Thom Christopher, best known for playing iconic villain Carlo Hesser on One Life to Live, has passed away at the age of 84. Find out more. https://t.co/qBtWJaKeRH

— Soap Opera Digest (@SoapDigest) December 6, 2024

Another stunning loss for the daytime community.  Thom Christopher and Carlo Hesser were both one-of-a-kind.  My condolences to everyone who knew him.

(Man, this is turning out to be a real shitty year for soaps fans.)

Oh goddamnit. I am tired of this.

What to say? Thom is another one of the greats. I was just watching him again as I explored the fall transition at OLTL in 1991. He could do just about anything with verve, style, menace or yes, comedy.

He's also immortalized not just in soaps but in his several appearances in classic MST3K episodes over the course of 30+ years. I was pleased when he turned up there again for the first time since the '90s in a favored episode of the new Netflix seasons.

I always wanted one more good Carlo Hesser story on OLTL to finish him off, something with Fiona Hutchison that was more distinguished than the silly caper they left him with. But Carlo never really dies.

 

How classy to nod to Linda Thorson - I'd forgotten that relationship.

damn, all the soap greats are dying

Okay, the grim reaper needs to leave daytime alone for a while.

A week or two ago I was trying to remember if he'd already passed.

Thom was one of the most purely charismatic performers I've ever seen. This meant that he often powered writing which wasn't there on all of his soaps. Even on Loving, tormenting poor Chris Marcantel while wearing a dyed wig he stole from Sylvester and Tweety's owner. Even on GL, where they finally had to make him a baddie to justify writing him out but you still sympathized with him. And in his many poorly scripted moments as Carlo and Mortimer. Even throwing the most transparent "we're in the '90s now, please stop turning us off while we're turning you on," S&M moments with Alex, Thom and Tonja Walker steamed it up and made all the nonsense worth watching.

Nice to see he and the actor who played Johnny Dee kept in touch. I hadn't thought of Anthony Crivello in a long time - glad he's doing OK.

Edited December 6, 2024Dec 6 by DRW50

2 hours ago, Franko said:

Okay, the grim reaper needs to leave daytime alone for a while.

This. The next few years are going to have quite a few sad losses, especially for us late Gen Xers/early Millennials who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Still it never gets easier.

TC was around as Carlo when I started watching OLTL, and I knew he was a special talent. He enlivened a lot of bad stories, as DRW50 mentioned.

 

3 hours ago, Cheap21 said:

damn, all the soap greats are dying

  

 

What a sad and Erpressung year… So many big losses for the Soap Community and their Families during the last 4 Years

Another Legend gone. He Made OLTL worhwhile tbh

Aw hell no!!! Not Hawk!! 

 

Le sigh. The gasp I just let out knowing he has been around since I was a kid. But as a villain on OLTL, he was easily one of my favorites if not my male favorite. And that was done to how he played him. 

 

RIP.

3 hours ago, Faulkner said:

This. The next few years are going to have quite a few sad losses, especially for us late Gen Xers/early Millennials who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Still it never gets easier.

TC was around as Carlo when I started watching OLTL, and I knew he was a special talent. He enlivened a lot of bad stories, as DRW50 mentioned.

Thanks for the clip. The thumbnail does a great deal of the work.

Thom did his best with that awful story...it speaks volumes of where "Cartini" were as talent at that point that Carlo was obsessed with Talla here and then when she was killed months later, we, IIRC, didn't hear a peep about him.

29 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

it speaks volumes of where "Cartini" were as talent at that point that Carlo was obsessed with Talla here and then when she was killed months later, we, IIRC, didn't hear a peep about him.

One of my biggest pet peeves about it. Carlo would've razed the earth.

On 12/6/2024 at 12:28 PM, DRW50 said:

Thom was one of the most purely charismatic performers I've ever seen. This meant that he often powered writing which wasn't there on all of his soaps.

This is exactly what I was going to say. He had so much charisma you just had to watch him. No matter how awful the writing was I was always happy to watch him!