Jack Deveraux
Jack Deveraux is a fictional character from Days of Our Lives, an American soap opera on the NBC network, most famously played by Matthew Ashford since 1987. He is a member of the Johnson family and first appeared in 1987. Ashford is the third actor to play in the role, and appeared regularly from 1987 through 1993 and from 2001 to 2006, with a few minor breaks in between, in addition to a small guest stint in 2007. In September 2011, after a four-year absence, the character returned to reconnect with his estranged family. His return was short-lived when it was announced that Ashford had been let go, last appearing on August 15, 2012, when the character was killed off in an elevator shaft. From 2016 to 2017, Ashford reprised the role for several guest-appearances; he returned full-time on December 28, 2018. The character has also been portrayed for lesser stints by Mark Valley, Steve Wilder, and Jon Lindstrom.
Many of his storylines have included his relationship with Jennifer Horton, which has made up one of the soap's most popular supercouples. They have two children together, Abigail Deveraux and JJ Deveraux, in addition to a grandson, Thomas DiMera and a granddaughter Charlotte DiMera, through Abigail. He recently discovered to have another daughter, Gwen Rizczech. One of the character's well known plots have been his fake deaths which occurred between 2003 and 2012, where he was presumed dead four times.
Casting
At the character's inception in 1987, the role was played by Joseph Adams from April 10 to July 17, by James Acheson from July 21 to October 26, and by Matthew Ashford from October 30 onward. Ashford went on to play the role through October 29, 1993, reappearing from February 5, 2001, to October 27, 2003, and June 22, 2004, until September 21, 2006, with a guest appearance on April 2–4, 2007, and again from September 23, 2011, until August 15, 2012. Ashford later took a brief absence from the series from October 2003 to June 2004 where he would appear as a special guest star on One Life to Live.Ashford was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in 2012. During Ashford's absence, the role of Jack was played by Mark Valley from October 28, 1994, until September 26, 1997, and by Steve Wilder from September 26, 1997, through June 5, 1998.
On November 30, 2015, it was announced that Ashford would briefly return to the soap; he appeared on May 24, 2016. Ashford also briefly appeared on June 20, 2016, August 5, 2016, and August 23, 2016. He made another on-off appearance on December 21, 2017. Ashford returned full-time at the conclusion of the December 28, 2018, episode.
In December 2020, it was announced Jon Lindstrom—the real-life spouse of Cady McClain—would step-in as Ashford's body double for scenes between Jack and McClain's Jennifer. He aired on December 30 of that year.
Characterization
Charming, manipulative, heroic, clever, selfish, arrogant and self-loathing all at the same time, antihero Jack Deveraux is one half of Jack and Jennifer, one of Days of our Lives most popular supercouples. Although he entered the story as an outright villain wedging himself violently in between another popular supercouple, Steve Johnson and Kayla Brady, Jack eventually grew to establish himself as a core main character in the Days mythos through his passion, outrageous sense of humor, redemption, and undying love for heroine Jennifer Horton.The character has been a frequent winner of Soap Opera Digest Awards, including Outstanding Villain, multiple wins for Best Love Story, Best Wedding and Outstanding Comic Performance. Ashford was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in 2012.
Storylines
1987-1988
When Jack came to Salem, he was hoping to reconnect with Kayla Brady, the woman he'd met a couple of years prior in Hawaii and couldn't get out of his mind. He had Hodgkin's disease, but he was in denial about its severity, and tried to hide the symptoms plaguing him. However, that couldn't last long. Once he was hospitalized because he was no longer in remission, his father, wealthy Senator Harper Deveraux, hired Kayla to be Jack's nurse. Jack let Kayla know he loved her, and he told her that her love gave him the will to live. Unbeknownst to Jack, he was adopted; his real name was Billy Johnson, his mother was the family's former maid Jo, and his birth brother was Kayla's boyfriend, Steve "Patch" Johnson. When Steve found out that his brother might live if he had Kayla's love, he rejected Kayla and pushed her towards Jack. Unaware of Steve's motives and believing that Steve didn't love her, Kayla agreed to marry Jack; she felt affection for Jack, and she pitied him. Sure enough, Jack went into remission and recuperated fully.Unfortunately, Kayla could not bring herself to be a wife to Jack in more than name. At first, he was too sick for intimacy; then, she became sick due to a poisoning attempt by Harper. Harper believed she was aware of Jack's true birth. Once he realized what was happening, Steve rescued Kayla from the Deveraux household. He hid her away and nursed her back to health, but unsurprisingly, this led to a resumption of their relationship. Jack eventually found Kayla and took her back home, but by then, it was too late. From that point on, Kayla and Steve took every opportunity to see each other behind Jack's back.
Jack hoped to follow in his father's footsteps and become a politician, so he ran for assemblyman. Kayla wanted to divorce Jack so she could be with Steve openly, but Steve convinced her to wait until after Jack's election to approach him about it. As a result, Kayla spent the months leading up to the election seeing Steve secretly during the day, then making excuses to stay out of Jack's bed every night. Jack and Kayla still had not consummated their marriage despite being man and wife for the better part of a year, and Kayla had no intention of doing so before she filed for divorce. Unaware of her plans, Jack accepted her refusals and somehow convinced himself that it was a phase and that Kayla would start treating him like a true husband any day now. On the night of Jack's election, a reporter handed Jack compromising photos of Steve and Kayla, hoping to blackmail him. Finally, Jack was forced to face the truth. He returned to the loft with Kayla, confronted her about the affair, and raped her. Then, he hired people to beat up Steve.
Steve was enraged, and he came for Jack. A fight between Jack and Steve on the roof of Kayla's loft resulted in Jack falling multiple stories. Jack's near-fatal injuries caused him to need a new kidney. Obviously, the best viable donor was his brother Steve. His mother Jo asked Steve to donate in order to save "Billy's" life, but Steve was conflicted. He finally came to the decision to donate after visiting Jack in the hospital and remembering the promise he'd made as a child to protect his little brother. After Jack recovered, Kayla pressed charges, but in the end, Jack pled guilty to the lesser charge of assault. She then filed for divorce.
Melissa Horton remained loyal to Jack; she'd always had a crush on him, and he turned to her when his marriage ended. Jack had no idea that Harper had tried to frame Melissa for poisoning Kayla when Steve had discovered that Kayla's sickness was due to poison-laced pills. During Jack's marriage to Kayla, Melissa had found Jack's adoption papers at the Deveraux mansion. Now that Jack and Melissa were in a relationship, she felt obliged to tell Jack he was adopted. Jack was furious at Harper; after all those years talking about the importance of "Deveraux blood," Harper had actually been sterile. To add insult to injury, he discovered that his birth family was the Johnsons: Jo, whom he'd known as the kindly maid; Adrienne; and Steve, Jack's greatest enemy. He initially rejected his birth identity as "William Earl Johnson" whole-heartedly, and told Jo and the Johnsons he wanted nothing to do with his birth family. It was a long, slow, painful process for him to accept his "new" family, but he eventually did.
Meanwhile, his adopted father Harper was revealed to be the serial killer known as The Riverfront Knifer. After Harper was arrested, his Senate seat was vacant. Jack ran against Mickey Horton to fill it. Jack's romance with Mickey's daughter Melissa had progressed physically, but he didn't really love her; he just felt affection for her as a loyal friend. Still, at his stepmother Anjelica Deveraux's urging, he proposed to Melissa because marrying her would be politically useful. Once Melissa realized the motives behind Jack's proposal, she left him at the altar the day before the election to disgrace him publicly and ensure his loss.
Melissa's public repudiation paired with Jack's fairly recent spousal assault conviction ended his political career and made him a pariah at the age of 26. He was consumed with bitterness and filled time trying to find petty ways to make life harder for Steve and Kayla. He only succeeded in making himself more miserable. With just a few people left willing to give Jack the time of day, Jack reconciled with Harper. Harper manipulated Jack into helping him break out of prison by pretending he was being beaten by fellow inmates. Jack enlisted Victor Kiriakis' help because he had no experience with such a large-scale operation. Kiriakis hired some goons who turned out to be less than effective. Harper was shot during the escape, and Victor's goons kidnapped Kayla to tend to Harper's wounds while they attempted to get him out of the country. Steve saved Kayla just in time, and Jack's father went back to jail.
1989-1991
Adrift and depressed, Jack bought 51% of the newspaper The Spectator in order to stop them from running a humiliating expose about his failed campaign against Mickey Horton. While the purchase was a move borne out of desperation, he immediately threw himself into running it, much to the chagrin of his partner and the original owner Diana Colville. She was constantly pushing back, especially when he initially tried to use the newspaper to suppress a story about a toxic dumping by a Deveraux-owned company that caused an outbreak of rashes at Carrie Brady's school. Seeing that he could not stop the story, Jack hastily ensured the toxins had been totally cleaned up and that he'd made some environmental donations before the story broke. As a result, he was praised instead of pilloried. Delighted, he was eager to harness the power of the press. Wanting complete control, he attempted to blackmail Diana into selling him her 49% of the paper, but she refused. Even when she left town, she gave her power of attorney to editor Vern Scofield rather than sell to Jack. It wasn't long, though, before Jack's attitude changed and he began to view the newspaper not as a tool, but as a calling. In time, Jack became a man who took his role as a journalist so seriously that he put his life on the line for stories and won prestigious awards for his work. He eventually earned ownership of the paper honestly.It was at The Spectator that Jack met Jennifer Horton, a college student majoring in journalism. She soon became his protege, but her compassionate perspective would often temper his cynicism when they were working together. Jennifer was one of the only people who believed that Jack wanted to change and who was willing to not only give him a chance, but to help him. As they worked together at The Spectator, the connection between them became more and more intense. After initially being wary of a man with such a dark past, Jennifer fell deeply in love and aggressively pursued Jack. Jack, however, was resistant. While he was irresistibly drawn to Jennifer and had fallen in love with her despite himself, he viewed himself as unworthy of her.
As Jack pushed Jennifer away, her ex-boyfriend Emilio Ramirez returned to town and was more than happy to pick up the slack. An ex-gang member who prided himself on being "macho," Emilio was Jack's opposite in many ways. He was determined to win back Jennifer, and Jack seemed to have surrendered the field to him. Another complication in Jack and Jennifer's relationship was the return of Melissa Horton, who'd left town for a while after she'd dumped Jack at the altar. She still loathed Jack and didn't believe he had changed his ways, so she did her best to sabotage any chance Jack and Jennifer had and push Jennifer towards Emilio.
All the while, Jack did not seem to be fighting for Jennifer. Instead, Jack was telling Jennifer he didn't love her and she should be with someone else. The problem was that while he said this, his actions said something completely different. He would tell her he wanted her to date other men, but then he would get snippy about her kissing Emilio in the office. He would tell her that he didn't want her, but then he would respond helplessly, even desperately when she kissed him. In his most spectacular display, he told her he wasn't going to stand in the way of her marriage to Emilio, but then he showed up to stop the wedding in a fire engine. After absconding with Jennifer in the fire engine, Jack took her to a cabin outside of town; there, she expected him to declare his love. Instead, he told her he'd simply brought her out there so she could rethink her decision to marry Emilio. Jennifer was infuriated, but Jack wasn't ready to be honest about his feelings yet.
As Jack struggled with his feelings for Jennifer on one side, on the other, he was trying to quietly make amends for his past. That brought him into the orbit of the Toscanos. Steve's ex-wife Marina Toscano was driving a wedge between Steve and Kayla by blackmailing Steve into helping her search for a key which would lead her to her family's mysterious treasure. Then, Victor kidnapped Kayla to "motivate" Steve into giving him the key. Jack was desperate to help Steve and Kayla in any way he could because now that he was interested in changing, he thought that doing things for them could somehow help make up for his greatest sin: raping Kayla. Jack discovered that Marina had a sister in Bayview Sanitarium named Isabella. Jack visited her, realized she was sane, figured out what was going on, and helped her escape. After finding the key to the treasure with Jennifer and using the clues to puzzle out the treasure's location himself, he discovered that the "treasure" was the diary of Isabella's mother. Its immense value came from the fact that it contained the secret to Isabella's paternity: her father was not Ernesto Toscano, whom she believed to be dead, but Victor Kiriakis, a man she was raised to hate. Jack gave the key to Steve so that he could trade it for Kayla, and Jack gave the diary to Isabella so that Victor would find nothing but an empty safe when he arrived. However, before Jack gave Isabella the diary, he removed the pages detailing the secret to protect her.
Meanwhile, the quite alive Ernesto Toscano was in hiding, planning a "cruise of deception" to get revenge on his enemies. He wanted the incriminating pages of that diary badly, and he discovered they were in Jack's possession. He invited both Jack and Jennifer on the cruise. Still, Jack refused to reveal the secret, remembering how traumatic it had been when he'd been told Harper wasn't his father. He and Isabella had become close friends, and he wanted to spare her that pain. Ernesto revealed himself to Isabella on the cruise and kidnapped her, then blew up the ship with Jack, Jennifer, and several other Salemites on board. After the shipwrecked passengers found their way to the nearby island where Ernesto had taken Isabella, she finally learned the truth about her parentage. It was also on that island that Jack and Jennifer made love for the first time.
Still, Jack and Jennifer's relationship did not immediately escalate to the next level. Jack remained skittish. He was tortured by visions of his two infamous fathers, Duke and Harper, who constantly vocalized his fears that he'd be unable to escape his past and that he'd hurt Jennifer. Then, less than a month after Jack returned from the cruise, Harper Deveraux in the flesh escaped from jail with one goal: kill Steve Johnson. In his sick mind, Steve was to blame for destroying the Deveraux family, even for the fact that Jack couldn't call Harper "father" anymore. Harper took up a sniper position in the bell tower of the church where Steve and Kayla were getting married again. Jack ran up into the tower to stop him. However, as he wrestled with Harper for his gun, Harper fell to his death. This caused a huge rift in Jack's relationship with Jennifer as Jack now considered himself a "violent killer" and unworthy of her once again. He broke up with her.
While Jack was working through his trauma with a psychiatrist, Jennifer discovered that her old friend from boarding school Katerina Von Leuschner was in town. She was now calling herself Dr. Carly Manning. Her family had arranged a marriage with a man named Lawrence Alamain and Carly had no intention of going through with it, but she was concerned about the trouble this might cause. Helpful Jennifer decided to step in and pretend to be Katerina for the brief engagement period so that the Alamains would leave Carly alone. This involved her traveling to New York and undergoing an elaborate charade. She told no one about this, but when Jack realized what she was doing, he chased her down to convince her to give up the pretense. Unfortunately, she was enmeshed in something much deeper and darker than she'd imagined. Lawrence Alamain was a truly evil man, and the little deception she'd engaged in to help a friend was going to cost her a great deal. As Jack was attempting to extricate her from this situation, he was notified that his brother Steve had been seriously injured in an explosion. He returned to Salem only to witness his brother die, killed on Lawrence's orders.
While Jack was in Salem, Lawrence took Jennifer to his home country of Alamania. There, she was horrified to discover that Lawrence was holding her childhood sweetheart and the Brady's adoptive son Frankie Brady prisoner. Frankie revealed to her that his true identity was François von Leuschner, and he was Katerina's brother. By threatening to hurt Frankie, Lawrence forced Jennifer to agree to marry him in the guise of Katerina; through marriage, he'd be able to take control of the von Leuschner fortune.
As soon as Steve's funeral ended, Jack rushed to get back to Jennifer. He followed her to Alamania and was shocked to find her adamantly set on marrying Lawrence. While he had no idea she was protecting Frankie, he knew something was very wrong. It all clicked into place for Jack; the man who had been so reluctant to express his feelings for Jennifer was now relentlessly determined to get Jennifer to confess her feelings for him. When he attempted to physically interrupt her wedding to Lawrence, Lawrence's goons knocked him out and put him in a cell next to Frankie. Sadly, while Jack was trapped in a cell and unable to help, Lawrence raped Jennifer on their wedding night. Jack eventually escaped and convinced Jennifer to repudiate Lawrence with the help of several other Salemites who had come to rescue them. Furious, Lawrence blew up his villa with them inside. They were able to escape with the help of Lawrence's father Leopold, who died saving them.
Once back in Salem, Jack hoped for a bright future ahead now that he had sorted out his feelings for Jennifer. He proposed to Jennifer, and she accepted. However, she was pulling away from him. She was uncomfortable with physical affection from him. It was because of her trauma from the rape, but when he asked her what was wrong, she told him she was just under a lot of stress. He decided to take her for a romantic getaway weekend to help her unwind. When he surprised her with an aggressive kiss, she had a flashback to Lawrence. "Don't touch me, you rapist!" She cried, slapping him. Appalled and convinced that Jennifer had never really believed in her heart all the pretty things she'd been saying to him for so long, he immediately ended their engagement and said they were over for good.
His emotional wounds weren't his only problem. Lawrence had put Jack at the top of his "Enemies List" and was trying to do a hostile takeover of The Spectator in order to ruin him. Diana Colville had given Vern Scofield Power of Attorney over her 49% of the paper, but she still owned it, and she was no friend of Jack's. She told Jack she would sell to Lawrence if he didn't come up with a better offer. Jack needed to hand her a check for 5 million dollars. While he had a great deal of personal wealth in property, stocks, and bonds, coming up with that much cold, hard cash was not something he could readily do. Loans also require time. He did not have a lot of options.
Hearing of his dilemma, Eve Donovan approached him. Her former pimp Nick Corelli had recently been murdered, and he had left $10 million to Eve with a very strange condition: she had to marry in order to get it. It was supposed to be a love match, but Eve didn't have time for that. She told Jack that if he married her, she would split the money with him. Jack was at first reluctant, but then he saw Jennifer with Frankie at a hotel. It brought home to him that he didn't have much reason to hold out for love anymore. Eve and Jack tied the knot and did their best to pretend they were madly in love despite the fact that they felt nothing but contempt for each other.
However, before they could collect the cash, Eve was accused of Nick's murder. In an effort to clear her name, Jack and Eve searched for the murder weapon: a gun. They believed the gun was on a theme train, so they booked tickets. Frankie and Jennifer joined them. Frankie and Eve had started to develop feelings for each other at this point, and they decided to share a cabin. Jack and Jennifer were forced to share the remaining cabin on the train, and they became closer and closer both physically and emotionally. Finally, Jennifer admitted to Jack that she'd pushed him away because she had been raped by Lawrence. Jack had a hard time dealing with it at first since it made him feel even more unworthy of Jennifer, but before the train left the station the next day, he had gotten her a jade plant to symbolize their growing love. When the train derailed and they were forced to fight for their lives together, he told her once again that he loved her. After they got back to Salem, Jack supported Jennifer in her efforts to press charges against Lawrence. They were finally able to prove his guilt when they produced a recording of him talking about the rape, uncovered with the help of Kimberly Brady. Lawrence was convicted and sent to prison.
Immediately after the trial, Jack proposed again to Jennifer and accidentally invited the whole town, not realizing he was being recorded by news cameras at the time. To accommodate the crowd, Jack and Jennifer were married in a stadium. While Jack dreamed that they were married in a wild west show, their actual wedding was traditional. They honeymooned at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California. There, they met a con man named Hawk. Along with his partner in crime Desiree, a fake psychic, Hawk won Jennifer's trust and insinuated himself into their lives, hoping to take them for every cent they had. Hawk faked a back injury at their penthouse and moved in with them, then worked to convince Jack that he could make millions through insider trading. Jack, still smarting over having to marry Eve for funds to buy The Spectator, was tempted. Hawk eventually convinced Jack to "sell" all of his stocks and assets to "investment brokers" who were really Hawk's fellow con men. In the final culmination of the con, Hawk set up fake FBI agents to "raid" the place where Jack and the "brokers" were doing business and demand all of the cash Hawk had convinced Jack to bring. Supposedly, the agents were going to arrest him for illegal trading. Jack fled, and Hawk now had Jack's entire fortune.
Instead of leaving with the money, Hawk decided he wanted to go back to Salem and try to get Jack's wife, too. Jennifer was frantic at first when Jack did not return from his "business trip," but after it became obvious that not only was Jack gone but also all of his money, she grew suspicious along with everyone else. Hawk destroyed the note Jack had left for Jennifer so that she would believe her practically brand new husband had left her. Soon everyone but Jack's mother was convinced that Jack had abandoned Jennifer. Hawk moved in on her while Jack stayed away, positive he was being hunted by the FBI. Jack eventually returned to Salem at Christmas, unable to endure any more time away from his wife, only to discover her with Hawk. Hawk was ultimately exposed as a con man, but Jack and Jennifer were never able to recover any of the money. The entire Deveraux family fortune... gone. They were broke.