Katherine Chancellor
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| Katherine E. Chancellor | |||||||||||||
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 Jeanne Cooper as Katherine Chancellor (2006) |
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| The Young and the Restless | |||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Jeanne Cooper | ||||||||||||
| First appearance | 1973 | ||||||||||||
| Created by | William J. Bell | ||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | Kay | ||||||||||||
| Gender | Female | ||||||||||||
| Date of birth | 1928 | ||||||||||||
| Age | 79 | ||||||||||||
| Occupation | Advisor to CEO of Chancellor Industries Chairwoman of the Board of Jabot Cosmetics Owner of Chancellor Industries and Jabot Cosmetics Retired CEO of Chancellor Industries Jabot Cosmetics Board Member Author (Memoir) |
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| Title | Mrs. | ||||||||||||
| Residence | 12 Foothill Road Genoa City, Wisconsin |
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Katherine Chancellor (née Shepard; previously Sterling, Reynolds, and Thurston) is a fictional character on CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless portrayed since 1973 by actress Jeanne Cooper. Katherine is one of the only two characters remaining from the show's early years (along with Jill Foster Abbott). The character made a guest appearance on The Bold and the Beautiful in 2005.
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[edit] Character
The character of Katherine Chancellor was introduced in the Fall of 1973, several months after The Young and the Restless debuted that March. Show co-creator William J. Bell was disappointed with the weak ratings, and thus hired veteran actress Jeanne Cooper as a quick fix to add some controversy to the program.[1]
Katherine (or Kay to her closest friends) is a wealthy pillar of the Genoa City community. She owns Chancellor Industries and, through that, also owns Jabot Cosmetics. Katherine's net worth is estimated to be over a billion dollars. She is widely considered the grande dame and matriarch of Genoa City.
She has two children:
- Brock Reynolds (Beau Kazer) is Katherine's oldest child, with her ex-husband Gary Reynolds. Brock was briefly married to his half-sister, Jill, when they didn't know they were brother and sister.
- Jill Foster Abbott (Jess Walton) is Katherine's daughter with ex-flame (and best friend of Gary Reynolds) Arthur Hendricks. Jill has two children--Ethan "Cane" Ashby (the real Phillip Chancellor III) and William "Billy" Abbott. Jill and Katherine have spent most of their time on the show feuding with each other.
Katherine also has three grandchildren:
- Mackenzie Browning (Rachel Kimsey) is the only child of Brock Reynolds and Amanda Browning. She is currently living in New Orleans with her father.
- Ethan "Cane" Ashby (Daniel Goddard), born Phillip Chancellor III, is the son of Jill and Phillip Chancellor II. He was switched with another baby shortly after his birth by Katherine and a woman named Violet, whom she met at a bar. For many years this fact was kept secret, until the memory tortured Katherine into a confession. He spent most of his life in Australia before moving to Genoa City in search of his biological mother. The first person to deduce Cane's true identity was Amber Moore, followed quickly by others. Cane now works in the family business at Chancellor Industries.
- William "Billy" Foster Abbott (most notably David Tom) is the only son of Jill and John Abbott. Billy currently lives in Hong Kong, working for Jabot Cosmetics. He once married his cousin Mackenzie, shortly before they found out they were cousins, and subsequently had the marriage annulled.
[edit] Katherine Chancellor vs. Jill Foster Abbott
Katherine's rivalry with Jill Foster Abbott has been a key plot element since the 1970s, when Jill had an affair with Katherine's then-husband, Phillip Chancellor II (Donnelly Rhodes), resulting in Jill becoming pregnant with his son.
Phillip subsequently died from injuries related to a car crash caused by a drunken Katherine (she was presumed dead but was then found to be alive in the crash); however, he married Jill on his deathbed. After Phillip's death, Katherine moved to have Phillip's marriage to Jill declared invalid (Katherine had been drunk when she signed divorce papers), putting Jill and Katherine at odds from that moment on.
After years of torment from Katherine, Jill turned the tables on her in 1999 when she discovered a letter penned by the now-deceased Phillip, naming Jill as the sole owner of the Chancellor Estate. Jill evicted Katherine, who then found a legal loophole which resulted in Katherine and Jill being forced to live at the Estate together.
[edit] Other Romances
Phillip Chancellor II was not Katherine's only husband, and he certainly wasn't her only lover over the years...he also wasn't the only man Katherine and Jill were in competition over.
As part of one of her more devious schemes, Jill hired a conman named Brian Romalotti (the father of Danny Romalotti and Gina Roma), who she dressed up as a wealthy man and rechristened "Rex Sterling". Jill's plan backfired, though, and Katherine and Rex eventually fell in love for real. Unfortunately, their romance ended tragically when Rex spooked a prowler in the middle of the night and was subsequently shot.
There was also Gary Reynolds, Katherine's first husband. She has spoken of him very little over the years. Other than the fact that he is Brock's father, and that they spent a year apart near the end of their rocky marriage, little is known about Gary.
Judge Arthur Hendricks was Gary Reynold's best friend, and the man with whom Katherine conducted an affair during her time apart from Brock's father. Arthur, as we would learn in 2003, would connect Katherine and Jill in a way that none other could...and neither woman would even know it for many years.
[edit] Mother and Daughter
Katherine and Jill were mortified when, in 2003, they discovered that they were in fact mother and daughter.
While her then-husband, Gary Reynolds, was spending time overseas with their son Brock, Katherine had an affair with Gary's best friend, a local judge named Arthur Hendricks. Shortly before Gary returned, Katherine gave birth to Jill and handed her over to a friend from school named Charlotte Ramsey, with instructions to give her up for adoption. Unfortunately, Charlotte was unable to drop the baby off as planned, and was forced to give her own name as the child's birth mother.
Many years later, the woman Jill had always thought of as her mother, Liz Foster, discovered she had a brain tumor. Fearing that her time on Earth was limited, Elizabeth Foster decided to tell Jill that she was adopted. Elizabeth survived, but the secret left Jill reeling. After a long search, she discovered Charlotte Ramsey's name on her birth certificate.
Katherine was shocked when she saw Charlotte back in Genoa City a short time later, but still didn't piece together her connection with Jill. It wasn't until John Abbott, also a former schoolmate, recognized Charlotte that the truth started to come out. He eventually tricked Katherine into revealing that Charlotte had an abortion, which left her unable to carry children, when she was younger.
With the truth about to surface, Charlotte went to the Chancellor Estate and confronted Katherine on May 20, 2003:
Charlotte Ramsey: You had a child, remember?
Katherine Chancellor: Yes, I had a child. Brock is the light of my life.
Charlotte Ramsey: Hmm...Come on, Katherine, this is me. I was there; there was another child--
Katherine Chancellor: Charlotte, don't do this.
Charlotte Ramsey: Your marriage had been rocky. Gary Reynolds--oh what a man he was!
Katherine Chancellor: Don't you dare mention his name.
Charlotte Ramsey: The two of you needed some time off from each other. He went to Europe for a while year! Germany, wasn't it--some big project? He took little Brock with him--
Katherine Chancellor: I don't want to hear this!
Charlotte Ramsey: You were hurt...angry...and lonesome. You and I painted the town on a regular basis.
Katherine Chancellor: Stop!
Charlotte Ramsey: What's wrong with remembering the fun we had...when we were young? Oh, the men--the wonderful men! Well...one in your case. I couldn't get pregnant anymore, but you could...and you did!
Katherine Chancellor: I want you to leave!
Charlotte Ramsey: I have a reason, Katherine: It has to do with your child.
Katherine Chancellor: No, no, no. You were to put that baby into the hands of people who would see that it was adopted by a good family; then, you were to take off...somewhere...and find yourself a new life with the money I paid you; and, you were never...never...never to come back to Genoa City!
Charlotte Ramsey: You were so anxious for me to disappear.
Katherine Chancellor: And why not--you were a taker! I helped you at a difficult time...you almost died, but I was there. And later, when I needed you--oh, you were there for me, but with that hand extended, and you asked for money--
Charlotte Ramsey: I'd been disowned by my own family! I had no choice--
Katherine Chancellor: I had no choice but to pay you! I also thought I could get rid of you at the same time.
Charlotte Ramsey: And it worked, all these years.
Katherine Chancellor: Why are you back?
Charlotte Ramsey: Fate, I guess. Who knew that Jill would go looking for her birth mother?
Katherine Chancellor: Somehow you managed...to forge your signature on...that baby's birth certificate. But...how did you...how did you do that? You can't simply go rifle through records, and do whatever you want.
Charlotte Ramsey: That's my whole point, Katherine: This wasn't recent! I put my name on Jill's birth certificate the day after she was born!
Katherine Chancellor: You...what?
Charlotte Ramsey: I tried to just drop the baby off, but the people at the hospital wouldn't let me. Either I told them where I got the baby, or they were going to call the police! So, I said it was mine. They'd didn't really care; they just needed a name to write down.
Katherine Chancellor: You...you put your name on my baby's birth certificate?
Charlotte Ramsey: You didn't want yours on it, did you? Wasn't that the whole point--what you paid me for?
Katherine Chancellor: Are you telling me...my baby was Jill?
Charlotte Ramsey: Yes.
Katherine Chancellor: Oh, God...Oh, God...Jill?
[edit] Stroke
The revelation that Jill was her daughter caused Katherine to have a massive stroke, which left her nearly catatonic for quite a while. Still, there was an even greater sadness attached to this newly-revealed family connection. For years, Jill's son Billy and Katherine's granddaughter Mackenzie Browning had been in love. However, the mother-daughter connection between Katherine and Jill meant that Mackenzie and Billy were first cousins. Unbeknown to them, the young couple was married, while a paralyzed Katherine could do nothing but watch. A horrified Jill and John tried to stop the wedding, but they were too late. Eventually, Jill managed to inform the newlyweds of the shocking news before the marriage was consummated. Heartbroken, Billy and Mackenzie (played at the time by Ryan Brown and Kelly Kruger respectively) had their union annulled, and the two separately left town. Jill helped her mother to recover and the two eventually resolved their differences.
[edit] More Obstacles
Despite several obstacles along the way, the two former enemies have begun to form a true mother-daughter bond. Nevertheless, their feud was decades old, and it remains to be seen if Katherine and Jill can continue to be cordial--recent events have caused their deeply-rooted enmity for one another to resurface.
Katherine began to have disturbing nightmares involving a baby. She soon determined that they were actually fragments of a repressed memory. Eventually Katherine recalled that years ago--unable to accept the fact that Jill had given birth to a child with her deceased husband Phillip--she kidnapped the baby, and gave him to a woman named Violet Montgomery, whom she met in a bar. Violet was to place the child with a different family. The woman then gave Katherine a different baby that Jill raised as her son, Phillip Chancellor III.
While Jill adamantly refused to believe this at first, DNA testing of Phillip's remains confirmed that he was not Jill's biological son. It was then revealed that Jill's real son was, in fact, new-in-town Cane Ashby, who had recently married Amber Moore (Adrienne Frantz). Cane eventually ended his relationship with Amber, after he discovered that she had faked their wedding (with help from her friend Alison Stewart of As the World Turns).
Katherine, however, formed a bond with Amber after being trapped with her under the Clear Springs wreckage in October 2007. She sees a lot of herself in the young woman, and often offers her advice and a shoulder to lean on when others turn against her.
Katherine was again furious with Jill upon learning that her daughter was planning on eloping with Ji Min Kim. She offered Ji Min a bribe not to marry her daughter, but Ji Min declined. He was murdered before he could marry Jill and the investigation is still ongoing.
On January 25, 2008, Katherine collapsed while talking to Amber. She was then examined at her home by a physician and informed on January 30, 2008 that she had a mini-stroke. Following this terrifying experience, Katherine enlisted Amber's help in writing her memoirs--the prospect of which could be frightening to many Genoa City residents!
[edit] Other
In 2005, while eating lunch at the Cafe Russe in Los Angeles, California, Katherine was approached by Massimo Marone. Massimo introduced Katherine to his friend, Stephanie Forrester, the daughter of a business acquaintance Katherine used to know named John Douglas. It was learned that Katherine was the actual owner of Forrester Creations, which Stephanie sought to reclaim from her estranged husband Eric Forrester. With Katherine's blessing, Stephanie achieved her goal, leaving the grand dame of Genoa City free to focus on her numerous other assets.
On May 25th, 2008 Kay, in the name of Chancellor Industries, gave 5 million to the Presidential Campaign of Hillary Clinton.
[edit] Notes
- ^ "The Young and the Restless". E! True Hollywood Story. E!. 2001-05-20.
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