Successful Characters with No Family or Ties to Canvas

[marceline]

I took this thread topic to be characters who came aboard without family ties and managed to stick around. When those characters become successful shows generally try to build family around them, whether they are successful at that is varying mileage since a lot of times that lack of "success" has to do with new regimes coming in and trashing everything that came before. I'd consider Tea to be one of those characters.

[dragonflies]

Zach Slater, sure Ethan was around for awhile, but he came on after Michael was gone and basically all he had for family was Miranda.

[Titus Andronicus]

Days:

Eugene and Calliope.

Two outsiders who married each other and weren't related to any core families at all.

[Bright Eyes]

Technically, Eugene is a DiMera.

[frequentsoapfan]

I would say Sharon but MAB destroyed that character.

[SoapSurvivor]

Thanks, you explained a little better than I did.

[EricMontreal22]

I don't remember Tea having a brother Del... Just Thomas.

Has Aiden on AMC been mentioned? I have trouble calling him a successful character story wise (I think he worked best as a sorta nice guy B story level guy), but he sure stuck around a long time considering.

[EricMontreal22]

Exactly. While I'd argue that they planned to make Damon Tad's son pretty early on--yes I know hisintro story was a mess and tied into (I assume) dropped stories like a Chandler son, or Max Santos, the writing on the wall seemed pretty clear by the time Flip Limestone was seen on screen.

Ellabell--Sean Cudahy was on AMC into the 80s, but I think your choice of Tom still counts. I'd argue Adam, just because Stuart being crazy (and dangerous) in the attic was a very early story, and apparently planned before they even cast Canary.

Carlivati has to be the most guilty of this, that I've seen--but it has infected most soaps from the past decade. A new character comes on screen, and instantly we as viewers start guessing who they are tied to. But it's even worse when they tie them to characters who haven't even been on the show for a decade--is that meant to make us instantly care more about the character?

[Cheap21]

i wouldn't call Aidan a success. They kep trying to make him work but never quite. He came on with his connection to Anna and after she left, he only had a few good months of story with Kendall. Following her it was one failed pairing after the other in between being on the backburner.

[Pine Charles]

Always liked her.

Good actress.

[EricMontreal22]

Well no, to be more clear, I agree. But the fact he remained on the show for a decade (on contract), I guess means success on some level . Don't forget Pratt pulling a Ron Carlivati and having him go psycho at the end.

[DRW50]

I don't think it's wrong to call Aidan a success. He was a popular supporting character. His pairings didn't get a lot of attention but that wasn't a big anomaly for AMC of that era.

Del was on for a few months in 1998, investigating Georgie's murder.

And of course there was Tomas or Alcazar or whoever.

[greens_dupres]

I actually thought the introduction of Greenlee was successful without ties. She was great when she came on as an spoiled uber bitch Scott knew in school who was messing with super boring Becca and slowly found love with Leo. I remembering good buzz & magazine coverage for the two of them. It was only a few years later when they made her a Montgomery and then put her into Ryan's orbit that the character went to hell.

[marceline]

I agree. I liked the fact that we saw Greenlee had family. Even though they weren't a "core" family, it was completely believable that the Smythes were a part of PV society. The couple who played Greenlee's grandparents exuded that old money vibe and I could easily envision them hanging at charity functions with Phoebe, Langley and Mona back in the day. There was no reason to mess with her parentage except short-sighted laziness.

[EricMontreal22]

Greenlee came on during that brief period Agnes Nixon came back as HW and for a while we had a sense of the old money Pine Valley too (Enid Nelson was back a lot, there was the fun story with Marian sorta being embarassed by Opal as the other snobby women don't accept her, etc) I thought for the first few years she really worked.

I did like the appearances of Mary later on, her mom and thought they should have used her more.