First Mates: Meet the Original Husbands of 10 of Soaps’ Most Beloved Leading Ladies [PHOTOS]

Credit: Images: Donna Svennevik/ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection, Jill Johnson/JPI, XJ Johnson/JPI, Lisa Rose/JPI

Herb Edelman

Image Credit: Robert Phillips Courtesy of the Everett Collection

From 1964-70, the familiar-looking character actor — best known as Beatrice Arthur’s ex, Stanley Zbornak, on The Golden Girls — was the real-life husband of none other than Louise Sorel, who was still years away from her breakthrough soap role of Augusta Lockridge on Santa Barbara, never mind Vivian Alamain on Days of our Lives. She went on to marry Emmy winner Ken Howard, not only primetime’s The White Shadow but briefly Phyllis Summers’ father on The Young and the Restless.
Wayne Massey

Image Credit: ABC

The line between on-screen chemistry and off-screen feelings blurred in 1981 for this One Life to Live actor, who played Johnny Drummond: He said “I do” to leading lady Andrea Evans, aka the iconic Tina Lord. The union went bust two years later — since 1998, Evans has been married to lawyer Steve Rodriguez — but hey, maybe their whirlwind romance inspired some of the country crooner’s love songs.
Charles Grant

Image Credit: CBS Courtesy of the Everett Collection, Bob D’Amico/20th Century Fox Television Courtesy of the Everett Collection

In 1984, the same year that Kim Delaney walked away from All My Children and her popular role of Jenny Gardner, she also walked down the aisle — in the direction of fellow ABC soap star Grant, who was just finishing up the first of his numerous soap gigs, as Preacher Emerson on The Edge of Night. A year after they divorced, she married Joe Cortese, best known to soap fans as the 2015 reincarnation of General Hospital mobster Frank Smith.
Dane Witherspoon

Image Credit: NBC

He lasted only three months as Santa Barbara’s Joe Perkins before his role was recast. But that was long enough for him to make an impression on leading lady Robin Wright, the future movie star who way back then was playing heiress Kelly Capwell. Two years after he made her his “princess bride,” the couple divorced, paving the way for her to marry Sean Penn and, more recently, Clement Giraudet.
Michael Weatherly

Image Credit: Dramatic Creations Inc. Courtesy of the Everett Collection

It was fitting that when the Bull star met future wife Amelia Heinle, they were playing Cooper Alden and Steffi Brewster on a soap called, of all things, Loving. (Its subsequent title, The City, made sense, too, since it taped in New York. But that was a lot less romantic.) A decade after they divorced, the actress, by then playing The Young and the Restless’ Victoria Newman, re-tied the knot with co-star Thad Luckinbill, whose J.T. Hellstrom would marry her character not long after.
Robert Tyler

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Loving struck once again in 1996, inspiring its resident hunk, who played Trucker McKenzie, to form a real-life supercouple with castmate Jessica Collins, who played Dinah Lee Mayberry (and, more recently, dazzled on The Young and the Restless as Avery Clark). Almost 15 years after their divorce, the actress got what soap characters so rarely do: a happy ending, when she married writer/producer Michael Cooney.
Wally Kurth

Image Credit: Donna Svennevik/ABC Courtesy of the Everett Collection

In the 1990s, General Hospital fans swooned at the thought of Ned and Lois Ashton’s portrayers being so in love for realsies that they exchanged vows, rings, the works. Alas, Rena Sofer’s marriage to her leading man ended before the decade did, and she moved on, not only to The Bold and the Beautiful as Quinn Fuller, but to a relationship with director/producer Sanford Bookstaver that’s withstood even their divorce to restart itself.
Christopher Mayer

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Courtesy of the Everett Collection, CBS Courtesy of the Everett Collection

The third time’s been the charm for Eileen Davidson (Ashley, The Young and the Restless). She’s found lasting love with Vincent Van Patten, who played a sea-worthy fling of her character’s in 2000. Previously, though, she was wed to Jon Lindstrom (Kevin, General Hospital) and, in her first turn on the marry-go-’round, Mayer, who spent two years playing T.J. Daniels on Santa Barbara in the late 1980s.
Corey Feldman

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television Courtesy of the Everett Collection, Craig Sjodin/ABC Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Legend has it that Vanessa Marcil, beloved to General Hospital fans for her work as Brenda Barrett, was hitched to the Goonies star from 1989-93. But she told Entertainment Weekly that the legend couldn’t be believed. The marriage was “actually a joke we played on our friends. We were messed-up kids, you know?… To say that we were really married is completely not true.” In any case, she went on to get engaged to General Hospital co-star Tyler Christopher (ex-Nikolas) and Beverly Hills, 90210 castmate Brian Austin Green, and spend a couple of years married to CSI: NY’s Carmine Giovinazzo.
Charlie Sheen

Image Credit: John Hayes Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Thanks to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, we know so much about Denise Richards’ relationship with husband No. 2 Aaron Phypers that we could almost forget husband No. 1: human scandal Charlie Sheen. But the actress, Shauna Fulton on The Bold and the Beautiful, hasn’t forgotten the Two and a Half Men star. Though their divorce was reportedly acrimonious as hell, she even invited him to her and Phypers’ wedding for the sake of their kids.