Watching old GH clips of the Ward family, particularly Mary Mae Ward played by the incandescent Rosalind Cash (I didn't realize she was only on the show for a year but they went all out in honoring her), got me thinking about characters that weren't on their shows very long but left a huge impact. Either due to the character's actions in a storyline or the actor's presence. I'd like to limit this to characters on their respective shows for 4-5 years or less. 

Leo DuPres on AMC is another big one, he cast a long shadow in part because he was played by the semi-famous Josh Duhamel but mostly because Leo left a lot of people who loved him in Pine Valley. Or Renee Sofer's Lois (Lesli Kay was fine but they didn't do much with her version of Lois) who STILL defines Ned's character to this day.

Can anyone think of other examples?

Mel Hayes on OLTL. I think his run was just short of two years, but he was important enough to Dorian to make ghostly appearances even a decade later.

Also, Patrick Thornhart. He was only on for two years, but was impactful enough that Thorsten Kaye's return to daytime a few years later had him playing Patrick's brother on Port Charles.

My vote would be Stone from GH.  He was only on for 2 years and left a huge impact obviously for Robin but Sonny still mentions him regularly.   

For Y&R I think Cassandra Rawlins applies. Introduced March 1988, was front burner all of 1989 and most of 1990, killed off March 1991. 

Cassandra's final storyline had her tricking Brad into marriage and her death resulted in Brad inheriting her home and business.

Edited January 4, 20232 yr by kalbir

Before Susan Haskell came back, Marty Saybrooke on OLTL would be #1 with a bullet for me. Visits aside, I have never been fully behind her returning on a contract because even though Marty is one of my favorite characters of all time, I think her story was said and done and wrapped up nicely in '97. And as it happened her long-term return was mostly bad stories. (They had to retcon her terrible final OLTL exit with a few background lines from Hillary B. Smith on GH a couple years ago.)

You forget just how potent and well-oiled a show GH was until you go back and revisit those years and realize Lois, Stone, etc. were only on for a handful of years and have resonated forever since. A year will not go by on GH when someone does not mention Stone.

I think Sloan Carpenter on OLTL qualifies. Sloan was not super popular with a lot of the audience (though I think elements of that love story are very well told and other parts less so) but you can't deny his arrival changed the show forever. Not just because he broke up Viki and Clint for decades and destroyed the Buchanan family unit of the '80s, but because his arrival and role in Viki's life, his book about her father and his research into the past, spurred the entire reopening of the Victor Lord murder case. We all know what happened next. It was years in the making and is still brilliant work IMO.

Less mentioned often these days is the fact that allegedly, had Clint Ritchie not gotten in his fateful farming accident, Clint Buchanan was supposed to win out in that love triangle. Sloan was a kind of polarized mirror image of Victor Lord, remote and repressed, an austere high-society man; he was someone Viki could sublimate her psychosexual issues with her father onto. Either just after or shortly before Sloan died, Michael Malone made a point of writing a terrifying nightmare sequence in which Viki embraces and cuddles with Sloan only to watch him turn into her father. This was not coincidence or just a random jump scare, it was deliberate. It was a deeper layer of uncomfortable storytelling than most shows touched.

The Mel thing, with his later ghostly appearances, was in part because I think the audience loved him and still felt the psychic wound of his unjust exit and also because Robin Strasser never fully got over losing Stephen Markle as a screen partner.

Edited January 4, 20232 yr by Vee

Y&R Phillip Chancellor

On less than 2 years but his character had impact that resonated for decades after.

Caroline on B&B from 1987 to 1990

 

I guess going to prime time, I'd say Catherine Harrington - only on for the first 20 episodes, but she kept casting a shadow long into the shows run as the resident Mother Monster despite Mary Anderson never  appearing again even in flashbacks.

 

Franky Doyle on Prisoner: Cell Block H - again only in the first 20 or so episodes, but clearly left a huge impact that she'd be brought up long after she was gone, clearly some characters were meant to be "the new Franky" (but never quite landed) and she was made a bigger character in the rebooted Wentworth, partly based on her popularity in the original.

Edited January 4, 20232 yr by te.

17 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Y&R Phillip Chancellor

On less than 2 years but his character had impact that resonated for decades after.

It's funny, the same thing happened with his son. Technically Phillip was on the show for over a decade but only had real impact on story the three years he was an adult Thom Bierdz. And his death resonated for 20 years (until they stupid retconned it).

Some short term female characters that loomed large after their deaths (it's almost like a theme, dying beatifically and tragically young): Gillian (4 years) and Cindy (2 years) on AMC. Dominique on GH (her death is generating (bad) story at this very moment).

This topic makes me think about people who stayed on for nearly a decade or more who didn't manage one solid storyline or pairing. Re: Aiden Devane on AMC. Or lowkey half the cast on GH right now.

 

Aidan, like a lot of other players in that era, lasted because he was hot, white and male/able to be serviceable as a utility stud in any number of C-stories. They probably wanted him for his Q rating or something from focus groups, I think Aiden Turner came from some saucy ads or a British soap or something Frons liked, and then they fed him to literally every third or fourth-tier female player that came in for almost a decade. It was bizarre.

1 minute ago, Vee said:

Aidan, like a lot of other players in that era, lasted because he was hot, white and male/able to be serviceable as a utility stud in any number of C-stories. They probably wanted him for his Q rating or something from focus groups, I think Aiden Turner came from some saucy ads or a British soap or something Frons liked, and then they fed him to literally every third or fourth-tier female player that came in for almost a decade. It was bizarre.

Why are you coming for me like this? I could never remember if the actor or character had the e in his name.

1 minute ago, Darn said:

Why are you coming for me like this? I could never remember if the actor or character had the e in his name.

Keep your head on a swivel in these spelling bee streets!

Just now, Vee said:

Keep your head on a swivel in these spelling bee streets!

Lmao

But yeah it was really bizarre how long he lasted. Sometimes I think a lot of characters last on shows past their sell-by dates because the actor is nice to work with or a good employee who doesn't make waves.

8 minutes ago, Darn said:

Sometimes I think a lot of characters last on shows past their sell-by dates because the actor is nice to work with or a good employee who doesn't make waves.

Not sometimes, often. Or because they just have abs or are blonde.

38 minutes ago, Darn said:

Some short term female characters that loomed large after their deaths (it's almost like a theme, dying beatifically and tragically young): Gillian (4 years)

And try as they might...Ryan was never as special as when he was with her.