When The Young and the Restless’s Victor Newman fired Nate Hastings and took Victoria to task for a lifetime of poor choices in men, he left one particular man out, Victoria’s second husband Cole Howard.
Victoria And Cole’s First Go-Around
A teenage Victoria (then played by Heather Tom) had already been married once to Ryan McNeil (Scott Reeves) when she met young novelist Cole Howard (J. Eddie Peck). The pair fell in love with the audience believing that they might be brother and sister, with Cole’s mother being Victor’s former mistress Eve Howard.
Even Eve believed Victor was her son’s father, but never got a chance to tell him because she died from a mosquito bite en route to Genoa City. After Victoria and Cole wed, Victor announced Cole was his son and had the marriage annulled. However, it soon turned out that Victor wasn’t Cole’s father after all, so he and Vicky remarried and she became pregnant.
Sadly, their baby girl Eve was premature and Victoria and Cole believed she died at just a few days old. That was 1998 and the pain from losing their child ended Victoria and Cole’s marriage. Of course, as we now know, Eve Howard’s sister Jordan kidnapped the baby and replaced her with a dead newborn. She raised Baby Eve as Claire Grace, brainwashed her into believing her parents never wanted her, and groomed Claire to one day seek revenge on the Newmans.
Picking Up The Pieces With A Cole And Victoria Redux
With J. Eddie Peck back on the Genoa City scene after more than 20 years, the chemistry between him and Amelia Heinle is palpable. They had already worked together on All My Children back in 2004 when she played Mia Saunders and he played Jake Martin.
While we have no idea what’s been going on in Cole’s love life for the past two decades, we know Victoria hasn’t had much luck in love at all. She’s been married several times, had other children, and keeps picking man after man who somehow hurts or betrays her.
Victoria and Cole are now both mature adults bonding over a shared adult daughter they thought was dead. They are there for one another and have a natural ease together that should be explored. At the moment, Peck is not on contract with Y&R but that can and should change so that Victoria might be able to finally be with the first man she truly loved.
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