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The Story of Stefan Cassadine and Katherine Bell

Stefan Cassadine and Katherine Bell were one of daytime’s hottest and most romantic couples. Not surprisingly, Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans were able to effortlessly draw on their undeniable chemistry in creating this splendid love story between two very complex characters. Ironically, their past success as Days’ Steve and Kayla actually seemed to work against them in creating the love story of Stefan and Katherine. Their characters on Days of our Lives and General Hospital were polar opposites, and yet the connection between Nichols and Evans shined through it all and made Stefan and Katherine one of the most memorable couples in General Hospital’s history.

These two characters came from the same place emotionally, and they needed each other. Stefan without Katherine was nothing more than a man stuck in the past and obsessed with revenge. Katherine without Stefan was a lonely woman in need of a true friend and people to love. They enriched each other’s lives, adding to the complexity of their respective storylines. Above all else, they had explosive chemistry!

The most beautiful thing about this love story was the irony of it: at the precise moment Stefan could have been destroyed by someone (Katherine) telling the truth, at his weakest moment- someone decided to forgive him and to love him despite his mistakes. That was something he least expected- and one of the most precious gifts he had ever been given. Katherine too, learned that she was capable of moving beyond her past indiscretions …that she was ready and willing to let love into her life and to trust her own feelings as much as she trusted Stefan’s.

Katherine Before Stefan…

The mysterious Katherine Crawford arrived in Port Charles in 1993, claiming to be the late Dominique Baldwin’s old friend. Scott Baldwin had just lost his wife after a lengthy illness, and he was lonely and vulnerable when Katherine arrived in town. He found comfort as well as a sense of camaraderie with Katherine, who also claimed to have lost her husband recently. He opened his heart to her and shared with her his pain over losing Dominique. As the two continued to grow closer,  a jealous Lucy Coe set about doing her own  investigation of Katherine’s background and she soon discovered that she was not at all who she claimed to be. Katherine had really come to town because she found out that Dominique was her half sister, and after her death, Katherine felt entitled to the family inheritance she was always denied.

It turned out that her name was actually Katherine Bell and that she had been raised at the Stanton estate (Dominique’s family home), as the daughter of the cook. She never knew, until her mother’s deathbed confession, that she was, in fact, the product of an affair between her mother Kristen, and Dominique’s wealthy and powerful father.

During the time she was using Scotty in her plan to obtain Dominique’s fortune, Katherine was sleeping with Damian Smith, the son of Frank Smith, the nefarious mobster who had made life a living hell for Luke and Laura.

What Katherine didn’t count on during all this was falling in love with Scotty. She was taken by his gentle nature as well as the depth of the love he had for his wife. Scotty eventually proposed, and just as they were about to marry, Lucy arrived with the news of Katherine’s true identity and motives. Katherine confessed everything to Scotty, and tried to make him understand that regardless of her initial intentions, she truly had fallen in love with him. Scotty refused to believe Katherine, and heartbroken and betrayed, he left Port Charles with his daughter Serena.

Never one to dwell on her failures, Katherine quickly moved on to other men and other ways of getting the only thing she thought would truly make her happy: money. Having been raised the daughter of a servant; she was determined to succeed in life and to never want for anything again. She not only wanted money, but also the status that went along with it. She desperately wanted to fit in with the town’s elite class and to be acknowledged by the most respected citizens of Port Charles.

Katherine’s next scheme involved blackmailing wealthy Ned Ashton, a member of the Quartermaine family, into marrying her. What she didn’t know was that Ned was living a double life as “Eddie Maine”, a rock star who was madly in love with his manager, Lois Cerillo.

Ned secretly eloped with Lois right before marrying Katherine (in order to make the marriage to Katherine null and void, though he didn’t tell either “wife” about the other). The Quartermaines were not at all impressed with Katherine and her flamboyant presence in the Quartermaine house. She went on extravagant shopping sprees (a brand new red convertible) and concocted endless schemes in an effort to get noticed. Oddly enough, family patriarch Edward took a liking to her and the two developed a special bond that lasted for many years. Because of his affection for her, Edward managed to briefly take over “Deception,” Lucy’s cosmetics company and handed it over to Katherine, much to Lucy’s disgust (Lucy did manage to get it back this first time).

Katherine’s carefree lifestyle ended when she threw herself a birthday party and Lois popped out of a giant cake. She had just found out the truth about Ned’s deception and decided to make a special entry to the party, where she promptly revealed Ned’s duplicity to all in attendance, including a shocked Katherine.

Soon after, Katherine was mysteriously poisoned and fell down a flight of stairs in the Quartermaine mansion.  It was later revealed that Reginald the butler was the culprit, although the Quartermaine’s never revealed that information to anyone else.  While Katherine lay in the hospital, she remembered being a little girl and feeling alone when there was no one around to comfort her. Damian remained at her bedside throughout the ordeal, and Katherine was grateful.

Damian and Katherine continued their affair, but once Damian started working with Sonny Corinthos, Katherine felt neglected. She started visiting “The Outback” restaurant more frequently, and often flirted with Mac Scorpio to make Damian jealous. At the Nurse’s ball, Katherine was annoyed at the attention Damian was giving to Lucy Coe, so she turned to Mac for comfort and he reciprocated. Mac and Katherine grew closer, and she leaked information to him about Damian’s dealings with the mob.

Mac was unlike any other man she had ever known, and in him, Katherine felt like she had finally found something real with someone who would not play games with her. Katherine made up her mind that Mac was the answer to her prayers and that for once; she was going to be true to her heart. Unfortunately, Damian refused to accept that Katherine had fallen for another man, so he faked his own death and set Katherine up to look like the murderer. Mac never believed Katherine was guilty, and he worked tirelessly to prove her innocence and clear her. When the truth was revealed, Damian asked Katherine to forgive him, but she refused, and not long after, Damien did die as the result of a fire. Ironically, in his will Damian left Katherine all of his money. At long last, she had all the money she had always wanted- and Mac.

One thing that had not changed through all of this was Katherine’s old rivalry with Lucy Coe. With her new found wealth, Katherine went on extravagant shopping sprees, buying Mac a whole new wardrobe, and buying herself a new penthouse at the Port Charles Hotel. More importantly, she bought Lucy’s company, Deception (for the second time), and this time Lucy would not get it back. Slowly but surely, the differences between Mac and Katherine were becoming more obvious, and they began to grow apart. When he got the job as Police Commissioner, Katherine was thrilled by the status of such an illustrious position, but Mac was less than thrilled about being relegated to “office duty.”

While Katherine was scouting for a location for a photo shoot for Deception, she happened upon Spoon Island, where she met Nikolas Cassadine. Unbeknownst to Katherine, Nicholas had developed a crush on her after seeing her around Port Charles, and on one of his visits to her, he kissed her! Katherine gently explained to Nicholas that she didn’t feel the way he did and that she considered him a good friend, and nothing more. Still, Mac was all too familiar with the reputation of the Cassadine family and warned Katherine to stay away from them.

An embarrassed Nikolas had run out of the penthouse, and Katherine felt obligated to go after him and make sure he was alright. It was there her life changed forever when she was shot by a mysterious assailant!

Stefan Before Katherine…

The handsome and mysterious Stefan Cassadine arrived in Port Charles in 1996. Though he was new in town, the reputation of his family name preceded him and immediately made him an outsider among the skeptical residents of Port Charles. The Cassadine family, including his father Mikos, mother Helena and brother Stavros, had a long history of terrorizing Luke and Laura Spencer. Stefan had come to town under seemingly noble intentions when it was discovered that his “nephew” Nikolas, was a bone marrow match for Luke and Laura’s daughter, LeslieLu.

However, it soon became apparent that Stefan had other motives for being in Port Charles. He had long been obsessed with Laura, and had never accepted the fact that she loved Luke and not him. He felt that she had betrayed him, as well as his family, by choosing Luke Spencer (a man who had killed so many of his relatives) over him. He never tried to hide the fact that he wanted revenge. The secret that Nikolas was Laura’s son by Stavros, whom Laura left behind when Helena threatened to kill her family, was revealed. The knowledge that Helena was responsible for Laura’s mother Leslie’s “death” made Laura absolutely certain she could never reclaim her firstborn son, so she had forced herself to give him up when she left the island.

Despite the fact that he was not exactly welcomed by the residents of Port Charles, Stefan decided to make it his permanent home, and went about building his empire. His first order of business was taking over the financially troubled General Hospital after the death of the beloved Steve Hardy. A man of immensely guarded privacy, Stefan also bought Spoon Island and settled into his new mansion known as Wyndemere.

The most important person in Stefan’s life was his nephew Nikolas, and every decision he made was with Nikolas’ best interest at heart. Such decisions included making Luke and Laura pay for the pain he felt they had inflicted upon the Cassadine family. He had a very well constructed plan for revenge, and part of that plan included manipulating and eventually marrying Luke’s sister Bobbie. She was still recovering from her painful divorce from Tony Jones when Stefan came in like her knight in shining armor. Of course, he never actually loved her, but unfortunately, Bobbie was the only one who couldn’t see that.

It was revealed during this time that Stefan and Laura shared a secret. Many years earlier, while Laura was being held on the Cassadine island, Stefan and Laura (whom he knew as ‘Lasha’), had befriended and comforted each other, resulting in them sleeping together one night. This night may or may not have produced Nikolas; but Stefan had always believed Nikolas was his son, a secret he kept from everyone. Stefan could not risk telling his family for fear of being disowned. More importantly, if Nikolas was not the firstborn son of Stavros, then Nikolas would inherit nothing. Furthermore, Stavros had always been Helena’s favorite, and this kind of deception by Stefan would not go unpunished by his vengeful mother.

Stefan attempted to teach Luke and Laura a lesson by engaging their son Lucky in an interactive computer game, the results of which led Laura and Luke to believe that Stefan had Leslie, Laura’s mother, and that she was alive and well. Laura became suspicious and did some investigating on her own. She eventually did find her presumed dead mother, and then faked her own death in order to protect Leslie from Stefan and the Cassadines. Stefan truly believed that Laura was dead. He was shaken by the news, and burned the portrait he had kept of her in order to avoid the painful reminder.

One fateful night, in an attempt to seek justice against Luke, who he felt was responsible for all his misery, Stefan planned to make it look like Luke had tried to kill him while on Spoon Island. Stefan shot at a tree with Luke’s gun- but much to his horror, someone got in his way….

Continue reading… Stefan & Katherine: Their Love Story

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