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Date of death : July 30, 1979

Father : Glenn Wallace

Mother : Katie Wallace

Raised by : Sophia and C.C. Capwell

Child : Brandon DeMott Capwell

Former known girlfriend : Santana Andrade (1978-1979)  

Former known boyfriend : Lindsay Smith (1979)

Robert Brian Wilson :
July 30 1984 (# 1) to December 31 1984 (#110), May 31 1985 (# 217) to June 03 1985 (# 318), July 23 1991 (# 1760) to July 26 1991 (# 1763)

Curiously, the character who is used as the main thread in the intrigue of the first seasons is a ghost. Indeed, although he appears only very episodically during flashbacks throughout the show, the memory of Channing Capwell Junior does not cease haunting at each turn the main members of the Capwell clan. And it is only through returns in the past and the relations he maintained with the other characters that we can draw up his portrait. Raised like the son and the heir of powerful Channing Creighton Capwell and actress Sophia Wayne, we discover episode after episode a complex and ambiguous being, whose image he seeks to offer to his father is far from what he really is. And it is perhaps through Mason that we will be able to clear up his many zones of shades.

Channing Junior was born in 1961, very little time after C.C. and Sophia's wedding. For the greatest happiness of C.C., it is Sophia who insisted to transmit the first name of her husband to their child, in the possibility that he is a boy. Raised by C.C. like his unique successor, Channing Junior very quickly becomes the rival of Mason (his elder half-brother, then relegated to the role of a substitute). The first born of the Capwell children envies the attention, the regard, the confidence, the love that C.C. dedicates to the first of Sophia's children. C.C. placed so much hope in him. Because nothing seemed too much perfect for Channing Junior. Nothing nor nobody could resist his charm, his force, his youth : sport, politics, business. And C.C., in secret, dreamed to offer the first Capwell to the presidency of the United States. And all his life, Mason will only live in the shade of this brother that their father raised like the model of his life, and like a god at his death.

Because, Santa Barbara opens with the murderer of this hero of the modern America, during a reception given in his honor in the Capwell mansion. The death of Channing Junior marks the end of the dreams of glory of his father who, out of spite, will defer all his attention and his dreams of lost glory on Mason, before deferring them on the shoulders of the young Brandon DeMott, the son of Channing Junior. Mason is one of the very first ones to realize that the personality of Channing Junior is not as perfect as their father sees it. And the competition of the two brothers reaches its apogee, six years before the drama, with Santana Andrade. Understanding that his brother is attracted by the servants daughter, Channing Junior, in the only purpose of hunting the same game than his brother, quickly seduces the sweet and naive Santana. Very quickly, she really falls in love with Channing Junior and, while falling pregnant with him, she begans to ruin all his plans. Santana and Channing entrust their secret to C.C. who, seeing there the danger for his son's career, decides to deal with all that. Santana is constrained to give up her child at his birth so that he could be adopted. And although Channing Junior dreamed to marry Santana and to settle with their child, it seems that he never really loved her.

During his love-affair with Santana, Channing Junior maintained a homosexual relation with Lindsay Smith, a friend he seems to have met at the time of his law studies. And it seems that Channing was deeply in love with him. They were used to refind each other in the tunnel that connected the Capwell mansion to the Lockridges. This heavy secret revealed out by Mason will contribute to his rupture with C.C.. But very quickly, a new more terrible revelation awaits us. Channing Junior may not be the son of Channing Creighton Capwell, but that of his forever rival : Lionel Lockridge. Before her wedding with C.C., the actress Sophia Wayne had an affair with Lionel. But the revelations concerning the birth of Channing Junior do not stop there. Because Minx Lockridge, not wanting her grandson being raised by her worst enemies, exchanged the child with the one of circus artists, the Wallaces. For C.C., these news are terrible : it was as if he lost his son for the second time. On the opposite, for Lionel, it is happy news since he finds a son in the person of Brick Wallace and a grandson with Brandon DeMott.

At the same time that we learn the truth about Channing Junior's filiation, Cruz Castillo ends up discovering, during a painful reconstitution, the real identity of the murderer. The list of the suspects during the investigation did not cease lengthening because of Channing Junior's personality. After Joe Perkins, Mason is suspected (he was jealous and hated his brother), then Peter Flint (who blackmailed him about his relation with Lindsay Smith), Lindsay Smith (the gotten rid lover), Warren Lockridge (the robber of the Spanish coins whose Channing had discovered the identity and had blackmailed for this crime), Lionel Lockridge (Channing thought him responsible for the death of his mother), Marcello Armonti (who wanted to cruelly wound C.C.). But finally, it will turn to be that it is Sophia, his own mother, the author of the fatal shot.

Although all the light was made on Channing Junior, his ghost will continue to torture the members of his family until the end of the show. And his spirit will come to haunt Eden, her young sister. He will even end up possessing her and claiming revenge after all these years. Become him, by procuration, Eden will try to kill Sophia.

Portrait written for this site by Lilian