Jack always struggled to make his father proud. It probably would’ve helped if he’d stopped sleeping with John’s wives or picking fights with Victor that would end with him losing the family company… But there’s only so much a man can do.
At first, Jack went after Nikki out of spite when Victor swiped Jabot from the Abbotts. But Jack ended up being the butt of the joke when he actually fell for the former stripper, only to land in divorce court when it became clear he didn’t have the mustache to keep her happy.
Successful architect Diane (Alex Donnelley here) tried washing her hands of Jack until he went and hired her to design his lake house. Thankfully, nothing turned her on more than a job. But then Victor saw Jack’s lake house, raised him a Newman Towers design and whisked Diane off for a wedding in Nevada.
Fortunately, after Victor ran off with Diane, Phyllis was there to pick up the pieces, and… Um, wow. OK, then. Boundaries, shmoundaries.
Since we seem to be playing a game of “Who Did Jack Sleep With Next?” it’s worth mentioning that around this time, he and Jill gave it another go, too. “That’s right, Jill, I am a tall drink of water. And you look mighty thirsty.”
With everyone but John vehemently against his marrying Gloria, the odds are pretty good that Jack wasn’t thinking “I wonder what she’s like in bed” during their wedding. But surprise! Even John’s wedding was a (long) prelude to his future widow’s roll in the hay with Jack.
When Katherine presented Jack with a top-tier girlfriend job at Chancellor, the Abbott scion snatched Carmen the offer up without a second’s hesitation.
Just before John suffered a stroke and died, Jack made sure to take advantage of his dad’s confused mental state to fake a will cutting Gloria out of the family fortune. Nothing like building father/son memories to last a lifetime.
… over and over again. After he was gone, John’s spirit returned countless times over the years to guide Jack whenever he was in trouble. He, uh, did get less dramatic about it as time went by, though.
Was it attraction or boredom that led to Jack and Phyllis “entertaining” themselves while trapped in an elevator? Whatever the reason, it resulted in a “Who’s the daddy?” cliffhanger that lasted for years and gave us icky feelings about Summer and Kyle.
And you thought election nights these days were tense. Try being in the room with this trio waiting to see whether Jack or Nikki had won the state senate seat. We’re getting a panic attack just thinking about it.
It was at this point that Jack stopped to wonder if all this effort was really worth it. Not rescuing Sharon, of course. No, we’re talking about the whole Clear Springs resort and explosion storyline.
When Jack presented the Restless Style team with an envelope of all four names in randomly assigned couple combinations, Phyllis, Nick and Sharon were shocked… but intrigued. Long story short, the magazine crashed and burned, and so did the relationships.
“What’s for dinner?” Jack innocently asked. “An affair,” Billy (then Billy Miller) and Sharon answered in unison — then looked awkwardly away.
Look, not to shame anyone’s attempts to spice up the bedroom, but maybe Jack should’ve had a clue something was off with his new squeeze, “Mary Jane,” when she wanted to play with a blindfold and scissors.
Mary Jane, as we all know, turned out to be Jack’s scorned first wife, Patty, who was determined to take him for a long, long ride on the crazy-go-round. A wedding with flowers and a kitten? How decadent!
Nothing would’ve made Emily happier than marrying jack. That’s right, would, not could. Patty had kidnapped and taken her place by the time the wedding happened. But once Emily was free, she promptly dumped Jack for not realizing she’d been replaced by a lunatic four months ago. Ouch.
Remember that time Jack rescued Victor from a sinking ship that had been attacked by a great white shark? Wait, that was Jaws. This was when Jack rescued his nemesis from a sinking ship after he’d been attacked by Patrick Swayze’s brother. Swear to God.
Eventually Diane (then Maura West, General Hospital femme fatale Ava these days) came back with her and Jack’s son Kyle, who at the time was played by an exceedingly polite baseball player.
Shortly after Diane returned, Jack and his fellow Genoa City-ites got together to shoot an ’80s power ballad music video, wherein they played murder suspects in the blonde’s death. Very gripping. Lots of smoke. Jack didn’t do it, and that’s about all you need know about how it ended.
Nope, still not done with Patty. Apparently she was really into watching Jack drool. Genevieve, though? Meh.
On his wedding day to Nikki, Jack delighted everyone by rising from his wheelchair for the first time since Patty put a bullet in his spine. But then he got stuck halfway, and the rest of the wedding was just awkward…
Gee, you’d think Jack had never seen a woman napping on his floor before. What’s that? Stephanie was dead? Oh. In that case, it’s a lot more disturbing that Adam (then Michael Muhney) was so nonchalant about Victor’s gruesome attempt to frame Jack for murder.
Judging by the matching pajamas and the look on her face, we’re guessing this is the moment Phyllis (then Gina Tognoni) began regretting waking up from her coma and rejoining the Abbott family. Or at least this part of the Abbott family…
Kinky would be one word for Kelly handcuffing Jack to a bed and brainwashing him to love her. (And we guess also teaching him how to read?) Kidnapping would be another. You say potato…
While Jack was off in Kelly’s bedroom of horrors, Bergman played two roles as Victor replaced his nemesis in Genoa City with an evil lookalike named Marco. And that doppelganger, in turn, played Clue. Was Mr. Boddy killed in hallway with the fire poker or the revolver?
Jack figured all he needed to do was stare at Billy and Phyllis until they kissed to catch his wife cheating on him. The really crazy part? It almost worked. The magnetism between those two was insane.
Either Gloria had just struck a pose to seduce Jack, or she was trying to hide and thought that his vision was based on movement. Tragically, it was the former. Even more tragically, it worked, and Jack slept with another of his (dead) dad’s wives.
“Hello, Genoa City cleaning services? My mother left a dead Graham on the floor, and he needs to be mopped up ASAP.”
Though Dina’s return was initially a joyous affair because it finally closed out the Abbotts’ Ring Around The Rosie circle, it quickly grew tragic. Dina suffered from Alzheimer’s, and her kids had to watch her vanish before their eyes. When she finally passed away, Jack had reconciled with his mom, but they’d never again have a pocket full of posie.
As Phyllis (Michelle Stafford once again) reached the breaking point in her renewed romance with sometime husband Nick, Jack realized not only that they could be sitting much closer to one another but that he wished he hadn’t let her become “the one that got away.”
Shortly after Jack friend-zoned Phyllis, Diane (Susan Walters again) rose from the grave and bought the newly vacant home of her ex’s newly dead son as a way of freaking out ingratiating herself to Keemo’s daughter, Allie. As you can tell from Diane’s expression, it all made perfect sense. To her, anyway!
Advertisement
