Thursday September 22: Best "AMC" Couples

By Sylvia Gurinsky

As the days tick down to the final "All My Children" on ABC, YesterTube shows the love to the show's greatest couples:

10. Hayley and Mateo: From her 1990 entrance in Gothic wear onward, Hayley Vaughan - Trevor Dillon's niece who also turned out to be Adam Chandler's daughter - made an impression. In 1995, she made one on Mateo "Matt" Santos, whom she later married. It took in real life, too: Kelly Ripa (Hayley) and Mark Consuelos (Mateo) have been married for real since 1996 and have three children. Consuelos has been mentioned as a possible successor to Ripa's current morning host partner, Regis Philbin.

I can imagine the real-life couple going through something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZrfRhEbZQo


9. Tara and Phil: The romance that started it all. Tara Martin and Phil Brent were high school classmates falling in love. They faced numerous obstacles - Vietnam, Chuck Tyler, Erica Kane (of course), Phil's parentage, etc. - to be together, but they were the first "super-couple" of the series. The relationship was at its best with the two originals: Karen Lynn Gorney ("Saturday Night Fever") as Tara and Richard Hatch ("Battlestar Gallactica") as Phil.

8. Phoebe and Langley: Con-man Langley Wallingford wormed his way into Phoebe Tyler's life to try to get her money - but wound up falling in love with her for real. Another con man wooed Phoebe away briefly, but Langley was her true, final love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWoAzDg35po


7. Opal and Palmer: They started out conspiring to break up Tad and Dixie, but would fall in love with each other for real. With help from Palmer's ex-wife, Daisy, Pine Valley's oddest couple got together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2be8EPtmr1I


6. Erica and Jackson: Erica Kane's romance with writer Mike Roy was momentous and tempestuous, but brief. It's her on-again, off-again relationship with attorney Jackson Montgomery that's had lasting power for 23 years. Besides, it's such fun seeing the 6'3" Walt Willey, as Jackson, paired up with 5'2" Susan Lucci, as Erica:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9CTGkST5lY


5. Cliff and Nina: Probably the second most popular soap opera couple in 1980-81 (behind "General Hospital's" Luke and Laura), Dr. Cliff Warner and Nina Courtland (Peter Bergman and Taylor Miller) were the epitome in facing obstacles - mostly from Nina's father, Palmer Courtland. They gave themselves some barriers as well; they were married three times. But they had the last laugh on Palmer, who had to pay for some pretty elegant nuptials each time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4MJ4Vxq0Bc&feature=related


4. Tad and Dixie: Same scenario - Palmer trying to break up niece Dixie Cooney (Cady McClain) and Tad Martin (Michael Kinght). But Tad could sass Palmer in a way Cliff Warner couldn't even dream about. And unlike the Cliff-Nina relationship, Tad and Dixie's is loaded with humor, right down to yesterday's marriage proposal. But the first proposal was even better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQQtvsMdA_s

3. Jesse and Angie: There had been other African-American couples in soap operas, of course (including "AMC's" own Frank and Nancy Grant), when Jesse Hubbard and Angie Baxter became a duo in 1982. But this couple, played so powerfully by Darnell Williams and Debbi Morgan, struck a chord with their ups and downs. When Williams returned to the show (and Jesse came "back from the dead") in 2008, there was a nice look at their story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5x9Hzt3vr4&feature=related


2. Joe and Ruth Martin: For so long, the Martins have been the calm in the eye of the Pine Valley storm that it's hard to remember that Joe and Ruth weren't together at the beginning. Joe was a widower with son Jeff and daughter Tara, while Ruth was married to Ted Brent and raising Phil, sister Amy's son with Nick Davis, as her own. But Ted died in 1970. Ruth and Joe would become closer and were married in 1972. Throughout the 1970s, they had bumps in the road - flirtations (but never full affairs) with others, Ruth's 1978 rape by Ray Gardner and Tad's early acting out - but they never divorced.

Lee Meriweather does a fine job, but Mary Fickett was Ruth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3AjvZc0L5c&feature=related


1. Jenny and Greg: It made such a strong impression because it was so fleeting in soap opera time, only three years (1981-84) of romance - and only four months of marriage before Jenny's tragic death as a result of Jenny's former suitor, Tony, rigging Greg's jet ski.
Kim Delaney and Laurence Lau broke hearts as Jenny Gardner and Greg Nelson. Like Jesse and Angie, they were also from opposite sides of the tracks - and waited until their oh-so-brief marriage to be truly together.

But they had some nice moments while fighting off Ray Gardner, Liza Colby and the rest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UcFjfizS6I

Tomorrow: Best "AMC" storylines!