Raven Alexander, a rapacious schemer du jour from The Edge of Night, is a rare breed in soap opera history. From her first appearance to her last, she was a character with a throughline. Raven loved money. And she would do anything to get some including marrying wealthy men she couldn’t stand or raising an unwanted baby who stood to inherit millions.
What Is In a Name
Despite being introduced into Monticello society under the name Raven Alexander, Raven herself would later reveal that she had been christened Charlotte. During a particularly low point in her life, a tipsy Raven explained the reasoning for her special self-appointed moniker:
“I want to fly but not on a plane. See I want wings of my own. One day, I was sitting on the lawn and I saw this beautiful black bird with shining wings fly by and oh I wanted to be that bird.”
Early Days
Despite knowing he was marrying her mother for the Alexander family’s vast fortune, Raven continued a sexual dalliance with her step-father-to-be Ansel Scott. After the wedding, Raven shamelessly pursued Draper – now her brother by marriage – hoping to elicit a jealous response from her former paramour.
However, Raven grew tired of her game and instead looked to budding politician Kevin Jamison for solace – and cash. Geraldine Whitney, Kevin’s campaign strategist and mother figure, championed the relationship becoming absolutely certain that Raven (the daughter of her dearest friend) would make an excellent spouse for the future Senator.
Triangles
After their marriage, Raven quickly became bored with stuffy Kevin and she instead found herself drawn to Monticello’s newest Assistant District Attorney, Logan Swift. Their passionate extramarital dalliance resulted in a pregnancy for Raven, who simply intended to pass the baby off as Kevin’s – and her plan would have succeeded if it weren’t for one pesky little problem: Kevin was sterile!
Despite his now utter disdain for his bride, Kevin refused to divorce her – he couldn’t risk the hit his reputation might take if word got out to his opponents that he was leaving an unfaithful wife. When he learned that Raven planned to skip the country with baby Jamey in tow, Kevin raced to the airport to stop her and wound up dying in a car crash.
Raven and Logan finally married but Raven was still Raven. So she had no qualms about stepping out on her new husband with Elliot Dorn, a Euro-trash gigolo and former cult leader who was just as grasping as his new playmate. When Logan caught the two in a compromising position he initiated divorce proceedings – but not before smacking his unfaithful spouse across her face!
Flying the Coop
In a bid to spite her ex, Raven left Jamey in the company of family friends, April and Draper Scott, and she even signed her name to a document in which she gave up any and all future claim to her son.
But when Raven learned that her mother had made Jamey the beneficiary to her vast fortune, she returned to town to try and regain custody. Her position wasn’t strengthened by the fact that upon her arrival she was called as a witness in the Margo Dorn murder trial and had to provide Elliot Dorn with an alibi for the night of the killing.
Blackmail
Raven’s case actually looked pretty solid – judges almost always place the child with the natural mother – but Elliot Dorn had gotten his hands on that incriminating document that Raven had handed her son’s new caregivers and he offered to return it. But it was going to cost her. His price? A return trip to his bedroom.
Number One Suspect
When Elliot was brutally stabbed to death, Raven found herself being questioned by the police. And it didn’t help matters that she was also a person of interest in the suspicious death of her mother, Nadine Scott, who had perished in a car accident mere moments after a confrontation with her devious offspring.
When Cliff Nelson made it known he suspected Raven of perpetrating both crimes he too was attacked by the knife-wielding maniac. And what became of that contentious note? It was found safely tucked away between the pages of a pornographic magazine and when it was shown to the trial judge, he awarded full custody of Jamey to Logan.
Heroine of the Hour
Raven accidentally uncovered the true identity of the actual assassin – it was April and Draper’s housekeeper, Molly – and she was promptly shot dead! Whoops, turns out the gun Molly fired was loaded with blanks and when she was later confronted by her “victim’s ghost,” the frightened domestic collapsed and died after falling down a staircase.
Double Trouble
Raven managed to hook her talons into Geraldine’s nephew Schuyler and wrangled herself the Whitney surname. Oops, turns out she actually married imposter Jefferson Brown, a treasonous secret agent who had undergone plastic surgery to look like his presumed dead acquittance, Sky. When he found out that his new bride had rumbled his plan, Brown tried to kill her – thrice – but failed each time and it was he who ultimately met his end.
Seeing Double
Raven – who by this time was more a black widow than a weeping one – was angered when the actual Sky made his way back to Monticello — that is after she passed out at the sight of him. Now she had to return all that lovely inheritance money! She schemed to make the real McCoy fall in love with her and she succeeded – and fell just as deeply for him.
In fact, she loved him so much that she didn’t even mind when they lost the Whitney family fortune – well she did mind a little bit! But, the spouses persevered and opened their own Private Investigator’s office where they became both a help and a hindrance to the local authorities.
By the series ending, Raven had mellowed, regained custody of Jamey (after Logan died), and she and Sky welcomed a daughter, Charlotte Alexandra. And despite getting their money back, they were thrust into yet another mystery when a sword that Sky had used to kill the villainous Donald Hext was delivered to their doorstep on Christmas day…
Video Credit: WatchMojo.com
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