Rachel Gannon
Actor History
Ellen Bethea (1992-1995; 2000-2001; 2002; May 2005)
Mari Morrow (April 1995 to January 1996)
Sandra P. Grant (April 1996 to August 1998)
Other Names
Ricki (father's nickname for her)
Roxy (when working as a hooker in New York City)
Occupation
Social worker
Formerly partner in music company
Formerly prostitute
Formerly college student
Resides At
Chicago, Illinois
Previously New York City
Previously Llanview, PA
Marital Status
Single/Never Married
Past Marriages
None
Relatives
Nora Hanen (mother)
Hank Gannon (father)
Matthew Buchanan (half-brother)
Drew Buchanan (step-brother; deceased)
RJ Gannon (uncle)
Susannah Hanen (aunt)
Lenny Hanen (grandfather)
Selma Hanen (grandmother)
Keri Reynolds Vega (cousin; deceased)
Jamie Vega (second cousin)
Children
None
Flings & Affairs
Kevin Buchanan
Ben Price
Javier
Track
Crimes Committed
Abused illegal drugs
Worked as a prostitute
Killed Georgie
Maladies & Hospitalizations
Overdosed on heroin and was sent to St. Anne's for drug treatment
Brief Character History
In 1992, Rachel Gannon came to Llanview to be close to her parents Hank Gannon and Nora Hanen Gannon. Her parents had divorced years earlier while they lived in Chicago, but now Hank and Nora were opposing attorneys in the small Pennsylvania town. Rachel began attending Llanview University and became friends with Kevin Buchanan, who was also attending school there. Kevin was just getting out of a brief marriage to LeeAnn Demerest that had produced a child, Duke. Kevin successfully won sole custody of Duke, but LeeAnn's new lover Jason Webb snuck into Llanfair one night and brought little Duke back to his mother. LeeAnn and Jason went on the run together, while Kevin and Rachel tracked them down. Rachel urged Kevin not to hold a grudge against LeeAnn and Jason. By the time Duke had been returned, Rachel's words had sunk in and Kevin agreed to unsupervised visitation rights for LeeAnn. Kevin and Rachel, meanwhile, embarked on an intimate relationship.
In 1993, Marty Saybrooke was gang raped in Kevin Buchanan's fraternity room and accused Kevin of being one of her attackers. Kevin was put on trial along with the other men, and his girlfriend Rachel stood by his side. Marty eventually realized Kevin hadn't raped her and dropped the charges. Rachel and Kevin later broke up and she began seeing Dr. Ben Price, the new doctor at Llanview Hospital.
In 1994, Rachel helped Ben during a medical crisis in which town residents began coming down with related viral infections, in which the patients' nervous systems quickly deteriorated. Ben's efforts to investigate the cause of the illnesses was hampered by hospital administrator Grace Atherton, who questioned every test he ordered in an attempt to conserve on hospital funds. But when the virus quickly spread, Llanview became frightened by the "killer flu." Ben and Rachel underwent their own investigation and eventually tracked down the origin of the virus to contaminated syringes ordered by Grace for their inexpensiveness. Grace was later arrested.
The Gannon family was stunned when Hank's no-good younger brother RJ Gannon showed up in Llanview. RJ had a tampered videotape from 20 years ago, when Hank was a college student, that allegedly showed Hank standing by a murder was committed. RJ held the doctored tape over Hank and Sheila's head and threatened to turn it over to the cops. Eventually RJ sent the tape to the governor, and his lie was out. Rachel was heartbroken as Nora tried to console her. Hank resigned from his job, revealing that he had indeed been a member of the group that committed the murder, but had left the group prior to the killing. Bo would not stand by and watch his best friend resign - instead, he searched high and low for the real, untampered tape and found it hidden in a trophy case in RJ and Hank's old high school. The tape was made public; Hank kept his job; Rachel forgave him and RJ was madder than ever.
In April 1995, Rachel began her long road to drug dependency when she woke up late for an exam in law school one morning. She asked a fellow student how he managed to stay up, and he gave her caffeine pills, which she readily took. The caffeine soon lost its effect however, and Rachel turned to prescription drugs. She went so far as to write a fake prescription for herself from the pad on boyfriend Ben Price's desk. Ben later found out and confronted Rachel - she conceded that she'd done it, but promised it would never happen again.
Rachel's problem was that she always felt inferior compared to her father, Hank, the DA; her super-lawyer mother Nora and her Aunt Susannah, the psychiatrist. Rachel continued taking drugs because she honestly thought it would help her. Unfortunately, things only got worse. She failed yet another law exam and decided to leave law school for awhile. She promised Ben she would stop taking drugs, but he found out she was lying and told his sister Sheila, who was married to Hank, about the problem. Sheila agreed to keep it quiet from Hank and Nora. But Rachel never kicked the habit and it led to her break-up with Ben, who later accepted a fellowship in London. Rachel graduated to illegal drugs, with Javier as her main supplier. Rachel and Javier occasionally engaged in drug-induced sex, but even he realized her problem before long and told his boss, Rachel's uncle RJ. RJ couldn't look the other way, because he cared too much about his niece. When Rachel nearly overdosed on heroin, he told Hank and Nora and pleaded with them to intervene. They did so, and Rachel was shipped off to rehabilitation at St. Anne's in January 1996. Hank, Nora and RJ began to repair their broken trusts.
Rachel did not stay long in the drug rehabilitation program at St. Anne's, instead running away after several weeks, throwing Hank and Nora into a panic. Several months later, in August 1996, Jessica Buchanan, on a field trip to New York City, happened upon Rachel in a bus station. When Jessica later told Nora what her daughter had been wearing and how she had looked, it became clear that Rachel was not living a "clean" life.
Enlisting the help of Bo's newly-returned-son Drew, Nora, Hank and RJ raced to New York City in an attempt to locate the missing girl. Posing as a customer, Drew visited a call-girl agency only to meet the new employee, "Roxy," who was really Rachel. Hiding his identity, Drew tried to convince the troubled girl to return to her family. But when Rachel learned that Drew was really her step-brother, she tried to escape. But her always-subtle father Hank quickly snapped a pair of handcuffs around his daughter's wrists and ordered her home to Llanview.
Through the summer, Drew helped Rachel overcome her addiction. As a way of capping her triumph over drugs, the family agreed to serve as guests on a live talk-show hosted by Tad Martin of Pine Valley. The day of the taping, however, Rachel overheard a troubling fight between her parents and uncle RJ. Rachel discovered that Nora and RJ had had an affair before she was born. Though Rachel tried to keep the knowledge inside, it bubbled out during the televised interview when she accused her parents of lying to her. Later, she even hinted that RJ might be her father, not Hank. Nora quickly denied Rachel's suspicion and chided her daughter for being so doubtful.
In 1997, Rachel joined her Uncle RJ in working at his Club Indigo. RJ soon formed a partnership with Jacara Principal, owner of Blue Jay Records, and launched into the music business. Rachel joined as a partner in the fledgling business. Rachel dated a jazz musician named Track but later broke up with him when she found out he was two-timing her. Meanwhile, the music business collapsed when Jacara found out RJ was dabbling in business with shady characters and ended the partnership.
Georgie Phillips came to town in 1998 and quickly ingratiated herself into Bo and Nora's life. Georgie seemed bent on breaking the couple up and tried to play on Bo's jealousies by insinuating that there was more going on between Sam and Nora than friendship. When Georgie's attempt to seduce Bo failed, she convinced Rachel that Bo was the married man she had been dating. Bo gave Georgie an ultimatum and told her she had a week to get out of town. Georgie then doctored a photo of herself and Bo to make it look like they were making love.
After Nora discovered the picture, she drove to the Buchanan lodge in a blind rage and didn't notice that she had passed Bo on the road. Georgie had demanded Bo meet her there. When Nora arrived, she saw Georgie kissing someone through the window and assumed the worst. Georgie then turned up murdered, and Bo was the prime suspect. On the eve of Bo's arraignment, Bo's son Drew -- who had recently returned to town after graduating from the police academy -- confessed to him that he had been having an affair with Georgie and was the father of the baby she was carrying when she was killed. Drew assured Bo that when he left Georgie that night at the lodge, she was very much alive.
Hoping that he could give Drew more time to find the real murderer, Bo stunned all of Llanview by pleading guilty to the murder. Nora was convinced that Drew was the guilty party. To protect Bo, Drew manufactured evidence to make it look like he committed the murder and was arrested. Rachel's fragile emotional state continued and she began to have delusions that Georgie was still alive.
Asa and Kevin, meanwhile, were both convinced that Todd had something to do with Georgie's murder. Eventually, Todd had everyone considered a suspect in the murder gather at the lodge and held them. Todd was convinced he could make the murderer confess. Todd admitted that he found Georgie's dead body and buried it, but he wasn't the one who killed her. Kevin pulled a gun on Todd and forced him out in to the woods. When a shot was fired, everyone raced outside. Thinking that Kevin was actually going to shoot Todd, Rachel stepped forward and finally confessed that she was the one who killed Georgie.
To keep Rachel from going to jail, Nora took her away. Rachel was able to convince her mother that leaving was the wrong thing to do because she needed to face her mistakes. Bo was able to track Nora and Rachel down and bring them back to Llanview. Rachel received a sentence of six months in Statesville prison. Rachel served her time and was released, relocating to Chicago where she took up social work. She appeared infrequently in intervening years to support her mother through medical crises and, most recently, when her mother married Daniel Colson.
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