This month, March, our Throwback spotlight will be filled with some of the most treacherous, evil, notorious, vicious, wicked characters in daytime. NO grey, nice, goody two shoes characters allowed. Villains ONLY this month.
We celebrated the late great Bill Bell’s birthday this week. So we decided to start with one of the best villains in daytime, our Throwback this week is Shelia Carter.
They don’t make villains like Shelia anymore in daytime. How we wished they would. Shelia is everything a villain should be, dark, evil, resilient, cold, murderous, manipulative, calculating, violent. Shelia’s so bad she has a little extra something; she’s a bi-coastal villain. The epitome love to hate character. Most of Shelia’s evil deeds stemmed from her love/obsession mainly with; Scott Grainger, Sr., Scott “Scotty” Grainger, Jr., Eric Forrester and James Warick.
Shelia’s reign of terror began in Genoa City. She worked with Scott Grainger, Lauren Fenmore’s, husband and became obsessed with him. Sheila drugged Scott, slept with him, became pregnant, stole Lauren’s baby (Scotty) when hers died and became Mrs. Scott Grainger. Shelia’s mom, Molly Carter, and Lauren uncovered Shelia’s treachery and that threatened her future with Scott and Scott, Jr. Shelia kidnapped, held and planned to kill them both when the farmhouse where they all were caught on fire. Lauren and Molly were rescued and Shelia was presumed dead.
L.A. is a good place as any for a dead person to hide out. Shelia’s reign of terror moved out West. There Shelia’s obsession was Eric Forrester. Eric’s marriage to Brooke was on shaky ground. In Shelia’s mind, her best play was to become Rick Forrester’s (Eric and Brooke’s son) nanny. But Rick already had a nanny. No problem. Nanny Judy paralyzed via Shelia. Shelia worked her magic and pretty soon being Mrs. Eric Forrester was within her grasp.
There was just one person standing in her way. Lauren Fenmore. She was like family to the Forrester’s. Shelia knew sooner or later Lauren would find out she was alive and with Eric. Shelia went to Genoa City and obtained a bit of insurance before revealing herself to Lauren. Shelia found out Lauren was cheating on Scott with Brad Carlton. She took pictures of the two doing the “do” and made a puzzle from the photos. She tortured Lauren sending one piece of the puzzle at a time. Shelia shocked Lauren when she showed up at her house. “Surprise! I’m alive!” Lauren was ready to call the police but Shelia stopped her in her tracks when she asked her how she liked her puzzle.
The puzzle kept Lauren quiet up until the day of the wedding. What a wedding that was. Shelia had a catfight with Lauren in her wedding dress. Eric’s children and Stephanie (Eric’s first wife) wore black in solidarity dissent. Lauren was ready to oust Shelia. But Shelia stopped the wedding and married Eric later in a private ceremony.
Somethings look better from far away. Being Mrs. Eric Forrester for Shelia was one of those things. a) She wasn’t legally married to Eric. She was married to Scott at the time of her assumed death and Scott was still alive. b) Shelia had a secret alliance with Brooke. c) Stephanie was hot on her trail and knew Lauren had the goods on Shelia. d) Shelia tried the I’m preggo lie to keep her hubby. But hubby Eric had had a vasectomy. Oops.
Despite the problems, Shelia wanted to keep her man. She got Eric to promise to stay married to her if she committed to getting help from psychiatrist, James Warick. James began treating Shelia and also began putting together his own puzzle of Shelia’s past. Lauren was ready to ignore Scott’s dying wish to give Shelia another chance and put the remaining pieces of the puzzle together for James. And Shelia was ready to drown Lauren in a hot tub to stop her. Lauren escaped. Shelia and her sometimes partner in crime, Mike Guthrie, kidnapped James (Shelia fell for James while she held him prisoner), who escaped and then James captured Shelia who then escaped. Got all that? It got even crazier. This is Shelia we are talking about. Shelia gathered Eric, Brooke, Ridge, Stephanie, James and Lauren at the Forrester mansion with a gun and poison she had whipped up. But Shelia ended up taking the poison herself. Her stomach was pumped, her life was saved and she was sent to prison.
Shelia was subsequently released under James care. Then there was the issue of Bridget Forrester’s paternity and who if anyone had tampered with the results. Stephanie suspected whatever was going on Shelia had a hand in it. She pushed for Shelia to be sent back to jail. Shelia was going to stop that. Shelia switched Stephanie’s calcium pills with mercury pills. And she used Maggie Forrester, Eric Forrester’s ex-sister-in-law, to gain access to the pills and set Maggie up to take the fall for the switch.
Oh did we mention that Maggie also just happened to be involved with James? Shelia got 2 for the price of 1. Maggie though was no pushover and gave Shelia a taste of her own medicine when she found out Shelia had set her up. Shelia meets fire poker via Maggie. Mike kidnapped Maggie to clear Shelia’s path to James. What a good friend. Shelia comforted James who thought Maggie had left him and became pregnant. When Maggie returned, her and James planned to wed. Shelia interrupted the ceremony right before the “I Do’s” with the news of the stork. James and Maggie were like that’s nice and they got hitched anyway. Shelia for once did the right thing and gave her daughter, Mary, to James and Maggie for them to raise. The right thing didn’t last long. Before the six month expiration, Shelia came back for her daughter.
Shelia couldn’t believe it when James divorced Maggie and wanted them to be a family. She really shouldn’t have. It wasn’t real. James was playing Shelia to catch her doing something Shelia like and claim she was unfit to get Mary and then get Maggie back. Shelia threw herself off a building in her wedding dress when she found out. First poison then this. Let’s add dramatic to Shelia’s list of personality traits. Now get this. Mike kidnapped Shelia for Maggie to get Shelia out the way. Maybe Mike wasn’t such a good friend after all. James rescued Shelia who then started seeing visions and hearing babies cry. She wasn’t crazy. Well, she was but that particular time it was Lauren, Maggie, Stephanie and Nanny Judy gaslighting Shelia trying to get her back to the institution. We loved it. Don’t ever fight crazy with sanity; crazy will always win. LOL.
Shelia saw James and Stephanie kiss. She tried to drown Stephanie and threatened to kill Stephanie’s grandson if Stephanie didn’t leave James alone. Threatening a child over a man. That’s a bit much. But hey go big or go home that’s Shelia. Going big landed Shelia back in the big house. But she didn’t stay long. She switched identities with an inmate who was getting sprung soon. Shelia sprung herself out of jail and went to get Mary back. She shot Stephanie. Amber attacked Shelia but got knocked out by Shelia. Shelia took her daughter and got out of there.
Mary, now called Erica Joy, years later wanted to know what all the mystery with her mom and these Forresters were. So, she went to L.A. to find out for herself. Shelia followed her. Erica, like her mom years before, fell in love with a Forrester. Erica fell for Rick, Eric’s son. That’s all Shelia needed to hear. She went into Shelia mode to give her daughter the life she felt was stolen from her. Only thing was Rick was with Amber. No problem.
Shelia tried to get recovering addict, Amber, strung out on drugs again and she framed Amber for vandalism. She also kidnapped Amber and planted drugs in an alley so people would think Amber died of an overdose. Before Shelia would land herself back in jail, she pulled a gun on Eric, accidentally shot Taylor in the heart struggling over the gun and shot Brooke when Eric was attempting to get the gun from Shelia.
Again, Shelia never stayed in jail. This time her and her cellmate, Sugar, broke out and went to South America where a widowed Ridge was marrying Brooke. Shelia kidnapped Ridge and asked for $10,000,000 in ransom from his new daddy Massimo Marone. Mayhem ensued. Nick (Ridge’s half brother) showed up to rescue Ridge. Brooke was imprisoned. Massimo crashed the party with his motorcycle. And Shelia had a baby reveal. She had a daughter, Diana, who was Massimo’s. Go figure. Back to the mayhem. Shelia fought with Brooke, Ridge fell into a fire trying to save Brooke and Sugar and Shelia escaped.
Next up Shelia was back on her Genoa City related obsession, Scotty. Shelia has nine lives, boundless energy, resiliency and is always a step or two or hundred ahead of everyone else. She made her jailhouse buddy, Sarah, have plastic surgery to look like her and turn herself in. So while “Shelia” was in jail, Shelia under the alias of Brenda Harris affixed herself on the adult Scotty. By this time Lauren was engaged to Michael Baldwin. Shelia poisoned a necklace Scotty had bought for Lauren. Lauren began to hallucinate and almost jumped off a building. Shelia’s new partner in crime, Tom Fisher, pulled a Shelia. He drugged Shelia and Lauren, held them hostage and left them to die. Shelia’s partners sure left a lot to be desired. And while stranded there not knowing if they would ever see the light of day again; Shelia and Lauren couldn’t resist one more catfight. With the ceiling collapsing Shelia pushed Lauren to safety as help arrived. Shelia was buried alive. No, she wasn’t. And she had hatched yet another plan.
Shelia had the plastic surgery this time and made herself a Phyllis Summers (Lauren’s best friend) doppelganger. Detective Paul Williams was smart enough to figure out Phyllis 2.0 was really Shelia. He held Shelia for months in the warehouse cell (also a replica of Lauren’s nursery) that Shelia had planned for her future “guests”. But his nosey police officer girlfriend, Maggie Sullivan, followed him there. Maggie wasn’t as smart and Shelia tricked her into letting her free. Maggie got a bullet from her own gun in gratitude. Shelia was free and wasted no time kidnapping the real Phyllis, her daughter, Summer Newman and Fen, Lauren and Michael’s son. Lauren freed them and shot Phyllis 2.0. Phyllis 2.0 heckled Lauren as she took her last breath that she had shot the wrong person. She hadn’t. But I always wanted them to revisit that with a twist. But it never happened. But there were more twists to come. Because I have to say it again, Shelia wasn’t dead.
Shelia’s twins Daisy and Ryder Callahan and Sarah Smythe Shelia’s sister came to Genoa City and caused a ruckus in the name of avenging Shelia’s death. Several years later, the real Shelia with her real face popped back up in L.A. She announced she was indeed alive, had done her time and was a changed woman. To be honest this Shelia wasn’t our Shelia. We thought she had shot Quinn but it turned out to be Deacon Sharpe. We wondered if she had shot Bill but that was Taylor Forrester.
She did still want Eric and made sure he knew his wife, Quinn and son, Ridge were kissing behind his back. But that’s not Shelia like. Shelia would have had herself made to look like Quinn and have the real Quinn locked up somewhere watching Shelia make love to her man. But we didn’t get any of that. This Shelia was all too happy just to have her portrait hanging in the Forrester’s living room instead of Quinn’s. That’s not Shelia. And Shelia had a job at a restaurant. That’s not Shelia.
So we won’t say more about Shelia’s last on-screen stint (nothing much else to tell honestly). We want to remember the dark, evil, resilient, cold, murderous, manipulative, calculating, violent Shelia. That’s our Shelia.
Hey Josh Griffith, psst bring our Shelia back.
Would you all like to see Shelia return to Genoa City? We would!
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