Good Monday Morning POU!
This week will be nostalgic and fun look back at the best and most outrageous storylines involving black characters on the Soaps. So all the fans of Angie and Jessie and Dru and Neil, here’s to you!
Jesse and Angela “Angie” Hubbard are fictional characters and a supercouple from the ABC daytime drama All My Children. Jesse is portrayed by Darnell Williams and Angie is portrayed by Debbi Morgan. Jesse first appeared in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania in 1981 as the nephew of Dr. Frank Grant, who assumed custody after the death of his sister (Jesse’s mother). Angie first appeared in 1982, as the daughter of a well-to-do Pine Valley couple. Shortly after Angie’s first appearance on the show, they were paired with one another. Jesse and Angie were best friends to fellow supercouple Greg Nelson and Jenny Gardner. They are daytime television’s first African American supercouple, and arguably the two most popular African American characters in soap opera history.
The Beginning 1981–82
Jesse Hubbard—originally from Center City, Pennsylvania—first appears in the adjacent town of Pine Valley as the recently orphaned 17-year-old nephew of Dr. Frank Grant (John Danelle). After the death of Jesse’s widowed mother Ellie (Mary Alice), Jesse leaves Chicago and moves in with Ellie’s brother Frank and his wife Nancy (Lisa Wilkinson), who are next door neighbors and close friends of Dr. Joe Martin and his wife Ruth . Like his best friend Jenny Gardner (Kim Delaney), Jesse is from the “wrong side of the tracks”.
Jesse soon falls in love with Angie Baxter, a well-to-do teenager from Pine Valley high society. However, Angie’s father Les Baxter (Antonio Fargas) strongly disapproves, feeling that Jesse is not good enough for his daughter.
After Jesse is falsely accused of attempting to rape Angie’s former friend Liza Colby (Marcy Walker), he flees to the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City with Jenny (who leaves town once Liza threatens to reveal that Jenny’s father Ray Gardner raped Ruth years earlier). After finding jobs to make ends meet, Jesse and Jenny remain in Hell’s Kitchen for most of the summer of 1982. Angie is heartbroken. When Liza finally confesses that she lied, Jesse returns to Pine Valley and resumes dating Angie, and Jenny returns to her boyfriend Greg Nelson (Laurence Lau).
Angie & Jesse & Jenny & Greg 1983–1985
Jesse’s desire to make love to Angie is evident, but Angie refuses until they are married. Angie and Jesse elope, because Angie is afraid of her parents’ reaction if she tells them of their intended plans. Soon thereafter, Angie finds out that she is pregnant. Angie confides in her mother Pat Baxter (Lee Chamberlin) that she and Jesse are married and that she is pregnant. Angie is scared to tell Jesse; her insecurities grow when she thinks that Jesse is falling in love with another woman. Pat has a conversation with Jesse about the possibility that Angie could become pregnant. Jesse replies, “I couldn’t even think of it for another few years.”
When Angie learns of this, she divorces Jesse without telling him she is pregnant. Les encourages Angie to give her baby away, and she starts adoption proceedings. When Jesse begs her to take him back, Angie tells him about the baby, who is a boy. Together, they kidnap their son, who has found a new home, and run away to Sea City. The couple names the baby after Jesse’s uncle Frank, who had died just prior to the child’s birth. After Jesse and Angie convince a judge to give custody of the baby back to them, they remarry. The couple starts their new life in the Grant home, after Jesse’s aunt Nancy and cousin Carl relocate to Chicago. The Hubbards are later joined by Angie’s mother Pat, who divorces Les.
By the summer of 1984, Greg Nelson and Jenny Gardner are married, and Jenny has become a successful fashion model. Tony Barclay, a male model who is obsessed with Jenny, plots to kill Greg by rigging his water ski to explode. When Jenny switches skis with him at the last minute, she is killed instead, at the relatively young age of 20. The residents of Pine Valley are stunned into grief. Jesse is particularly devastated, as he must cope with the loss of his closest friend.
In 1985, Jesse and Angie’s relationship is threatened once again when his half-brother Eugene Hubbard (Tom Wright) arrives in Pine Valley, and immediately sets his sights on Angie. Also new in town is nightclub singer Yvonne Caldwell (Vanessa Bell Calloway), who comes to Pine Valley at Eugene’s request. Her plan is to lure Jesse away from Angie so that they will divorce and Angie will find solace with Eugene.
Yvonne is able to seduce Jesse and the two have sex. Eugene concocts a lie so Angie will arrive at Yvonne’s house just in time to catch Jesse in bed with Yvonne. This leads to a dramatic brawl between Angie and Yvonne. Angie is furious and throws Jesse out of the house, but she eventually forgives him after finding about Eugene’s plans. Later, a pregnant Yvonne lies and says that the child she is carrying belongs to Jesse. After admitting that she has lied, Yvonne gives her baby away to a black market baby adoption ring. When Jesse learns of Eugene’s schemes, the two brothers also have a vicious fight, after which Eugene leaves Pine Valley and is not heard from again.
Angie & Jesse – The Doctor and the Detective 1986–91
Convinced to seek political office by electronics mogul Palmer Cortlandt (James Mitchell) and his son Ross Chandler (Robert Gentry), Jesse announces his candidacy for a seat on the Pine Valley Town Council. Palmer and Ross withdraw their support after Jesse refuses to act as their political puppet. Nevertheless, Jesse wages an effective campaign and wins the election. However, he soon finds politics to be too restrictive for his tastes, and resigns from the Town Council.
Jesse works to find out the identity of “Mr. Big,” the leader of the black market baby adoption ring to whom Yvonne gave her baby. Mr. Big threatens Yvonne and, to protect herself and her son, she falsely accuses senatorial candidate Travis Montgomery (Larkin Malloy) of being the baby’s father. Mr. Big then blackmails Travis into paying $2 million to keep the false allegation from becoming public and ruining his campaign. After several months, Jesse discovers that Mr. Big is actually his own father-in-law, Les Baxter. Attempting to avoid arrest, Les confronts his son-in-law with a gun. In the ensuing struggle, Jesse accidentally pushes Les down a flight of stairs, and Les is killed in the fall. Having witnessed the struggle and the fall, Angie is devastated and blames Jesse for her father’s death. She once again separates from Jesse, who is heartbroken.
Soon, Jesse and Angie reconcile. She completes medical school and becomes a doctor, despite being sexually harassed by one of her professors, Dr. Allen Voight (John Canary). Jesse joins the Pine Valley Police Department and rises through the ranks quickly, soon becoming a plain clothes detective. During this period Angie befriends Cindy Parker (Ellen Wheeler), the widow of an intravenous drug user who died from AIDS. The couple takes Cindy and her son Scott (Philip Amelio) into their home, and are her closest supporters when she develops AIDS herself. Cindy is ostracized by many Pine Valley residents, including Skye Chandler (Robin Christopher), Greg’s mother Enid Nelson (Natalie Ross), and a hate group that sets fire to the Hubbard home. Cindy would later die, but not before falling in love with and marrying Skye’s uncle Stuart Chandler (David Canary), who adopts Scott.
Jesse develops an excellent reputation within the police force and the community. In 1988, he is assigned to guard wealthy businessman John Remington (Eddie Earl Hatch), whose life has apparently been threatened. While in the line of duty, Jesse takes a bullet meant for Remington. Despite receiving prompt medical attention, Jesse is pronounced dead a few days later.
Remington (or “Remy” as he is often called) tries to start a romantic relationship with the recently widowed Angie, but his attempts are unsuccessful. This is due in part to the fact that Angie is still grieving, but Remington’s association with Jesse’s death makes an Angie-Remy relationship all but impossible. Eventually, Angie has brief romances with medical colleagues Jeff Martin (Jeffrey Byron) and Cal Cummings (Count Stovall), as well as police officer Derek Frye (William Christian). At one point she is engaged to Dr. Cliff Warner(Peter Bergman), but he ends the relationship to remarry his former wife Nina Cortlandt (Taylor Miller). In 1991, Angie leaves Pine Valley and moves to California, taking her son Frankie with her.
Tomorrow: Does anyone ever die on the soaps??