Eric Forrester: Difference between revisions
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At one point, Ridge thought Eric was lost forever, too. He even heard Eric's voice, telling Ridge to let him go. Ridge listens to this grief-induced hallucination and pulls the plug on Eric's breathing machine. After his recovery, Eric learns of this seeming treachery, which allows his younger son, Rick (who, unlike Ridge, is biologically tied to Eric), to exploit this rift. Eventually, Eric fires Ridge and appoints Rick as president of the company. Later, Eric has a change of heart and steps down as CEO so that he can give the job to Ridge. The animosity between Rick and Ridge reaches new heights when Rick accidentally crashes his car and kills his sole passenger: Ridge's daughter, [[Phoebe Forrester|Phoebe]]. Rick manages to use even this situation as a means of exploiting Eric's pity. But he still is unable to get his way, which leads to him secretly stealing Forrester designs and giving them to Forrester's rival: Jackie M. Designs. Eric eventually forgives his son and resists efforts from Stephanie and others in the family to prosecute him for his crime. |
At one point, Ridge thought Eric was lost forever, too. He even heard Eric's voice, telling Ridge to let him go. Ridge listens to this grief-induced hallucination and pulls the plug on Eric's breathing machine. After his recovery, Eric learns of this seeming treachery, which allows his younger son, Rick (who, unlike Ridge, is biologically tied to Eric), to exploit this rift. Eventually, Eric fires Ridge and appoints Rick as president of the company. Later, Eric has a change of heart and steps down as CEO so that he can give the job to Ridge. The animosity between Rick and Ridge reaches new heights when Rick accidentally crashes his car and kills his sole passenger: Ridge's daughter, [[Phoebe Forrester|Phoebe]]. Rick manages to use even this situation as a means of exploiting Eric's pity. But he still is unable to get his way, which leads to him secretly stealing Forrester designs and giving them to Forrester's rival: Jackie M. Designs. Eric eventually forgives his son and resists efforts from Stephanie and others in the family to prosecute him for his crime. |
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==Bill Spencer takes over Forrester== |
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Sales at Forrester are bad. The public hates the marriage between Eric and Donna. The company looks worse when Eric fires Stephanie, who ends up working at Jackie M., and still worse as Thorne and Felicia quit and Brooke takes a leave of absence. And then Pam sabotages the latest showcase by showering Donna—wearing the showstopper gown—with honey, both a reference to [[Brian De Palma]]'s 1976 film, ''[[Carrie (1976 film)|Carrie]]'' (in which the title character is showered with blood) and to Eric and Donna's well-known habit of using honey during sex play. All this—along Eric's use of illegal immigrants as employees—gives the publishing tycoon, [[Bill Spencer, Jr.|Bill Spencer]] (the retcon-created son of the older [[Bill Spencer, Sr.|Bill Spencer]], a character who mainly appeared from 1987 to 1994), the chance to take over the company. |
Sales at Forrester are bad. The public hates the marriage between Eric and Donna. The company looks worse when Eric fires Stephanie, who ends up working at Jackie M., and still worse as Thorne and Felicia quit and Brooke takes a leave of absence. And then Pam sabotages the latest showcase by showering Donna—wearing the showstopper gown—with honey, both a reference to [[Brian De Palma]]'s 1976 film, ''[[Carrie (1976 film)|Carrie]]'' (in which the title character is showered with blood) and to Eric and Donna's well-known habit of using honey during sex play. All this—along Eric's use of illegal immigrants as employees—gives the publishing tycoon, [[Bill Spencer, Jr.|Bill Spencer]] (the retcon-created son of the older [[Bill Spencer, Sr.|Bill Spencer]], a character who mainly appeared from 1987 to 1994), the chance to take over the company. Bill's various efforts fail, until the Forresters are 30 minutes late on their bank loan. Bill pressures the banker to foreclose and sell him the company. The Forresters are furious, but Eric vows to win the company back. |
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==Spencer takeover== |
==Spencer takeover== |
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Revision as of 19:59, 8 August 2011
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| Eric Forrester | |||||||||||||||||
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| The Bold and the Beautiful character | |||||||||||||||||
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| Portrayed by | John McCook | ||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | Episode 1 March 23, 1987 | ||||||||||||||||
| Created by | William J. Bell | ||||||||||||||||
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Eric Forrester is a fictional character on the CBS Daytime soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful. He has been portrayed by John McCook since the show's debut in 1987.[1] In 1993, 1995, 1996, 2005 and 2008 the character appeared briefly on The Young and the Restless, where McCook had played Lance Prentiss from 1975 to 1980.[1]
McCook was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for the role in 2001.[1][2]
Backstory
Eric and his wife, Stephanie, are co-founders of the Los Angeles-based fashion house, Forrester Creations, with Eric as its lead designer. They have five children: Ridge, Thorne, Kristen, Felicia and Angela. Two different retcons have taken away two of his children. The microcephalic Angela viewers meet (and Eric himself meets) in 1988 proves to be an imposter who replaced the real Angela when she died in an accident years before. A 2001 storyline reveals that the real father of his supposed firstborn, Ridge, is the shipping magnate, Massimo Marone.
The backstory involving Stephanie and her college-days rival, Beth Logan, has changed somewhat over the years. Eric and Beth were in love, but a drunken one-night stand with Stephanie gets her pregnant, and eventually she wins Eric from Beth. The 2001 retcon added Massimo, an old boyfriend, to the mix. She had gone to bed with him earlier, but even she assumed that Eric was the father until a blood test proved that was impossible.
The backstory of Forrester Creations makes Eric the one with the talent and Stephanie the one with the business sense. It is Stephanie's father, John Douglas, who, despite disapproving of their marriage, loans Eric $50,000 to start their business, which proves a great success, both in prestige and profits. But those profits are eaten away by a far less prestigious rival, Spectra Fashions, which makes knock-off fashions all too similar to Forrester designs. Spectra was part of the backstory from the beginning, but it wasn't until early 1989 that viewers finally met the outrageous and flamboyant Sally Spectra, who founded and runs the company.
Stephanie
When viewers first meet Eric's wife, Stephanie, (in the second episode) their marriage is already in trouble. Eric declares the marriage "stale," while Stephanie blames their woes on his assistant, Margo Lynley, with whom she incorrectly suspects he is having an affair. Later, Stephanie inadvertently brings an actual "other woman" into his life when she makes the wrong choice of caterers for her party. One of the employees is his old college flame, Beth Henderson, now Beth Logan. After they meet, the two of them resume their love affair from thirty years before. Another employee is Beth's daughter, Brooke, who later proves an even more serious rival for Eric's affections.
Eric eventually leaves his wife for Beth, but what brings him back to the Forrester home (if not Stephanie's bed) is the revelation that he has a 24-year-old daughter he never knew: the microcephalic Angela. Stephanie had pretended she had had a miscarriage to spare Eric the pain of knowing his daughter was so severely disabled. Stephanie had hired a doctor to give Angela 'round-the-clock care in a secret house, never guessing that Angela would live until adulthood. But what the retcon giveth, the retcon can taketh away. It turns out the doctor, Todd Powell, had accidentally killed the real Angela years before. The daughter Eric meets is a perfectly functional imposter.
Other urgent matters—including the secret, withheld even from the partly amnesiac Thorne himself, that Thorne shot Ridge in the back of the head—keep Eric home for awhile. And Stephanie's machinations, which bring Beth's estranged husband back in town, keep him out of that bed. But then his son, Ridge, chooses the publishing heiress, Caroline Spencer, over his fiancée, Brooke. That allows Brooke and him to pick up where he and her mother left off.
Brooke Logan
Eric sleeps with Brooke, who—drunk and groggy from sleeping pills—thinks he is Ridge. When she becomes pregnant, she begins an affair with Eric, which she later ends when she believes that he and Stephanie are about to reconcile. She keeps the pregnancy secret and nearly has an abortion in Paris before Eric finds out and stops her. Soon after, he proposes marriage, and she accepts; but Stephanie fights Eric's attempt to divorce her until after the birth of his and Brooke's son, Eric Jr.
Love quadrangle
The death of Caroline means that Ridge is again free to pursue Brooke, putting him in the awkward position of fighting his father for a woman, as Stephanie is put in the awkward position of trying to push her worst enemy back toward her son. But when Brooke finally divorces Eric, he does not return to Stephanie, but instead romances a psychotic nurse, Sheila Carter, who switches the paternity test for Brooke's new baby. And thus for a short time, Bridget Forrester is thought to be the daughter of Ridge. Only later does she prove to be Eric's, but her name—a combination of Brooke's and Ridge's—is a permanent reminder of who the father was originally presumed to be.
Sheila Carter
Meanwhile, he marries Sheila and quickly realizes his mistake, which he is determined to correct after she claims to be pregnant. He had had a secret vasectomy. She later proves (as she had already proven to certain characters on The Young and the Restless, especially Lauren Fenmore) quite mad and ends up holding Eric and his family hostage in the Forrester home, determined to shoot them. That crisis ends with her in a mental institution, but she is out within a year to wreak more havoc.
Ridge's real father
In 2001, the shipping magnate, Massimo Marone, comes to town and woos Ridge's mother, Stephanie. Ridge opposes his efforts, and during a heated argument with him, cuts his hand deeply. This leads to a hospital visit and a doctor's discovery, divulged to Stephanie, that the blood types of Eric and Ridge make it impossible for them to be father and son. Stephanie reveals to Massimo that he therefore must be Ridge's father, conceived during a trip to Lake Geneva in their college days. The truth eventually comes out to both Eric and Ridge, and at first it puts an extra burden on the already strained relationship between father and son. Yet despite the efforts of Eric's real sons, Thorne and Rick—who exploit Ridge's lack of a biological tie to Eric—he continues to favor Ridge over the rest of his children.
Return to Brooke
In 2005, not long after divorcing Stephanie again, Eric returns to Brooke and they marry. The two become co-CEOs of Forrester Creations and fire Stephanie. But then Stephanie discovers a trust which her father had set up for her 40 years before, and which Eric had kept hidden, making her sole owner of the company. She takes over, fires them as CEOs but rehire them as designers, consigned to a basement office. The marriage doesn't last anyway: Brooke ends up back with Ridge, and Eric winds up back with Stephanie.
Donna Logan
Eric's marriage to Stephanie is strained when he learns that her machinations led to an outcome she hadn't plotted: the rape of Brooke. This leads, by a circuitous route, to Eric and Brooke's sister, Donna, becoming secret lovers. Various plots by various parties pull Eric from wife to mistress and back again. Nick, who now owns Forrester, makes divorcing Stephanie a condition of selling the company back to Eric. During a Forrester fashion show, Stephanie convinces Thorne and Felicia to lock Donna in a steam room while she wears the showstopper gown, hoping to ruin the show and make Donna look responsible. Stephanie prepares a more devious plot after she is shot and discovers who shot her: Donna's brother, Storm. She conceals her knowledge from the police on the condition that Donna leave Eric. Stephanie's schemes, and the schemes made on her behalf, ultimately fail. She and Eric sign divorce papers on the May 2, 2008 episode; Eric and Donna marry on the May 9th episode.
Who poisoned Eric?
In July 2008, Eric has a heart attack while having sex with Donna and falls into a coma. Donna has his power of attorney, thus making her acting CEO of Forrester Creations. As CEO, Donna gives promotions to Rick, Marcus Walton (her newly rediscovered son) and the mysterious Owen Knight; and she fires Ridge, Thorne and Felicia. Soon it is revealed that Eric was deliberately poisoned with potassium chloride, which was probably in the gin he drank just before his attack. Everyone is a suspect, including Owen Knight, who—out of unrequited love for Donna—confesses to the crime to take suspicion off her. But it turns out that Stephanie's sister, Pamela, poisoned Eric by giving him a potassium chloride-laced lemon bar. Her intention was only to weaken him and discredit Donna (thus avenging Stephanie) in the process.
Donna and Owen
Eric eventually recovers, but the schemes to break up his marriage continue apace. Donna gives her enemies ammunition by allowing Owen to kiss her. Just then, Eric—whom she thought was lost forever—is wheeled into the room and sees them. He eventually forgives her, but Thorne hires Donna and Owen lookalikes to make out in front of a secret camera (which a suspicious Eric himself had installed) in Owen's office. The truth eventually comes out, and Eric and Donna remain together.
Rick manipulates his father
At one point, Ridge thought Eric was lost forever, too. He even heard Eric's voice, telling Ridge to let him go. Ridge listens to this grief-induced hallucination and pulls the plug on Eric's breathing machine. After his recovery, Eric learns of this seeming treachery, which allows his younger son, Rick (who, unlike Ridge, is biologically tied to Eric), to exploit this rift. Eventually, Eric fires Ridge and appoints Rick as president of the company. Later, Eric has a change of heart and steps down as CEO so that he can give the job to Ridge. The animosity between Rick and Ridge reaches new heights when Rick accidentally crashes his car and kills his sole passenger: Ridge's daughter, Phoebe. Rick manages to use even this situation as a means of exploiting Eric's pity. But he still is unable to get his way, which leads to him secretly stealing Forrester designs and giving them to Forrester's rival: Jackie M. Designs. Eric eventually forgives his son and resists efforts from Stephanie and others in the family to prosecute him for his crime.
Bill Spencer takes over Forrester
Sales at Forrester are bad. The public hates the marriage between Eric and Donna. The company looks worse when Eric fires Stephanie, who ends up working at Jackie M., and still worse as Thorne and Felicia quit and Brooke takes a leave of absence. And then Pam sabotages the latest showcase by showering Donna—wearing the showstopper gown—with honey, both a reference to Brian De Palma's 1976 film, Carrie (in which the title character is showered with blood) and to Eric and Donna's well-known habit of using honey during sex play. All this—along Eric's use of illegal immigrants as employees—gives the publishing tycoon, Bill Spencer (the retcon-created son of the older Bill Spencer, a character who mainly appeared from 1987 to 1994), the chance to take over the company. Bill's various efforts fail, until the Forresters are 30 minutes late on their bank loan. Bill pressures the banker to foreclose and sell him the company. The Forresters are furious, but Eric vows to win the company back.
Spencer takeover
When the Forresters were 30 minutes late on their bank loan Bill Spencer, Jr. pressured the banker to foreclose on Forrester Creations and sell him the company. This angered the Forresters so much that they attempted to pay off their $ 100 million debt in a year instead of ten but failed. Eric agreed in order to save the company from total collapse,but has regreted losing his company and promised to Ridge that he will take his company back.
Eric has not been involved with Forrester Creations since the takeover and is opposed to Donna hosting the talk show the Catwalk, which is owned by Spencer Publications, giving her access to her ex-boyfriend and father of her son Justin Barber. Later he began working on a scheme to take Forrester Creations back with the Dare Line,but when Brooke spills the beans to Katie it fails. He finally regains his company when Steffy Forrester blackmails Bill into selling the company back; he becomes a 25% co-owner along with Ridge, Taylor, and Stephanie, and also names Ridge CEO of Forrester Creations.
Eric and Donna divorce
After Stephanie got into an altercation with Beth (Stephanie's former rival and Eric's first fiancee), Donna made it her goal to make sure that Stephanie paid by pressing charges after Beth drowned in the pool. Stephanie threw a family heirloom in the pool and left with an alzheimer confused ladden Beth in tears. Beth went in after the heirloom and went into cardiac arrest. Eric disagreed with Donna's need to press charges against Stephanie. This led Donna to believe that Stephanie was still too important in Eric's life and she wasn't willing to share him with her, especially after everything she's done to Brooke, her mother, her family.
Eric and Stephanie reunite
Eric and Stephanie reunite and make it their goal to build Forrester Creations up again to the height of its former status. Whether they will actually get back together as a couple remains to be seen because of Eric having to deal with the aftermath of his divorce from Donna, which includes her brother-in-law Bill Spencer, Jr. getting involved in the whole sordid mess.
Eric and the rest of the Forrester family learn that Stephanie has Stage 4 lung cancer and are deeply saddened by the news. However, Eric intends to be there for her as she goes through what is to be a very trying time for her, showing that the bond between Eric and Stephanie is the kind of bond that will never be broken.
Taboo
Ridge's son Thomas comes up with a line to make his mark in the fashion industry that is named Taboo. The line gains widespread popularity when Thomas kisses Brooke on the runway. Thomas swears it was just a stunt but after a backstage kiss staged by Whip Jones,in order to get back at Ridge, Thomas' mother Taylor becomes worried that Thomas is becoming attracted to Brooke. Thomas repeatedly denies this but after returning from a business trip to Paris Thomas kisses Brooke while she is asleep. They keep this secret but it comes out and everyone begins to suspect Thomas is attracted to Brooke. Ridge thinks Thomas has crossed a line and dramatically cuts back the funding for Taboo. Thomas begins to rebel against Ridge for cutting the funding for his line and continues promoting Taboo despite the cuts.
Eric supports Taboo because of the record sales it has produced despite Ridge's reservations. Ridge senses that there is more than Eric is admitting at a board meeting and privately Eric tells Ridge that Thomas is doing exactly what Ridge did to him. Eric explains that he has always felt betrayed by Ridge ever since Brooke ended their marriage and returned to Ridge despite having two young children together. Ridge tells Eric that Eric's support for Thomas is payback for Brooke and Eric's marriage ending because she loved Ridge.
References
- ^ a b c "Soap Start Stats: John McCook (Eric, B&B)". SoapOperaDigest.com. Retrieved January 27, 2009.
- ^ "Daytime Emmy Winners & Nominees: 2001". SoapOperaDigest.com. Retrieved January 27, 2009.
External links
- Eric Forrester profile - Soapcentral.com
- "Soap Opera Digest Online: John McCook". SoapOperaDigest.com. Retrieved 2009-01-27.
- "Bold and Beautiful Timeline: The Wives and Loves of Eric Forrester". SoapOperaDigest.com. Retrieved 2009-01-27.