, a national spokeswoman for Casey Family Services, an arm of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. "I would be able to reach into the community and make this happen."

If students were starstruck by the dancer and actress, the actress in turn was starstruck by Strickland, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant.

"I was absolutely thrilled to meet him. He is a stellar leader. He is one of the leading philanthropists and community leaders in the nation."

Strickland gave her a platter he had made in the ceramics studio.

Both of them know firsthand the power of mentoring.

As a boy growing up on the North Side, Strickland bumped into his mentor by accident while walking down the halls of Oliver High School. He peered into a doorway of an art studio and saw teacher Frank Ross working on the potter's wheel.

"I was blown away," he said. He spent the next two years serving as Ross' apprentice and learned how to create ceramics. As he excelled in art, his grades improved. With Ross' help, Strickland went to the University of Pittsburgh. And the rest, as they say, is history, beginning with his establishing the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in 1968 to fight the economic and social devastation experienced by the mostly African-American community in the North Side. He also opened the Bidwell Training Center, which offers career training and adult literacy programs to about 200 adults-in-transition a year.

Strickland has set up smaller satellite centers in San Francisco; Grand Rapids, Mich; and Cincinnati, Ohio; and has plans for centers in Philadelphia; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; and New Orleans.

Rowell also benefited from an incredible string of mentors who loved and encouraged her, preventing her from slipping through the cracks of the foster care system.

The child of a beautiful Yankee blueblood and an unknown black father, she was born a ward of the state in Maine. Her mother, Dorothy, suffered from schizophrenia and was committed to an asylum.

As an infant, Rowell was placed with a loving white family, who didn't care about the disapproving looks from neighbors.

After two years, she was moved to the home of Agatha Armstead. a stylish, self-sufficient black woman who taught her how to excel and apply herself. The woman nurtured her dance talent and helped her win a scholarship to the Cambridge School of Ballet even though she hadn't taken any lessons and couldn't afford dancing attire. Aided by devoted dance teachers, Rowell went on to become a professional dancer with the American Ballet Theater II Co. and other troupes before turning to acting, getting her big break by securing a part on "The Cosby Show."

"You always hear all the dismal stories about foster care. I wanted to talk about the unheralded, the positive side of foster care, the people in the trenches" Rowell said. "The book talks about the incredible willingness of these women who banded together. They all believed that classical ballet was the anchor, and they each passed the baton to the next one."

For all the unconditional love her foster mothers showered on her, she still wrestled with anxiety and loneliness of being a "living orphan," someone whose birth mother is still alive. Rowell met her birth mother several times, once even visiting her at the asylum, a trip that set off an avalanche of feelings. But through her search for herself, Rowell came to accept her birth mother.

While on "The Young and the Restless," she helped develop plot lines about foster care and adoption that she culled from her own experiences.

She is always happy to talk about her childhood in foster care. She tells orphaned and adopted children who search for their birth mothers that they must be "prepared for the door not to be opened. Not everyone wants to be found. It is important you reconcile with yourself before you go on the search."

Strickland believes Rowell's message of how art and mentors change lives will resonate with inner-city children in his programs.

"She can tell kids how to turn their lives around. She can say, 'I was orphaned. I lived in various foster homes. You can make something out of your life, too.' "