ATWT: FLASHBACK

The original legal eagles of Oakdale - James Lowell (William Johnstone), Chris Hughes (Don MacLaughlin) and Mitchell Drew (Geoffrey Lumb).



Judge Lowell founded Oakdale's Lowell, Barnes & Lowell Law Firm (the second Lowell was his son, James Jr.). The judge had very high standards for his namesake, and was scandalized when Jim left his wife, Claire, for Edie Hughes, Chris Hughes' sister.

Judge Lowell attempted to force Chris, a junior associate at his firm, to make his sister leave town. But Edie wasn't the easily intimidated sort (she was played by Ruth Warrick, who made her film debut being bullied by no less than Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, and would go on to play AMC's chief busybody, Pheobe Tyler).

Eventually, the Judge came to see how much Jim loved Edie and resolved to get to know his boy better. The pair went on a father-son bonding fishing trip, which tragically ended with Jim falling overboard, hitting his head and drowning.

With Jim dead, James focused on Jim's only daughter, Ellen. He was scandalized when she became pregnant out of wedlock and insisted that she give her infant son, Jimmy, up for adoption.

Jimmy grew up as Dan Stewart, father of Betsy and Emily, grandfather of Dani and Daniel (and also Alison, biologically speaking), the only Lowells still left on the ATWT canvas. (Ellen's other children, Dee and Annie, and Annie's quadruplets no longer live in Oakdale.)