Much-missed now and forever, Jeanne Cooper’s late duchess of Genoa City liked her booze, her boys and her baubles — and not necessarily in that order. But by the time she passed away in 2013, the pearls of wisdom that she so generously dispensed had become the most priceless gems in her jewelry collection.
We never met Katherine’s first husband, Gary Reynolds (RIP). But his successor, Chancellor Industries’ CEO, was the son of Genoa City’s founder. Turned off by his better half’s many and varied vices, Phillip (Donnelly Rhodes) embarked on an affair with Kay’s paid companion, Jill Foster, that sparked a decades-long feud.
After driving Phillip over the edge — of a cliff! — Katherine tied the knot with yet another man whose heart belonged to Jill. Kay moved heaven and earth to hold onto the Casanova (Joe LaDue), but when she realized that the ship had sailed on their marriage, she took a flying leap off the Love Boat on which she’d hoped to rekindle their romance.
Jill hired Quinn Redeker’s Brian Romalotti to break Katherine’s heart and empty her bank account. Things didn’t quite go according to plan, however. “Rex” and Katherine fell so madly in love that, despite his initially shady intentions, she didn’t give him his walking papers, she walked down the aisle, making her husband No. 4.
In 2008, while Katherine was trying to check her lookalike Marge Cotrooke into rehab — hey, one more thing that they had in common! — she wound up making the acquaintance of the waitress’ pal (Michael Fairman). Deciding that the fisherman was a catch, Rex’s widow took him to be her lawfully wedded fifth (and final) husband.
Following the death of his father, Kay’s pride and joy (Beau Kazer) went wild and crazy, cavorting with the likes of even trampy Lorie Brooks. (Gasp!) When finally he got his head screwed on straight, he and Mom formed a relationship that was so tight, the dictionary referenced it when defining the word “close.”
Given all the wild oats that Katherine knew Brock had sown in his impetuous youth, it probably shouldn’t have come as such a — or any! — surprise to her in 1998 that the random homeless girl that she befriended (Ashley Bashioum originally) turned out to be his daughter and, thus, her granddaughter.
By the time you read this, the children of Mac (here Clementine Ford) and former husband J.T. Hellstrom (Thad Luckinbill) — in other words, Katherine’s great-grandkids — will probably have been SORAS’d into randy twentysomethings who are making their way to Genoa City to stake a claim to Chancellor Industries. Or at least the mansion!
Katherine’s marriage to Rex gave her a whole new extended stepfamily: the reformed bum’s pop-star son (Michael Damian), his artist son Daniel (Michael Graziadei) and Lucy (Lily Brooks O’Briant), his daughter with the late Daisy Carter. Although we can all probably agree that the less said about that psycho, the better!
It wasn’t tears of joy and warm embraces that accompanied Katherine’s 2009 reunion with the son she hadn’t remembered having. The vengeful tycoon (Trevor St. John nowadays) staged a hostile takeover of Mom’s company before finally making peace with the fact that, despite its beginning, his origin story did have a happy ending.
Tucker didn’t actually have to look very far to find the son that he hadn’t known he’d conceived with Yolanda Hamilton back in his “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” days. It turned out that the now-grownup kid in question was none other than Neil Winters’ adopted son (Bryton James).
When Phillip II succumbed to injuries sustained in his joyless ride with Katherine, he left Jill a lovely parting gift: the son that she was carrying. Though not only Jill but Kay doted on the boy (Thom Bierdz), the troubled Richie Rich faked his own death in the 1980s rather than admit to his family and wife Nina Webster that he is gay.
There was a time when it was hard to tell who disliked Phillip’s babymama more: Katherine or his actual mama, Jill. But their shared grief over his passing softened the edges of their relationship a bit, and, in fact, it was Nina who convinced Kay to allow her memoir to be turned into a movie.
Like his father before him, Phillip III left his “widow” with a living, breathing souvenir of their relationship: a son. To the marrow a card-carrying hero, Chance (now Conner Floyd) went from enlisted man to the one and only cop in Genoa City. Before his marriage to Abby Newman went kaput, they added to the family tree…
Follow closely here, OK? Chance and Abby wanted to but couldn’t conceive a child. So Devon and ex-girlfriend Mariah Copeland stepped up to provide all of the, um, ingredients that were needed. Now the baby is being raised by former marrieds Chance and Abby and also her new significant other — what are the odds? — Devon.
Throughout Katherine’s life, she remained close to her old high-school classmate, John Abbott — so close that he and first wife Dina named her godmother of their middle child (Eileen Davidson). Never mind that John turned out not to be Ashley’s biological father; in every way that counted, he was her dad.
When Katherine gave Derek the boot from Chancellor Industries, she hired as his replacement Victor Newman. As if to underscore how much he and wife Nikki treasured their decades-long relationship with Kay, they made her the godmother of their firstborn (Amelia Heinle). Speaking of the Newmans…
Victor’s on-again/off-again missus (Melody Thomas Scott) was the daughter that Katherine never had. Which was an especially bitter pill to swallow during the bizarre stretch when it was believed that Jill, of all people, was actually Kay’s child. Were Nikki and Katherine technically family? No. But were they family nonetheless? You bet.
Even though when Esther’s daughter returned to Genoa City as an adult, she was a brat and a half, the erstwhile Kate (Elizabeth Hendrickson) always had a shoulder to cry on in Katherine. Er, as you can see. The fashionista was even named after Mom’s boss, who put her through school.
Despite the fact that he didn’t turn out to be who he claimed — Phillip III — Katherine forgave and embraced the Aussie. Which showed tremendous growth on her part, we thought. In the old days, she would probably have taken him for the kind of spin that would’ve resulted in their car careening off of an embankment.
Short of Jack Abbott and Victor, no two Genoa Citizens ever fought more bitterly or often than Katherine and the former manicurist who stole her second husband. Yet despite the slapfests and putdowns, the two of them had to admit in the end that they didn’t just respect one another, they — gulp — loved one another, too.
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