Saturday, August 11, 2012

Paul Ryan: VP Pick. and The Son of James Stenbeck and Barbara Ryan on AS THE WORLD TURNS

Republican Mitt Romney announced on Saturday morning that Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin was the choice to be his Vice Presidential running mate. AS THE WORLD TURNS fans started tweeting us immediately, amused by the fact that he shares a name with a very familiar character in the show's history--James (Anthony Herrera) and Barbara's (Colleen Zenk) son, Paul Ryan. The origins of the character, at least the actors portraying him, have not been well documented. So we are here to try to set the record straight.

Canaan Crouch was the very first Paul Ryan in AS THE WORLD TURNS! Canaan was the son of Zenk's then boyfriend Michael Crouch (later her husband).   Paul was being raised by the Colfax family so maybe his name was Paul Colfax then.  It soon changed to Paul Stenbeck but as he grew up Paul decided to use his mother's name, Ryan, instead.

Crouch played the role in early 1980 when the character debuted but was quickly replaced by director Bruce Barry's son, who lasted a couple of weeks. There was a third Paul that we have not been able to identify who played the part until the fourth Paul came on board, Danny Pintauro. Pintauro lasted for a few years on the show before moving on to WHO'S THE BOSS?

The remaining actors are well documented on various websites around the web:

Eldin Ratliss (1984–1985)
C. B. Barnes (1985–1986)
Damon Scheller (1986)
Andrew Kavovit (1986–1991, 1992) FYI: He won an Emmy for the role
John Howard (1996)
Scott Holroyd (2001–2003)
Roger Howarth (2003–2010)

Who was your favorite Paul Ryan?  Share your thoughts in our Comments section below.

VP choice Ryan also has another daytime soap "connection" at least in terms of headlines in the past week.  I have seen more than one media outlet use the term "Ryan's Hope" when speculating he might be chosen.

5 comments:

  1. I loved Scott as Paul Ryan and was miffed when he was replaced.

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  2. I liked Andrew Kavovit in the role. Although i am a BIG Roger Howarth fan i feel he was miscast as Paul Ryan. That and they made Paul Ryan during Rogers shift a real man whore!!!

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  3. I know....wouldn't James be so proud! LOL! Barbara would be running The White House is the blink of an eye! Anyway, Andrew and Roger were both spectacular as Paul. Danny was as well - so cute, and really a terrific little actor as I recall. Loved the way he would call Gunnar's name....."Gunnar!" Adorable!

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  4. Andrew Kavovit was my favorite, his & Andy's friendship was great. My next fav is Scott Holroyd, I so enjoyed him as Paul, now I'm not knocking RH, because I did like him as Paul but sometimes he just did a walk through with his lines it seemed when he didn't like the story for Paul.

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