It's always been strange that Katherine
Chancellor Sterling quickly dropped the name Sterling practically on the
same day Rex Sterling was shot dead. Why is that? Why has Katherine recalled
in the past the death of Phillip Chancellor II, has his bones buried in the
Chancellor Mausoleum backyard, and yet poor Rex never got so much as
honorable mention?
In an effort to answer that question we went in the archives for a look see.
It was 1988 when Gina Roma discovered that her father had come to the big
city of Genoa. Rex told her he'd given up his life of crime, changed his
name to Sterling, and wanted to bond with Gina and her brother, Danny
Romalotti. Danny didn't buy it. When Rex began sniffing around Katherine,
Danny warned she was being snookered by Rex's sudden interest in a woman
twice his age, but later he changed his tune.
As she had Phillip, Jill Abbott developed a case of the hots for Rex and had
all along paid Rex to suck up to Katherine after finding him on a park
bench. Problem was, Rex really wanted Katherine and went so far as to give
the old woman an engagement ring he charged to Jill's credit card. Jill was
upset when Rex said he and Katherine were going to be married. She showed
Katherine the receipts proving she'd paid Rex to be a gigolo, but Katherine
wasn't swayed because Rex agreed to sign a prenuptial agreement.
On the day of the wedding, a pregnant with Jill's son's baby, Nina Webster
went into labor, and since Katherine had a vested interest in the baby, she
and Rex spent their honeymoon in an empty hospital room near Nina. The baby,
Phillip Chancellor IV, was delivered by C-section and Nina might have died
had it not been her will to live a life with Phillip Chancellor III. A
paternity test proved indeed Phillip was the father but this didn't change
Katherine's and Jill's plan to pay Nina $1 million to get out of Phillip's
life.
Nina turned the money down and as she worked on convincing Phillip that he
should marry her and live happily ever after, Phillip still wanted Cricket
Blair. Worried that Phillip's not getting what he wanted would drive him to
start drinking again, Rex and Katherine nevertheless tried to enjoy their
marriage.
Then Rex's ex-con buddy, Clint Raddison blew into town and moved into a
rented room over Gina's RoadKill Cafe. Rex didn't like that Clint and Gina
were getting chummy and so he offered to pay Clint to leave town. Alas, it
was too late as Gina and Clint were wed before Rex had a chance to tell Gina
was a scumbag Clint was.
While all this was going on, Nina, having married Phillip and he dying days
later in a car crash, decided she wanted Katherine's maid working for her.
She easily convinced Ether Valentine to do so because Ether was infatuated
with the baby and that Nina had said she'd help her meet new people, men in
particular. Plus, Ether wouldn't not have to wear a uniform!
When Clint heard that Katherine was interviewing for new maids, he sent
Robert and Shirley Haskell over and they were hired on the spot. Later,
Ether returned to say she'd made a mistake and wanted her job back. However,
before that could happen Ether would find herself in the wrong place at the
wrong time.
Hanging out at a nondescript diner, Clint met waitress Marge Cotrooke and
noticed how she was Katherine's spitting image. Lucky for Clint, Marge had
no relatives living in the city which made her the perfect host for his plan
to steal the Chancellor fortune. Dying her red hair blonde and having a gold
tooth replaced was all it took to make Marge Katherine. Marge even walked
and talked like Katherine and was able to stop smoking and drinking while
the plan unraveled. Marge's take from the deal was Rex, or "Sexy Rexy" as
she called him, in the sack.
First up, Robert tried to chloroform Katherine
but that failed because Katherine had an attack of appendicitis requiring
Marge to have her appendix removed too. The second try worked, but Ether got
caught in the web and so now the bad guys had two hostages instead of one.
Rex, Gina and Jill began noticing that Katherine didn't seem herself. She
was cavorting with a younger man and drinking again. But each time she was
confronted, Marge/Kay would say she didn't know what they were talking
about. The real Katherine and Ether were taken to a deserted cabin where
they were guarded by Clint's other partners in crime, Morey and Lil.
1990 rolled around and Marge was hitting the sheets with Rex as Jill, and
now Katherine's attorney, Mitchell Sherman, and son Brock Reynolds had
become concerned Katherine didn't seem right as she'd up and sold Chancellor
Industries and put the mausoleum on the market. Marge caused so much
unnecessary consternation she moved out of Rex's bed and eventually was seen
partying with Robert and Shirley. Rex thought this meant Katherine had gone
back to her wicked ways and dumped her. Rex turned to Jill for love and
filed for divorce.
Out at the cabin, Ether had discovered she was pregnant after doing the
nasty with a worm named "Tiny" she'd met once at a bar. Complaining of
stomach pains, Ether was taken to the hospital by Lil where she ran into
Brock and even whispered in his ear that Katherine was in trouble. Brock had
no trouble getting Marge to confess and got her to work a plan of his own.
Marge went to the cabin, pretended to have a cat-fight with Katherine while
they swapped clothes, and Katherine escaped.
Katherine tracked Rex to Colorado just in time to find him and Jill getting
married. She didn't say anything at the time and returning home was told by
Sherman that whatever Marge did as Katherine was not legal.
Bored to death, Rex and Jill decided to take Leanna Love down as queen of
the daytime TV talk shows. Love had been on a hate all men rage and so Rex,
posing as Roger Bingham, went on the show and had his photo taken kissing
Love. The photo hit all the tabloids proving indeed that Love was a scam
artist, but the readers and viewers weren't buying it. Rex continued seeing
Love as Roger and also began assuring Gina that losing Clint was no great
loss. Problem was, the more time Rex spent doing this the more he was away
from Jill and despite that she thought she and Rex were married, Jill went
back to hitting on Abbott.
Then it was time the Katherine to get even with Jill by hosting an
engagement party. With Rex, Love, Abbott and Jill together, Abbott proposed
to Jill and the jig was up. Rex and Abbott both kicked Jill to the curb
allowing Katherine to work on getting Rex back. By the end of that year
Brock invited Tiny over for dinner, but when he saw Ether's belly he split.
Brock found him at a bar and told Tiny he had responsibilities. Didn't
matter to Tiny as he didn't want no stinking baby. As it so happened, a
storm blew in and Katherine had to deliver Ether's child, a girl Ether named
Kate after her employer.
Stranger than a Sheila Carter baby switch that would come, Ether clogged up
the drain one day and called Tiny, a plumber by trade, to fix it. Sure
enough, Tiny showed up and Ether flashed the baby at him only it didn't do
any good.
It was 1991 when Clint broke out of jail. He went straight to Gina's place
who agreed to hide him. Gina did, of course, tell Katherine. Brock tried
talking some sense in Gina and as he left the RoadKill Cafe was gunned down.
Clint rushed to his aid only to take another bullet meant for Brock. This of
course pleased Katherine as Clint had saved her son's life. Gina put the
cafe up for sale and planned to leave town with Clint except that Clint had
a change of heart and turned himself in.
Love, hating men as she did, wanted a baby but not the usual way. She asked
Rex if he'd like to donate his sperm. He did, but he wanted nothing to do
with the child so Love went in search of a prospective father. Of all the
people to choose from, Love picked old man John Abbott.
Katherine might have got Rex back had he not seen her messing around with
some dude named Edward. Edward was but an actor Katherine had hired to make
Rex jealous and when he found out decided to get even by pretending to have
a heart attack. The ruse worked and they were reunited.
Then it was learned that Rex's sperm wasn't so potent. Love didn't get
pregnant and so she told Abbott she wanted to make a baby the old-fashioned
way. There was a coitus interrupt of sorts when Dina, the former Mrs. Abbott
and Jack and Traci Abbott's mother, returned with a sob story so moving the
old man married her. A few week later Abbott learned Dina had scammed him
and broke the marriage off leaving Love and Jill to pick up where they'd
left off.
In 1992 Katherine and Rex were to be married again. Before the ceremony,
Jill hid a marriage license in a pile of papers Abbott had to sign, she
arranged a blood test, got the rings and bribed the minister at Katherine
and Rex's wedding to perform a double ceremony. The old guy refused to be
snookered, however.
Wanting to be sure she'd live a long life Katherine got a medical checkup
and learned there was a lump on her breast. Of course, she kept this a
secret from Rex because, well, lies are what marriages in Genoa City have
always been predicated on. She did tell Jill who told Rex. The surgery was a
success and taught Jill and Katherine that they may always love to hate each
other, but they'd never be able to live without the other.
Jill, in need of a man and not getting the geezer, turned to a photographer
named Blade. Jill planned to use Blade to make Abbott jealous but when she
started working with Victor Newman couldn't resist having sex with him. It
was a one-time roll in the hay as Victor was married at the time and had his
eye on a certain stripper too.
In 1993 Jill's dream came true. She married John Abbott which opened a new
can of worms including Jill's seducing the old guy the night before he was
to get a vasectomy. Jill gave birth to a bouncing baby boy she named William
Foster Abbott.
1994 found Ether still looking for a man. She answered an ad in the
personals put there by one Norman Peterson who claimed to be an investment
banker. Ether convinced Katherine to play maid so that she could impress
Norm and right away Katherine got a bad feeling that Norm wasn't to be
trusted. Later, aware that Ether was the maid, Norm said he wasn't really a
banker. He was but a lowly barber and was ready to dump Ether when she
mentioned something about being in Katherine's will.
Having proposed to Ether, Norm was counting the dough already. What he
didn't know was that Katherine had hired an actor to play the minister.
After the honeymoon Norm said he wanted to make some babies and so as to
invest in their children's future, Ether should asked for her inheritance.
Rex and Katherine agreed so long as the money was in Ether's name only. Norm
hit the roof and filed for divorce seeking half the fortune. That's when
Katherine told Norm the marriage wasn't legal and Ether threw him out.
But later Norm sneaked into the house with a gun and tossed the safe. Rex
caught him, Norm fired point blank and escaped leaving behind a dying Rex
who, on his hospital death bed, uttered these final words to son, Danny:
"Pursue your true love."
And so it came to pass that Danny divorced Phyllis Summers, but that's
another story for another time. The thing is, following Rex's death,
Katherine never used the name Sterling again and has, in more than a decade,
only mentioned Rex once.
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