Gloria Bardwell

Infobox soap character
name = Gloria Bardwell
series = The Young and the Restless
portrayer = Joan Van Ark
(2004 - 2005)
Judith Chapman
(2005 - present)
first = Episode 7855
April 6 2004
last =
cause =
creator = John F. Smith
Kay Alden



image1_size = 220px
caption1 = Judith Chapman as Gloria Bardwell (2007)
nickname = Glo
Glo-Worm (by Jack Abbott and Ashley Abbott)

alias =
gender = Female
born =
death =
age =
occupation = Executive director of the Marksalogria Charitable Foundation
Shareholder of Jabot Cosmetics
title =
residence = The Abbott Mansion Pool House, 603 Glenwood Drive
Genoa City, Wisconsin
parents = Unnamed Simmons
(father; deceased)
Unnamed Simmons
(mother; deceased)
siblings =
spouse = Tom Fisher
(divorced)
John Abbott, Sr.
(invalid; first time) [2004-2005]
John Abbott, Sr.
(invalid; second time) [2005-2006]
William Bardwell
(dissolved) [2007]
Jeffrey Bardwell (divorced; first time) [2008]
Jeffrey Bardwell (married; second time) [06/2008+]
romances = Lowell "River" Baldwin (lovers)
Evan Owen
(one-night stand)
Jeffrey Bardwell
(intended flirtation)
children = Michael Baldwin
(son, with Lowell)
Kevin Fisher
(son, with Tom)
grandchildren = Fenmore Baldwin
(grandson, via Michael)
grandparents =
aunts/uncles =
cousins =
relatives =
color = #C3B091
color text =

Gloria Bardwell (née Simmons, formerly Baldwin, Fisher and Abbott) is a fictional character, a resident of Genoa City on the American daytime drama serial "The Young and the Restless". The role was played by Joan Van Ark from April 6 2004 to January 7 2005 and is currently portrayed by Judith Chapman, who joined the show on January 14 2005.

"Gold-digging Gloria"

Gloria Bardwell is the widow of cosmetics tycoon John Abbott (Jerry Douglas), as well as the widow of lawyer William Bardwell (Ted Shackelford). Their personal fortunes played a role in Gloria's marriages to both men, but she eventually developed real feelings for them. She is a two-time divorcee from Tom Fisher and William's twin brother Jeffrey Bardwell. Gloria is worth 120 million dollars thanks to John Abbott and William Bardwell wills.

She has two children whom she often relies on when she finds herself in difficult situations.:

* Michael Baldwin (Christian LeBlanc): He's Gloria oldest son, who is a lawyer and married to Lauren Fenmore and have a son named Fenmore (Fen) Michael Baldwin.
* Kevin Fisher (Greg Rikaart): He is Gloria youngest son, who works with Gloria at Jabot as the Director of Internet Affairs and owner Crimson Lights Coffee House. He is married to Jana Hawkes.

Relationships

John & Gloria Abbott

Gloria Fisher moved to Genoa City from Detroit in 2004, to spend some time with her sons Kevin and Michael. Shortly after arriving in town, she met and began dating John Abbott, the wealthy founder of Jabot Cosmetics; the two were soon married, much to the concern of John's daughter, Ashley (Eileen Davidson), who suspected her new stepmother was a gold-digger, and became obsessed with breaking up her father's marriage. Ashley began digging into Gloria's past, and eventually discovered that Gloria had indeed not been entirely honest with John. She made the shocking discovery - that Gloria was the mother of Kevin Fisher, who had tried to kill John's granddaughter and her niece, Colleen (then played by Lyndsy Fonseca, later Adrianne Leon, now Tammin Sursok), and also Michael Baldwin, the lawyer who had helped Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) to send Jabot into bankruptcy. John eventually forgave Gloria for not revealing her past; he also came to forgive Kevin (who would later save John's life, after a fall) and Michael, both of whom came to regard John as more of a father figure than their own biological fathers.

Ex-Husband Tom Fisher Enters

When Gloria's abusive ex-husband, Tom Fisher (Roscoe Born), returned to town, he began to blackmail Gloria (paying him not to reveal that they were still legally married). When John learned all of this, he shot Tom dead, before having a heart attack himself.

John survived, but couldn't remember shooting Tom. For fear that he would have another attack if he remembered, Ashley covered for him, pleading guilty to Tom's murder. John eventually recalled the night of the shooting, and came forward that it was he, not his daughter, who shot Tom. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, but before being sentenced, John, knowing of Jack (Peter Bergman) and Ashley's feelings about Gloria, gave her his Jabot proxy.

The GloAgain Scandal

Throughout Gloria and John's "marriage", Jack and Ashley were never fond of her, which caused Gloria to go out of her way to prove herself a worthy member of the Jabot company. She went so far as to sabotage a batch of a new facial cream that Ashley had developed, GloAgain, so she could later "discover" the faulty product and save the company. This backfired when samples of GloAgain were sent out before Gloria could implement her plan and caused injuries to various people (including Abby Carlton, who ended up in the hospital). The death of a woman named Emma Gibson, which appeared to be related to her exposure to the tainted GloAgain, led to a lawsuit which hurt Jabot and caused Jack to be fired (though it later was determined the death might have been from other causes, unrelated to Jabot). Other than Kevin and Michael (who both kept their mother's secret), no one learned of Gloria's part in this until William Bardwell, who left clues for his brother. Jeffrey Bardwell used the incident as blackmail to recover his brother's fortune as well as half of her winnings from the Abbott settlement.

The Death of John and the will

In August 2006, Michael succeeded in getting the Governor of Wisconsin to commute John's sentence to time served (allowing him to get out of prison), but tragically, before he could be released, he suffered a massive stroke, and was admitted to Memorial Hospital. Uncontrolled bleeding in his brain caused John to slip into a coma from which he would not reemerge. His neurologist informed the Abbotts of a DNR order John had previously signed. Gloria and Jack fought bitterly over this, Jack wanting to honor his father's wishes and Gloria wanting to keep John on life support in the hope that he could somehow be revived. Eventually Gloria relented, and John was allowed to die. However, John's death did not ease the animosity between Gloria and John's children. The battle between Gloria and John's children, especially Jack, has escalated, mainly with the fact that Gloria and her family are slated to receive half of John's estate.

The only sibling that she really has little, if any, animosity with, was Jack's youngest sister, Traci (Beth Maitland), and this is because of her work as a writer and that she lives in New York, most of the time, and isn't always aware of what is going on with her family.

To add more insult to injury, it was discovered that John's attorney, due to health problems, hadn't filed the marriage license for John and Gloria, revealing that she and John were not legally married. Worse, a handwritten will turned up basically leaving all of John's assets with his children; leaving Gloria and her family without a cent. A judge ruled that the second will was valid, and as such, Gloria was left disinherited.

Mrs. William Bardwell

However, Katherine Chancellor (Jeanne Cooper) and Jill Abbott (Jess Walton) had named Gloria Jabot's Vice President of Creative Affairs, and she had been casting more than a casual eye on district attorney Will Bardwell (Ted Shackelford) who had recently inherited a fortune due to his uncle's death. This caused unexpected trouble between her and Jill, who was also enamored of Mr. Bardwell. Although she claimed that she would always love John, she quickly shed her widow's weeds and was already on her way to her next conquest.

Gloria eventually married William, who then discovered the truth about Gloria and the face cream. However, he then suffered a stroke, and was taken to hospital. After holding him against his will and eventually admitting she would turn herself in (due to Will finding out about the tainted Glo-Again face cream), William Bardwell succumbed to his stroke and died on July 18, 2007. After William died he inherited his uncle's money, fifty million dollars, and the money went to Gloria, William's then-wife.

Gloria & Jeffrey

Gloria planned a remembrance party for William, where his identical twin brother Jeffrey arrived. Jeffrey later presented Gloria with a box of mementos that William sent him before he died. The box also contained a jar of the contaminated face cream. Gloria then became convinced that Jeffrey knew of her crime.

Gloria reveled in her newfound wealth with both John and William's money and continued her game of cat-and-mouse with Jeffrey. After convincing him to give her the cream as a remembrance of William, Gloria discovered that it was a fake. She then decided to "semi-seduce" him in an effort to get close enough to get the real cream. However, once inside his hotel room, she discovered an old letter from William to Jeffrey say "Don't let her get away with it." With the help of an excuse from Kevin, she left but became even more worried. To get Jeff's suspicions off of her she decided to badmouth Jill and have him focus on her as the culprit. Jeffery then tested the cream on himself and was burned himself, resulting in him confronting Gloria as the true culprit. Gloria tried to play it off, but Jeffrey wasn't convinced. He then blackmailed Gloria into agreeing to marry him or he would turn her in to the police.

Due to Jack's falsifying his father's will, the judge reversed his decision on Gloria's inheritance from John, and she was awarded half of Abbott Manor. Since Gloria and Jeffrey moved in and Jack & Sharon refused to move out, they are time-sharing by area. Meanwhile, Jeff claims he's actually fallen for Gloria, and continued to blackmail her to force her to become his wife in every way. So Kevin and Gloria cooked up a plot to make it look like Jeff was slowly poisoning her to inherit, but Jeff one-upped her again, substituting something else for the poison which she is taking daily. Both couples are doing everything they can to make the other leave. Gloria redecorated in outlandish style, and Sharon & Jack with Jeff's help, hired an actor, Alistair Wallingford, to play John's ghost to scare Gloria into selling her share of the mansion and leaving. Gloria figured it out and threatened lawsuit, but Jack, influenced by his conscience in the form of his dead father John, gave up and gave her the house, and he and Sharon moved out. Then Gloria, influenced by Jana and her beliefs in karma, decided to turn her life around and gave the mansion back to Jack. Gloria and Jeff began to realize they really were actually attracted to each other even after all their feuding and blackmailing. They had one hot night together, but misunderstandings and refusal to admit they cared led to Jeffrey filing for divorce and asking for half her net worth as a settlement. Meanwhile Gloria was still trying to offset her karma and made legal arrangements to donate half her assets to charity as the Marksalogria Charitable Foundation (which is an algorithm for meaning Gloria's Karma). Since Jeff received the other half in their divorce settlement, Gloria was left penniless! Even her diamond stash turned out to be fake. Talk about karma!

Influenced by his concience in the form of John again, Jack relented and allowed Gloria to live in the Abbott pool house. After trying her hand and failing at waitressing at Crimson Lights and sales clerking for Lauren at the Glow By Jabot Boutique, she begged Kay for her job back and was given the Jabot Receptionist job instead. When Jeffrey realized how low Gloria had sunk, he made another attempt to reconcile with no more playing tricks and misunderstandings. After one hot night together, Gloria accused him of somehow stealing her diamonds, (which he probably did) and Jeff is mad at her again. Jill came on hot & heavy to Jeff seducing him in her office chair, but it wasn't long before he finally realized that the woman he wanted was Gloria. Jeff broke it off with Jill, and Jill took it out on the new receptionist Gloria, treating her like a slave. Jeff returned to Gloria and asked to start over together. Gloria went along with it half-heartedly until they made love again. Then Jeff coaxed her to his place, showed her 50 million in cash to frolic in, asked her to remarry him, and they eloped to Las Vegas with a wedding featuring Little Richard.

Their second chance at love didn't stop Gloria and Jeffrey from continuing to scheme. Once they returned home, they asked for Michael's help in setting up a dummy corporation in order to buy shares of Jabot's stock and eventually gain control of the company so that Gloria could get her revenge on Jill. Michael agreed to help only if Jeff handed over the contaminated cream. Jeffrey agreed but returned from the safe it was hidden in saying that it wasn't there. They then thought that maybe his old girlfriend Kyon took it back with her to Korea. Jeffrey then went to retrieve it but returned saying he couldn't find Kyon or the cream. It was then revealed that this was a lie as Jeffrey had it in his briefcase.

Jabot Buyout Plan

Jeff had opened up a company in Grand Cayman called Agreeing Lovers (anagram for Gloria's revenge) and Gloria and Jeff are using that name to buy Jabot stocks (mostly 51% or above). Gloria will then fire Jill, for revenge, and make her a receptionist and prove to the town she is still rich and powerful. After David Chow's gambling problem hit the news and his death, the Jabot stocks started to fall and Jeff bought 100,000 shares keeping it a secret and 50,000 shares as well. Gloria then bought 50,000 shares and kept it a secret from Jeff.

Gloria vs. Jack

Jack and Ashley never liked Gloria since she married John Abbott.

While being suspicious of Jeffrey, Gloria couldn't resist getting even with Jack for all the pain he caused her so she and Kevin released video footage of Jack admitting he illegally owned Jabot after the cream contamination. Michael and Lauren were furious after learning of this and Jack, Katherine, and Jill all became suspicious of Gloria and Kevin's involvement. Both Gloria and Jill decided to get revenge on Jack by testifying against him at his Senate hearing. Once she received a letter written to her by John before he died, Gloria read it to the Senate committee and it was revealed that Jack had indeed tricked his father into changing the will. Jack later give Gloria a settlement of $50 million dollars which she gave to Jack's chartiy. Jack later let her move into the Abbott mansion pool house.