Fans of The Bold and the Beautiful who go back to the show’s first few years recall the soap’s primary triangle was the one between Ridge (then, Ronn Moss; now Thorsten Kaye), virginal Caroline Spencer (Joanna Johnson), and chemist Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang).
The Bold and the Beautiful Moment
After Caroline extricated herself from a marriage to Thorne that she entered into without receiving all the facts in a timely matter, she was available to be with his brother Ridge. But Ridge was drawn to Brooke and the two had even been engaged at one point, but that was called off after Brooke miscarried Ridge’s baby.
Caroline won the “Who Will Marry Ridge?” sweepstakes and the two tied the knot at a mission that had great sentimental value to the Spencer heiress. For many months, the newlyweds were blissfully happy, but then Caroline learned from her doctor that she was dying. One of her doctors was Taylor Hayes (Hunter Tylo), a psychiatrist.
Brooke, having learned of Caroline’s fatal illness, met with Ridge at the private dining room at the club (a former mainstay meeting spot on the show) to break the news to him. She posed a hypothetical to her former love — should she tell a good friend that his wife was dying even if she didn’t want him to know? Ridge said yes, she should and he asked Brooke when she was going to do it.
“I just did,” Brooke tearfully replied.
Next, Taylor arrived and verified Brooke’s claim about Caroline, breaking doctor/patient confidentiality in the process. Ridge was faced with how he’d let Caroline know that he knew so they could live their last weeks living in truth, however painful.
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Ridge presented his wife with a charm bracelet for their sixth-month wedding anniversary, letting her know that he’d be adding a charm for each anniversary as the years progressed. Alas, as Ridge knew their time was short, he produced several more charms, including one that was the symbol for infinity. “You know, don’t you?” a devastated Caroline rhetorically asked Ridge. He acknowledged that he did indeed know.
Soon after this emotional moment, Caroline insisted a party be thrown. Looking to the future, she asked Ridge to dance with Brooke, despite the fact that she was pregnant with Eric’s (John McCook) son. Hoping to reconcile Eric with his estranged ex, Caroline asked him to dance with Stephanie (Susan Flannery). Caroline danced with her ex, Thorne while Felicia Forrester (Colleen Dion) was paired with Bill Spencer, Sr. (Jim Storm).
But Caroline grew faint during the party. Ridge brought her to their home where she died peacefully in his arms. This moment occurred in the summer of 1990. Seventeen years later, BB fans voted the “charm bracelet scene” as their favorite moment in the history of the show.
The scene, along with Ridge and Caroline’s January 1990 marriage, might never have happened had actress Joanna Johnson not opted to leave the show. “I don’t know if [BB creator/head writer Bill Bell] would have gone that way if I hadn’t left,” Johnson shared in Bell’s biography, The Young and the Restless Life of William J. Bell.
Late the following year, Johnson returned to The Bold and the Beautiful as Karen, Caroline’s stolen at birth twin. She remained on the canvas till 1994, opting to move back to Texas. Johnson reprised the role of Karen later after the character of her brother, Bill Spencer, Jr. (Don Diamont), was introduced. She named her daughter, Caroline (Linsey Godfrey), in memory of the twin she never met.
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