Thursday, November 13, 2008

BEFORE HE WAS STENBECK

Anthony Herrera recently finished another run as the evilest villain to ever hit Oakdale.

He first began playing the role of James in 1980. Previously, he'd appeared on As The World Turns as Mark Galloway from 1974 to 1975. Mark dated Susan but, unlike James, who spent most of his early years fighting for son Paul (to the point of trying to kill Paul's mother), Mark hated the idea of Susan regaining custody of her and Dan Stewart's daughter, Emily. Mark and Susan fought about it, failing to notice that while they sparred over where Emily should live, the little girl wandered off, climbed into the back of a truck, fell asleep and ended up being driven off to parts unknown. (This story is chronicled in the ATWT novel, Shared Moments; Emily, as played by Marie Masters' real-life daughter Jenny Harris is pictured below with her half-sister, Betsy (Dani Andropolous' future mother) and her dad, Dan, as played by GH's future-Sean, John Reilly.)



Mark used the incident to testify that Susan was an unfit mother at Emily's subsequent custody hearing. Susan lost her daughter. And Mark lost Susan. (Which, considering the good doctor at the time was a scheming, manipulative, child-endangering drunk, was a plus for both Emily and the no-prize-himself Mark.)



A year later, Anthony Herrera brought his suave good looks to Y&R. There, he played Jack Curtis, a college professor, who dallied with the youngest Brooks daughter, Peggy, without mentioning that he was married. Once Peggy found out, Jack claimed he was unhappy because his wife, Joanne, had stopped growing as a person.

Which apparently was code for: She got fat.



Jack neglected to mention that his wife put on the weight due to her grief over a miscarriage and Jack's subsequent withdrawl.

Joanne eventually lost weight, pulled her life together and, after a controversial storyline involving Kay Chancellor (read the entire story, here), left town for a fresh start.

Jack also left town, presumably to seduce naive and nubile co-eds elsewhere.

At least when James was sleeping with the barely legal Emily (see how everything that goes around comes around?) he wasn't pretending it was because his wife didn't understand him.

1 comment:

schiffeg68 said...

Is he really done?? I just don't think so.