By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman
Katherine Kelly Lang: Love is her Brooke’s “fate”
For more than 25 years, the main story of The Bold and the Beautiful has been the story of the love life of Brooke Logan Forrester (fascinatingly played by Katherine Kelly Lang) . She’s been married to all the Forresters — Eric, Thorne and Ridge –and is the mother of five children. When it came time to die from cancer, Stephanie Forrester chose Brooke’s arms to die in.
Brooke has been such a good soap heroine because her life is centered on what soaps are all about: love. To Brooke, love is all. Whoever she has sex with she must be in love with. And because she believes love is her fate, she believes any of her actions toward that end are justified.
Armed with the nobility of that motivation, Brooke has gained much in life. She became a top scientist and later designer at Forrester Creations, inventor of the Belief fabric formula and lead designer of Brooke’s Bedroom, a line of luxe lingerie. When she became Mrs. Eric Forrester, she became rich and famous at a very young age.
But it’s her continuous love affair with Ridge Forrester that has dominated her life. A young girl when she met him, she set her sights on him immediately even though he was involved with and later married Caroline Spencer Forrester. Though men came and went in her life, it was always the love of Ridge she sought — and won and lost many times. The two have been married three times.
Because Brooke believes nothing she does is wrong, she has trespassed often on the lives of many around her. She fell in love with her daughter Bridget’s husband Nick Marone. She fell in love with her sister’s Katie’s husband Bill Spencer and had a torrid affair with him.
But right now everything that Brooke has stood for and believed is coming apart. She was set to remarry Ridge when her maid of honor Katie fainted in the middle of the ceremony. It turns out that Katie, who had been so harmed by Brooke when Brooke fell in love with her husband Bill, is now in love with Ridge. And Ridge is in love with Katie.
Now that Brooke is finally faced with what she can’t have – namely Ridge, the once inevitable “fate” of her love — it may be time for her to take a good look at herself. What is it about her that she has been able to steal so many other women’s men? How will she survive now that Katie has stolen her man. Will Broke ever change and see the errors of her ways ? Will she once again wrest Ridge from another women’s once arms?
I have to admit the Brooke I loved for many years seems to no longer exist. And, for me, it started with Bill but well before their dalliances.
With Bill, Katie had to endure affairs and then Bill’s unnatural obsession to see his mistress with his son. Through all this he did unspeakable things to Brooke’s daughter, made Katie work with his mistress when he put Steffy on the Board, committed fraud and locked his pregnant wife in a tower when she found out what he did.
Brooke badgered her sister to go back to Bill for the sake of the baby. At that time I lost all respect for her. The Brooke I knew never would have tolerated what Bill did to Katie and would have taken her and her baby in to get them away from Bill. The Brooke I knew never would have taken up with her daughter’s tormentor.
She’s no longer the Brooke Logan I knew and loved.
Don’t forget that Brooke also fell in love with her daughter Bridget’s first husband Deacon Sharpe before she fell in love with Bridget’s second husband Nick, Marlena!
It’s the first time losing Ridge will really hurt. KKL is a great actress with a usually repetitive role. I hope they write some great stuff for her.
I like this Ridge dumping her. Who knew TK would be so great?
I am loving B&B at the moment. I love that Brooke has lost something that she may have to fight for giving Brooke a meatier storyline than just a triangle so that it will showcase what KKL is truly capable of. She is one of my favorites and her acting has grown so over they years. I have one teeny tiny complaint. I adore Thorsten Kaye. I’ve followed him since OLTL days and was very happy to see him back on daytime ( I deeply miss AMC and Zach Slater). He is a fantastic actor and an asset to every endeavor he undertakes. However, it’s just my opinion but……the character of Katie has done something that no other actress he has been paired with has been able to do and that is make Thorsten Kaye dull and boring. Sorry but even though Brooke may deserve some karma, I wish it was not at the hands of a whiny, hand wringing character like Katie. The only spark I see in him ,acting wise is when he’s playing against KKL or Jacob Young. I hope Bell will let this infatuation with the dying swan Katie not go on too long.
Marlena, I love your column and look forward to your remarks about each soap. They are spot on and well thought out analyses.
….”she believes love is her fate”. I believe her word is “destiny”.