As Asa Buchanan prepares to stand at the altar for a whopping ninth time, we take a look back at all the women he's married.
Asa married Olympia and they had two sons, Clint and Bo. After Olympia entered into an affair with Yancey Ralston, Asa threw her out and told his sons that she was dead. Years later, Bo met a woman claiming to be his mother. She decided to go to Llanview and once there, Asa imprisoned her in a nearby mansion.
When Asa came to Llanview in 1979 he fell in love with Samantha Vernon. Olympia, crazed by her captivity, escaped from the mansion and, intent on killing Samantha, showed up at the church during Asa and Samantha's wedding. Before she could interrupt the ceremony, she was restrained, and she later fell to her death. Samantha was horrified when she learned the whole story and walked out on Asa.
Enter Delila Ralston and Asa is once again stupid in love. Only this time he was in competition with Bo. Luckily for Asa, though, Bo had been led to believe by his mother that Yancey Ralston was his father, and that made Delila his first cousin. With Bo out of the race, Asa makes his third trip to the altar.
Convinced that Bo and Delila might be involved after all, he staged his own death when his yacht blew up during his honeymoon. When he saw Delila overcome with grief at his funeral he rushed to her rescue. His sudden reappearance was not well received by all.
Bo, furious with Asa for allowing the deception about his paternity to go on, and still in love with Delila, stormed into Asa's home to rescue her. Delila eventually left Asa and married Bo.
Becky Lee Abbot learned she was pregnant with Bo's child after he left her for Delila, and Asa married her to ensure the child would have the Buchanan name, but before long he was in love with her. When she was presumed killed in a plane crash, Asa was beside himself with grief.
Becky was found alive but was suffering from amnesia and no longer remembered Asa or Drew. During this time, she met and fell in love with another man; a bar owner named Jessie. Later, she recovered and made her choice to stay with Jessie. She left a devastated Asa and took Drew with her to Tennessee.
When he went to the island of Malakeva on business, viewers met a lady by the name of Pamela Stuart who ten years ago married a man named Captain Jeb Stuart. Pamela had no idea over all those years that his true identity was Asa Buchanan, but when she learned that she had been deceived, she feigned a fatal illness to trick Asa into marrying her for real and take her to Llanview as "Mrs. Asa Buchanan."
Divorce was inevitable. Asa never got over his resentment of being tricked into marriage, and Pamela was bored, until she set her sights on one Pete O'Neill, that is. We saw the last of her when she walked away with Pete and a sizeable settlement from Asa.
It was love at second sight. Asa knew Renee Divine from her days as a madam in a high-class brothel in Las Vegas. Renee asked Asa to make a lady out of her and Cord and Tina joined them at the altar in a double wedding ceremony in November 1988.
Happily ever after was not to be the case here either. Renee had just been exonerated from a murder rap when Carlo Hesser turned up dead, and Asa was the suspect. Ever the opportunist, gold digging Blair Daimler came forward with his desperately needed alibi. Renee was having none of it and Asa faced yet another doomed marriage.
Asa, head over heels in lust, married Blair, and Blair married his fortune. It wasn't long though before Asa suspected that Blair only married him for his money and when he tested her by pretending to have a heart attack, Blair stood by and watched, refusing get his medication. When he confronted her, Blair told Asa that she didn't love him, and that she'd made love to Max on their wedding day. This time it was Asa who sought the divorce and he was merciless. He took away her company and she was left penniless.
Carlo Hesser's widow, Alex, set out to dig her claws into the billionaire, but he held her at bay for quite a while. Asa's weakness for young beautiful women inevitably prevailed, and he finally gave in. What followed was an outlandish wedding that turned New York's Central Park into the banks of the Nile. Viewers were treated to a visitation of Cleopatra, a.k.a. Alex, complete with an Egyptian barge and all the trimmings!
Not making much progress as matriarch of the Buchanan household, Alex turned her attentions to much more ambitious pursuits and got herself elected as mayor. That didn't last too long though -- she was caught helping herself to the funds.
A very much alive Carlo Hesser returned to Llanview. Alex sought a quick divorce in the Caribbean, and married Asa again. But Carlo was forever there in the background and a passionate affair ensued. When Asa caught Carlo and Alex together he exposed their affair and divorced Alex. He got his revenge when he proved Alex's pregnancy to be a hoax by crashing their wedding and in a particularly hilarious scene worthy of The Jerry Springer Show, ripped the wedding dress right off Alex exposing a pillow tied to her belly.
For quite awhile now, Asa has been keeping himself occupied with his usual cutthroat -style of business, or so it seemed -- we've recently been let in on the fact that he and Renee had resumed their former passion some time ago. Llanview now awaits his ninth trip down the aisle.
Of course, Asa has yet to learn that he and Renee had a son together back in those good 'ol days when he was visiting her at her bordello. What will his reaction be? No doubt, Asa will be none too pleased to learn that a Buchanan son was out there somewhere without his knowledge. Who will it be? Max Holden? John Sykes? Not *gasp* a Rappaport, surely! Will Asa and Renee's renewed love survive the test when he learns the shocking truth? One thing's for sure -- the writers aren't telling, so we'll just have to stay tuned for yet another dramatic episode in the life and loves of Asa Buchanan.
The role of Asa Buchanan was created by Philip Carey in 1979, and he has remained in the role ever since.