Jump to content

JR Chandler and Babe Carey: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Content deleted Content added
Line 243: Line 243:





== See also ==

[[All My Children]]

[[J.R. Chandler]]

[[Babe Carey]]

[[Supercouple]]





Revision as of 13:42, 11 May 2007

J.R. Chandler and Babe Carey are a popular couple on the American soap opera All My Children. Despite their often tempestuous romance, the power of their love has been referenced more than once in the show to that of supercouple Tad and Dixie's love.

J.R. is played by Jacob Young and Babe is played by Alexa Havins. Their nickname is Jabe.

File:JR & Babe Cover Story Image 1.JPG
Babe and J.R.

Creation And Inspiration

In 1992, after ABC executives decided that the show needed new blood, and promoted Agnes Nixon's protege Megan McTavish to the position of head writer (although Nixon continued to be involved with the show, but wanted to take a step back from the grueling day-to-day task of being a head writer), McTavish jumped at the task of adding new dimensions to the show, dishing out what many considered a complete overhaul of their beloved drama. [1] One of her character creations in general, Babe Carey, first sprouted up in 2003 as vixen-esque type of latched onto the arm of wealthy heir to the Chandler fortune, J.R. Chandler.

When Megan McTavish and Brian Frons, president of ABC Daytime, collaborated on what they were going for with the J.R. and Babe couple, their inspiration for the pairing was that of the love triangle in which had transpired two decades before, the Adam Chandler/Dixie Cooney/Tad Martin love triangle of the late 1980's...where Adam was set up as the road block antagonizing Tad and Dixie's true love. McTavish and Frons originally saw Babe and Jamie as the true love couple while J.R. was the antagonist to their union.

Babe & Jamie: We see them as a long-term couple. Very much positioned as Tad and Dixie once were against Adam, they're positioned against J.R.

[2]

But no matter Frons' original vision, the J.R. and Babe coupling woud take on a different fate. And at the same time McTavish and Frons knew what they wanted for the pairing, J.R. and Babe's portrayers, Jacob and Alexa, were contemplating on what they wanted to bring to their characters as well.

A Piece Of Their Own Lives

Jacob Young wanted to focus more on his widening acting range when it came to perfecting his role of J.R. Chandler. "Since I've gotten older, it's become more about training. I'm using the tools that I've learned in classes and my acting is becoming more refined", he told Soap Opera Digest in a magazine interview.

In the same interview, he elaborated on his feelings as to his alter ego. "They twisted JR in a completely different direction," shares Young. "They started off with J.R. not respecting his father and having a lot of elements of his mother in him. He was much more soft. Then they started toying with it and couldn't believe what was coming out of me. I'd always been the nice, honorable guy; I'd never been the character who was stirring the pot." [3]

Alexa Havins, on the otherhand, had a slighty different take on drawing from the emotions of her character, such as crying. "In a way, good writing is one of the first keys to crying on cue, because you’re really invested in what you’re saying and what you’re hearing the other person say. You have to be fully prepared. You can’t be thinking of lines or movement, you’ve got to be in the moment." [4]

J.R. And Babe's Romantic History

Love At First Sight, Then Marriage

File:J.R. and Babe's introduction as a couple - Image 1..jpg
J.R. and Babe's introduction as a couple.

In 2003 J.R. made his return to Pine Valley with a shock for everyone -- he'd married a young woman he had met three weeks before, Arabella Carey, otherwise known as Babe. She wasn't a stranger to all in her new husband's family. The night before, a drunken Babe had a one-night stand with Jamie Martin, J.R.'s step brother, having taken his virginity. J.R. made no qualms about telling his family that he'd met Babe one night in San Diego at the end of a fog-covered dock. He felt that Babe was going to jump and commit suicide, but Babe stated that as bad as things were...she never would have taken her own life.

The newlyweds' marriage had its immediate share of obstacles, as Adam, J.R.'s father, vowed to do any and everything to separate the two. He utterly hated Babe, having come to the conclusion that she was only after his son's fortune. Despite his many efforts, he was unsuccessful in breaking up their marriage. However, upon finding out that Babe had slept with Jamie at around a little later Babe discovered that she was pregnant -- though she wasn't certain of who the father was -- Adam tried to recruit Jamie as a partner in tearing apart J.R. and Babe's marriage. That attempt was a failure as well. This latest scheming of Adam's was also around the point that another secret of Babe's was just showing itself -- that she was already married and had never gotten a divorce from her first husband Paul Cramer.

J.R. was determined to showcase to Adam his ability to tackle any obstacle thrown at him, but at this time Paul and Babe had hatched a plan to throw suspicion off themselves. Though Paul never said if he really had rigged the paternity test, the two conspired to rig a paternity test so that the results would say J.R. was the father of Babe’s child, all this done with the aid of Babe's mother Krystal Carey Chandler (who didn't bear the Chandler name at this time, but would later after tricking Adam into marrying her). Tad Martin, step father to J.R., learned about the rigged paternity test, however. Krystal relayed to him to just let the lovebirds be happy. Tad lied to J.R. to protect him, putting their tattered father-and-son relationship at even more risk for further damage. Babe gave birth to a son, Adam Chandler III -- and as nicknames -- referred to as "Little Adam" or "Little A."

The Baby-Switch Drama

As Babe was pregnant, and had no clue who the father was, J.R. or Jamie, she found herself in the middle of a thunderstorm with an equally pregnant Bianca. They were trapped in a cabin. Babe made sure to call Paul, a doctor from Llanview, to bring a helicopter, and rescue them both and take them to a hospital. Paul hesitated at first, but then was on the same level with Babe.

He made it there, and assisted Babe in delivering her baby. Bianca delivered her baby, a girl, as well. After drugging Babe, Paul switched the babies, giving Babe's child, a son, to his own sister Kelly Cramer, who desperately wanted a child of her own. Bianca's child was given to Babe, and Paul informed Bianca with the lie that her baby had died.

In the months that would follow, plenty of betrayal rocked J.R. and Babe's life together: Babe, sensing that she had a boy, was persuaded by her mother into keeping Bianca's baby anyway, J.R. tried to paint Babe as a bad mother out of his anger at her one-night stand with Jamie, then he had Jamie framed for the drugging action, and Babe set up J.R. to prove that he was no longer in love with her.

When the baby-switch storyline played down to its conclusion, Babe had discovered that her son was alive, kidnapped him from Paul's sister while on the run with Jamie, left a heart-breaking note for J.R. that their son was actually the one to die, not Bianca's, and tried to start a new life with Jamie. However, J.R., after having gone through the mourning state of losing the child he thought of as his daughter, came across the truth that his son hadn't really died. J.R. was eventually further confirmed as the biological father of the child after having tracked down Babe and Jamie. [7] This time without any tricky paternity shadiness due to the help of Ethan Cambias, who, mainly in part because of his own abandonment-issues with his own father, Zach Slater, felt that no one should have the right to keep a child from their deserving parent. J.R. won sole custody of Adam III, even against dozens of people claiming that he would be a bad father.

True Love Versus Betrayal And Distrust

J.R. and Babe, due to the lies, pain, and betrayal of the "Baby Switch" storyline of 2004, divorced. J.R. spun into a deeply depressed and saddended state. One night, while drunk, he got behind the wheel of his car, as Babe tried to keep him from driving. She couldn't stop his dangerous behavior, and a speeding J.R. ran his car into Amanda Dillon. J.R. was noticeably taken aback when Babe confessed to driving the car, protecting him from having to face jail time. This one incident sparked up past romantic feelings J.R. had once had for Babe, and the two slowly grew closer. J.R. still didn't completely trust Babe, so he tested her loyalty to him a number of times, and Babe passed every one of his tests. J.R. finally confessed his love for Babe. Babe, who had only meant for this renewed bond between the two of them to be some scheme in order to get him to re-marry her, then find some dirty info on him in which she could use to prove him a bad father to the court, and steal away their child, had genuinely fallen for J.R. again and let him know this love.

File:Jabe hot pic.jpg
J.R. and Babe in a shack making love during their back-together status.

More complications arose when not too long after J.R. and Babe declared their love for each other, Babe and Little Adam were kidnapped by Janet Dillon, who made it appear as if Babe had run off with her son. J.R., angry and distraught, suffered as his trust in Babe was broken yet again. He began drinking, even resorted to holding Krystal at gunpoint in order to find Babe.

File:J.R. holds Krystal hostage, threatens her life.JPG
J.R holds Krystal hostage, gun in hand.

Babe, meanwhile, was very much envisioning J.R. coming to rescue her. Once out of her daydream, she stood realizing that it was all too good to be true. Babe's innocence was proven when she was rescued from Janet, and she forgave J.R. for his doubts toward her.

The two remarried. They enjoyed a blissful getaway to the south of France for their honeymoon. While there, they knew true peace. J.R. wished upon a shooting star that their romantic love for each other would never die J.R. was full of pleasant surprises during this getaway, such as speaking French, and having revealed another side of himself to Babe -- that he was quite skilled in the art of drawing. Although, he never bragged about this skill, the sketch he drew of Babe in this moment was flawless. This time between J.R. and Babe would come to be the day in which Babe would describe as the happiest day of her life. She later wished on the same notion that their love will never die. But this great bliss between them, at least after France, was short-lived. J.R. was rocked when he discovered his long estranged mother Dixie Cooney was still very much alive.

When she told him that she chose to stay away for four years and she refused to say why she had, he closed himself off from everyone, even Babe. Drinking heavily again, his feelings of being betrayed got mixed up with his suspicions of Babe, thoughts in which Janet had gradually planted in his head. J.R. began to believe that Babe really didn't love him and was using him to gain custody of their son. Driven by grief, alcohol, and anger, J.R. temporarily lost control and set a trap to kill Babe in what he believed at the time was the only way to save his son from having Babe do to Little Adam what was done to him by Dixie. However, longtime best friend Kendall Hart was caught in the trap instead and fell into a coma while pregnant. Babe, while eavesdropping on a one-sided conversation J.R. was having with a coma-induced Kendall, soon discovered that J.R. had tried to murder her. She then confronted him about it.

J.R. On Trial, Verdict Mess

J.R. was arrested and put in jail. He was angry with everyone, and most definitely angry with Babe. He felt that Babe had spit on their love. Adam told J.R. that he wouldn't bail him out, thus J.R. was convinced that he was all alone at that point. His uncle Stuart Chandler paid his bail and took this angry J.R. on a tour, sort of like a take on the novel/movie A Christmas Carol...where J.R. could see how the people he loves think about him not being there, that they really do appreciate him, and therefore he has no reason not to clean up his hostile attitude. J.R. gained the knowledge that despite all the anger and pain that he's dished out, his family still loved him, such as Jamie. As for his love-life, J.R. overheard Babe tell Josh that J.R. is the love of her life, even when she was with Jamie romantic-wise.

J.R. also caught Dixie saying that she loved him while she blamed herself for his problems. J.R. made a decision to be upfront. He confessed to Babe about setting the trap for her, but hurting Kendall instead, and endangering her unborn baby. Babe was skeptical at the new J.R. for a while there, but J.R. was willing to go to prison for his crime. And when it seemed that J.R. would be sent to prison for ten years, Babe, persuaded by Dixie, told the courtroom that she lied about J.R.'s actions before. It was all a lie. J.R. was flabbergasted, but Babe stood by him. Even when Kendall awoke from her coma and tried to testify that J.R. had confessed while she was unconscious, it proved not enough to send J.R. to prison. J.R. was set free, while several residents of Pine Valley, Kendall as well, Erica Kane and Ryan Lavery vowed to take revenge on the duo. J.R. and Babe set out to start fresh on their romance, to make it work, no matter the loathing from other people in Pine Valley.

File:J.R and Babe work on re-building their bond.JPG
J.R. and Babe work on re-building their bond.

The J.R./Babe/Josh Love Triangle

J.R. didn't expect his life to be easy after getting away with attempted murder. It wasn't. Kendall, Ryan, and Zach Slater were all after him. And Babe faced verbal smackdowns by The Women Of Fusion. J.R., having come into the knowledge on the wherabouts of his missing baby sister Kate Martin, the daughter Dixie had given up to Greg Madden years before, occupied himself with trying to find her.

In the mean time, Babe had grown close to a man by the name of Josh Madden, Greg Madden's son. One night, months after Greg Madden's death, and J.R. had promised Babe not to reveal to Josh Madden that Josh was the aborted son of Erica Kane, J.R. did it anyway, which infuriated Babe. She ran after the emotional Josh, tried to reason with him, but he snuck off into the cockpit, started the engine and took off in his plane, kidnapping Babe. Babe and Josh argued, but it all seemed pretty insignificant when they realized that the plane was out of gas, and that they were going to crash. Crash, the plane did, on a small deserted island where the two argued some more. A few intimate scenes, such as a kiss followed, but Babe refused to betray her marriage vows any further, and would not make the mistake of having sex with Josh.

J.R., Jamie and Julia rescued Josh and Babe from the island, and returned to Pine Valley. J.R. and Babe tried to rebuild their relationship in the time after that. They got away from their frustrations every now and then. But Josh and Babe grew closer during Josh's grief over losing the man he knew as his father, Greg Madden. Josh built a coffin, and when Babe arrived just in time to see this, he begged her to take a hammer and nail him inside of it, so that he could better grasp his father's final hours. Josh didn't last long in the coffin, however, and when it was over, he cried in Babe's arms. This type of raw emotion is what Babe craved from her husband. Babe slept with Josh after her husband would not let her in on his feelings. But Babe still wanted her husband. She fired Josh from Fusion. J.R. felt that he had won this war with Josh Madden. The feeling wasn't exprienced for long though. David Hayward had planned the Chandler Family downfall, and revealed the one-night stand/emotional affair between Babe and Josh.

J.R., at first, didn't believe anyone who voiced to him that Babe had slept with Josh. But after Josh told J.R. the truth against Babe's wishes, and Babe later admitted it to J.R., J.R. went off the deep end, no matter Babe voicing that she loves J.R. more. He sought out Josh, going to Josh's hotel room while Josh was out. He gulped down an entire rack of alcohol, and was seriously drunk, hoping to brawl with Josh. Bianca found J.R. there in Josh's room instead. And despite her efforts to calm J.R. down, J.R. had revenge on his mind. But when Bianca and Erica refused to let him leave through the door in order to hurt someone, he opted for the alternative: J.R. jumped through a window and slammed into the patio below, resulting in being knocked unconscious while he bled there, on the brink of death.

File:J.R. on the brink of death after his jump out of the window..jpg
J.R. on the brink of death after his jump out of a window.

Recovering, Giving Babe Another Chance

Josh found J.R. on the ground bleeding to death. There was a slight hesitation as Josh weighed the option of saving his enemy or having Babe free to himself. Josh soon started to work to keep J.R. alive in that moment, despite their mutual hatred for each other. The work was rough but skilled, and Josh managed to save J.R.'s life. while recovering, J.R. expressed that he hated Babe, but Tad told him that the kind of love J.R. and Babe share will never fade; it's the same kind of love that Tad himself has for Dixie.

J.R. absolutely would not forgive Babe. Terrible physical agony only aided in making sure he got little sleep, and in one instance where he did sleep, it resulted in a nightmare of Babe and Josh as lovers. Jamie even informed Babe that she should stay away from J.R. because no matter how much they love each other romantic-wise, they would only continue to hurt each other severely. Jamie stayed by J.R.'s side, and did his best to keep Babe away from his brother. There was one point at the hospital though in which Babe got to speak to JR about love, and the hits taken to their marriage, and how if she'd lost J.R. due to death, she would have been broken forever. He is her life, she told him. Adam asked Dixie to move back to the Chandler mansion to be with her son. Against his better judgment, Adam also allowed Babe to stay at the Chandler Mansion for the sake of Little Adam. Once J.R. moved back home, he was irate to see Babe still there and tried to get Babe thrown out. J.R. slowly healed, and Babe used every opportunity she could to be near him, as they began to repair the damage to their marriage. Murders at Fusion started to occur, so J.R. hired a bodyguard to protect Babe...and to spy on her. He was still not as emotionally close to her again yet, but the two had begun the re-building process.

Telling J.R. that Babe and Josh had kissed on New Year's Eve, which was initiated by Josh, was Babe's bodyguard. J.R. then discovered that Babe and Josh had been at the Valley Inn together with the transgender rock star Zarf/Zoe. J.R. thus had his suspicions that Babe and Josh were still seeing each other romantically, so J.R. called his lawyer to find out how to get full custody of Little Adam.

Babe's Almost-Death And Fake-Death

The Satin Slayer, a serial killer on the loose in Pine Valley, had already taken the lives of two of the three targets pursued, all women of Fusion -- there was Simone Torres, Erin Lavery, and Danielle Frye (although Danielle survived). The remaining women left at Fusion, Kendall and Babe, were the final targets. It first appeared that the killer would go after Kendall, but soon the culprit attacked the Chandlers in their very home. Poison was injected into a batch of peanut butter, which was used for pancakes. Babe heavily contemplated eating the pancakes, but later decided not to, stating that she wouldn't want J.R. to see her eating them because they would spark the thought of her eating peanut butter banana pancakes with Josh at a time she had. Dixie instead ate the poisoned pancakes and died in a hospital with Tad at her side. J.R. visited Dixie's hospital room to view her body, alongside Babe. He said an emotional goodbye to his mother, returned to her a necklace in which she adored, and cried in his wife's arms.

J.R. was beyond crushed, but he didn't resort to the bottle this time. He instead took comfort in talking about his feelings in great detail to Babe, something in which Babe had always wanted from J.R. Babe blamed herself for Dixie's death, but J.R. assured her that he'd never wish her dead in his mother's place. Even so, once J.R. caught Babe & Josh kissing in a shed, J.R. used Krystal's secret, words from Dixie's dying breath, that Krystal's unborn baby was Tad's, not Adam's as leverage to battle Babe. J.R. made the decision to proceed with his divorce and custody case against Babe, no matter the two having shared recent closeness.

J.R. confronted Babe with the news about Krystal & Tad's baby, and forced her to choose between custody of Little Adam or her mother's secret. Babe pled with J.R. that the kiss he witnessed her give Josh in the shed was just a goodbye kiss, and that she was still very much in love with J.R., but J.R. wasn't hearing any such talk. Babe was devastated when J.R. verbally lashed out that she should've died instead of Dixie. His words of --

My mother died in your place! She's dead because of you... All because you couldn't eat your favorite pancake breakfast. Your stupid favorite breakfast. No, 'ruin lives'? You should be in the ground, not her! And I wish to hell you were.

-- stuck painfully on Babe's mind. In the parking garage of Chandler Enterprises, Babe's bodyguard was killed and Babe was attacked by The Satin Slayer. J.R. didn't believe that Babe had been attacked at first, thinking that it was just a ploy, like her earlier scheme of having gotten her transgender buddy Zarf/Zoe to kiss him by surprise while Babe snapped a picture of it, hoping to use that as a weapon of blackmail just moments before. J.R. quickly did realize that Babe had really been hurt by The Satin Slayer when Tad relayed it to him. J.R. rushed to PV Hospital, just as Babe, at that very moment, flat-lined -- experiencing her life flashing before her eyes -- the images were of her mother, her son, and J.R., noticeably ending on a final flash where Babe is in France with J.R. looking over the balcony as she declared that day as the happiest day of her life. J.R. made it to the hospital a little after Krystal and Adam did, but soon after that...Babe was declared dead in the operating room... She "died" loving J.R..

File:J.R. heartbroken that Babe is (supposedly) dead..jpg
J.R. heartbroken that Babe is (supposedly) dead.

It was later revealed that although Babe was attacked by The Satin Slayer, she didn't die. Josh had saved her, with the help of Zach, Kendall, Jackson Montgomery, his grandfather Joe Martin and his father Jeff Martin. In truth, it was Zach's idea to fake Babe's death. And Jeff and Joe who saved her life by implanting a pacemaker within her heart to regulate it, but Josh got most of the credit due to his constant vigil at her bedside. To fake Babe's death, they had slowed down her heart-rate, causing her to go into a coma and then they moved her to Zach's casino. Josh pretended to skip town out of his "heart-breaking loss" of Babe.

J.R., needing to direct his anger elsewhere besides the bottle, and also wanting revenge for his wife's "murder"...aided Tad, Jamie, and Aidan in their search for The Satin Slayer. It all culminated in the revelation that The Satin Slayer was Alexander Cambias, Sr., Zach's biological father. He had faked his death in 2003 and had been keeping an eye on Pine Valley for months. He was disappointed and loathing of his son Zach/Alexander Cambias Jr. for faking his death at the age of eighteen. During this time, Krystal, alongside J.R., grieved painfully over Babe's "death" for weeks. In the meantime, once Babe, after the drugs in her system as of medication wore off and she was stronger, was finally able to realize the horror of what her mother had went through in thinking that she was dead, she just about ordered Josh to reveal to her mother that she was still alive. Babe wasn't so eager to let J.R. know that she was alive though. During Babe's drugged-up state of recovery when she thought she was merely in a regular hospital in which her loved ones could visit her, Josh had carefully led Babe to believe the lie that J.R. didn't care whether she lived or died. In one malicious moment, Josh stated that J.R. had visited Babe's cubicle, but that he didn't care to come in to see her. When Babe asked Josh if J.R. had even asked for her once, Josh told her not once. He left out that J.R. thought that she was dead.

Accepting Things As They Are

By the time Babe found out everyone, including J.R., thought that she was dead, the damage had already been done to her psyche concerning how J.R. felt about her. Krystal was finally told the truth that Babe was still alive. She fainted at first news of it, but once reunited with Babe, all was well in her universe. She even let Babe know how deeply J.R. mourned Babe, but hearing that still didn't seem to resonate with Babe in the clear sense that one could believe she really trusted that. Erica Kane, besides the people who helped save Babe, knew that Babe was alive. Babe wanted to keep her being-alive status a secret from everyone else in Pine Valley. Having listened to Josh, she felt that fleeing with Josh and snatching Little Adam was the only way that she and J.R. wouldn't continue this same love-and-hate cycle that they have going on, and that it was the best way for her to ensure she keep custody of Little Adam. So Krystal agreed to respect her daughter's wishes and promised to keep it a secret as well, even from her own husband...Adam.

However, Erica made up her mind to tell J.R. the truth and went to the Chandler mansion to tell him immediately. Tad was there by default when she told. All three rushed to the casino. Erica, after trying to talk Josh out of his plan to help Babe run away with her son and leave J.R. for good, finally let him know that she had told J.R. that Babe is still alive. Josh was extremely and understandably angry at her for this and he swiftly headed off to Babe's room only to find J.R. at her bedside. J.R., tears in his eyes, had Babe's hand in his palm. He was trying his best to convince her that he is a "changed man" and would never cause her harm again. J.R. thanked Josh for saving Babe from The Satin Slayer. Josh left the room in frustration and J.R. continued to voice to Babe how truly sorry he was for how he had treated her before her "death" and how much he wanted her back. He also guaranteed that Krystal's secret was safe with him.

Krystal, out of being pressured by Josh, and then wanting Babe free from any mental-weight in order to make up a clear mind about J.R and Josh, made up her mind to tell the secret about her unborn child to Adam, which resulted, of course, in much upset on Adam's part. Adam declared that J.R. was no longer his son. J.R. focused on helping Babe and Krystal. He even enlisted Jack Montgomery as their lawyer in an insurance fraud charge that Adam laid on both. J.R. still struggles to win back Babe into a romance with him. She voiced that although she is in love with him, and loves him deeply, always will, sometimes love is not enough. She wants a life with him romantic-wise, but feels that a divorce and the two of them never entering into another romantic relationship with each other is the only way to make certain that they won't hurt each other severely anymore, and that being separated as lovers should give their son a better shot at a stable life not brought up in a war-zone between two bickering parents. Babe was able to get through to J.R. that a divorce is the right way to go...and to share joint custody of Little Adam.

Cultural Impact

  • When J.R. tried to murder Babe, and yet the couple was still portrayed as true loves to each other, it sparked a perplexing, former debate among soap opera viewers and viewers of television shows in general: Why do we gravitate toward this in some cases, but in others...we throw stones? Is it the charm of a certain character that better allows one to see it as just television? Or affinity for the popular couple in which we aren't quite ready to let go of yet, if ever? This certainly wasn't the first time that a character in daytime drama had tried to murder the love of his life. Alan of couple Alan and Monica had tried the same thing with his true love, except it was several times for that particular pairing. Blogger Ben Bryant noted, "ABC in particular, has seen the unpredictable rise of 'anti-leading' men, including two wildly popular characters with rapist pasts: Anthony Geary's "Luke Spencer" on GENERAL HOSPITAL and Roger Howarth (later Trevor St. John)'s "Todd Manning" on ONE LIFE TO LIVE. Is it the appeal (or at least promise) of "redemption via a good woman's love" or the age-old affinity for the "bad boy," that draws..." [9]
  • Jacob Young's very realistic portrayal of an alcoholic battling his inner demons, who also couldn't fully grasp why he'd tried to kill his wife got him and his character noticed by PRISM, in which supports productions and performances featuring the accurate depiction of drug, alcohol and tobacco use, addiction, as well as mental health. He was nominated for the 11th Annual Prism Awards under the title of "All My Children: JR's Alcoholism."[10]

Popularity

At one point, around the time of their third engagement/marriage, J.R. and Babe's popularity as a couple matched that of Zach Slater and Kendall Hart's. But after J.R.'s murder attempt on Babe, their popularity was hit with an aching blow. Many fans felt that J.R. should have served time for his crime. Alexa Havins, Babe's portrayer, was noted with her comments as to the "J.R. attempts to murder Babe" storyline in her T.V. guide interview

Despite the Babe character herself not being very well liked by a lot of fans, the J.R. and Babe romance still remains a popular pairing in polls such as the All My Children.about.com polls [11] or the Soap Opera Digest polls when being asked if Babe's destiny lies with J.R. or Josh. However, their days of being on the same level as Zach and Kendall faded.

The storyline of Babe's "death" at one of the most animosity-filled breakups between J.R. and Babe rocked a great number of AMC fans, and was one of the biggest upsets in daytime history, but not necessarily because Babe was killed off. Dixie Cooney (Martin's) death by The Satin Slayer serial killer is what had most viewers in a rage. The producers of "All My Children" decided to kill off the character of Dixie in place of Babe, then toyed with the audience in the notion that "ONE'S NOT DEAD" in their ABC promos after Babe died as well. Many fans clamored in trying to find a way to save Dixie, but it was too late, and the audience's rage toward Babe was magnified as witnessed in such articles as Creatvity anyone? [12] [13] [14]

See also

All My Children

J.R. Chandler

Babe Carey

Supercouple

References

  • Daily Recaps, All My Children (2005-2-18). "FRENCH CONNECTION". Karin Watkins. Retrieved 2007-5-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)

Brian Frons: Executive Musings].

  • About.comhttp://onelifetolive.about.com/library/news/blbaby_switch.htm The Bib Baby Switch]


External Links




Sources

References