Katheryn Cryer | |||||||
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Renee Lawless as Katheryn Cryer | |||||||
The Haves and the Have Nots | |||||||
Portrayed by | Renee Lawless | ||||||
Created by | Tyler Perry | ||||||
Duration | 2013– | ||||||
First appearance |
The Big Surprise Episode 1 | ||||||
Classification | Series regular | ||||||
Profile | |||||||
Family | Cryer | ||||||
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Katheryn Cryer (nee Hardgraves) is a character played by actress/singer Renee Lawless on the OWN television series, The Haves and the Have Nots.
Background[]
Katheryn Cryer is the wife of Jim Cryer, a dishonest (and at times, outright evil) Federal Criminal Courts judge in Savannah, Georgia. He is also interested in running for Governor of the state. She is the mother of Wyatt Cryer and the late Amanda Cryer.
Due to her breeding as the daughter of one of the most powerful families in Savannah (her father was a powerful businessman and politician, who was also an alcoholic), she had a lot of beauty and was considered one of the belles of Savannah Society. She met and fell in love with Jim at the age of 15. It was common knowledge to everyone in Savannah that Jim got to where he was due to Katheryn's family's substantial influence. They were married on April 7, 1979, and when the series began, they had been married for 35 years. A day that Katheryn later denounced as a day that was cursed.
At first, they were a warm and loving couple, but time and Jim's constant philandering with many and varied mistresses, have turned them against one another. When in public, they put on an act of being a loving and happily married couple, but when they are in the privacy of their own home, they show their true colors and yell and scream at one another mercilessly. Katheryn has not minced words about her husband and his evildoing and wicked ways, calling him at various times, a "sociopath", a "son of a bitch" and an "arrogant bastard" among other epithets.
She is also somewhat distant towards her children, due to them having been through some traumatizing situations, including child molestation (Wyatt) and mental health issues (Amanda). She is harder on Amanda, while she tends to be more loving towards Wyatt, although she doesn't tolerate his more extreme behaviors (slightly inverted from the way Jim parents, tougher on Wyatt, gentler on Amanda).
For a long time, Katheryn's world ran smoothly, with the chaos that comes into it mainly stemming from Jim's constant infidelities, Wyatt's substance abuse and Amanda's mental issues. As the lady of the house, she rarely had anyone around the house that she can talk to woman to woman and was at times, quite lonely.
She has very few friends, mainly Veronica Harrington, the attorney wife of one of Jim's fellow judges, David Harrington; and her recently hired housekeeper, Hanna Young.
Hanna is the one person that she considers to be her only true friend, as she is more real and honest than Veronica could be. Also, Katheryn simply enjoys Hanna's company, as they are both mothers and are going through the same difficulties in dealing with their grown children, and above all, she just loves Hanna and her down-to-earth nature. (At one time, Hanna and Katheryn smoked some medical marijuana which solidified the bond between the two women)
Despite the fact that Candace Young (whom she derisively refers to as "Nine", the numerical order where she falls in Jim's long-line of mistresses) is her daughter, Katheryn still sees Hanna as her friend (in fact, it was Hanna herself who told Katheryn that Candace was her daughter).
Katheryn has a compulsion to call Jim's frequent mistresses by number instead of their names, or using the epithet "Chronological".
Despite her mercurial nature though, she is a very good friend to those she is close to and cares about, and she does have a generous heart, as was revealed when she had Hanna's son, Benny, moved from the inadequate county hospital to a better equipped private hospital and paid her friend's medical expenses.
Unlike her close and very real friendship with Hanna, she has an antagonistic and hostile relationship with her other housekeeper, Celine Gonzales. Celine was one of Jim's mistresses (she is derisively called "Four") and she keeps her on the Cryer payroll only to see her suffer from Jim's constant rejections of her. Via an arrangement that she made with Jim, an arrangement she does not agree with or approve of, Celine's job is sacrosanct, due to her knowledge of the family's dirty secrets, which she would eagerly use as blackmail against them.
However, Celine has been aggressively antagonizing Katheryn more and more of late (most notably over the jealousy that Celine has over Hanna and Katheryn's friendship, and her frustration with Jim constantly rejecting her), which is setting up for an explosive confrontation between the two women.
After one of Jim's schemes which exonerates Wyatt (at the expense of another flunky); Hanna comes to the Cryers mansion to apologize. While Jim refuses to hear it, and orders her off the grounds, Katheryn angrily tells him to butt out and get back in the house, then she has a tearful reunion with the woman she sees as her best friend and offers Hanna her job back, Hanna tearfully accepts, but it would be after Benny is settled in and is back on the road to health. Hanna then invites Katheryn to her son's surprise party to meet Benny, which a touched and delighted Katheryn agrees to.
Jim angrily tells Katheryn that he will not allow Hanna to regain her job, but she tells him otherwise. She pointedly tells Jim that "since I cannot fire that whore (Celine), I will NOT let you fire Hanna." Jim counters that if Hanna does get her job back, he will make her life a living hell.
A by now livid Katheryn tells him then that he should keep Celine from going off the rails, or else there will be hell to pay. And he is also told that if she (Celine) doesn't stop being insolent to her (Katheryn) in her own home, no arrangement will make any difference, because she WILL be fired. She also finishes him off by saying "these whores may not be a problem for you, because you've never had an EX-wife!"
Katheryn doesn't know it yet, but it is revealed that Jim has another son, but not by her most frequent nemesis, Candace, however. The grown child's mother is her enemy within her home, Celine. His until-now unknown son, Carlos, was born out of that affair they had.
Carlos made his first appearance when he delivered something to the Cryer residence and Celine recognized him. This revelation would more or less be cause enough for Katheryn to get rid of her adversary once and for all, arrangement or no arrangement.
In the season finale, Katheryn's fate is unclear when her mentally unstable daughter, Amanda, in the throes of a nervous breakdown, is running through the house, singing 'Eeny Meeny Miney Mo" and then a gunshot rings out in the Cryer mansion. It was revealed that she survived, but she is later devastated when Amanda was found to have killed herself, after Hanna discovered her body as she went in to wake her up. This made Katheryn go into shock, as she heard the news while she was at a press conference for Jim's gubernatorial campaign.
Meanwhile, Katheryn is comforted by Hanna, and she gets a measure of revenge against Celine by finally firing her for her insolence. Celine, undeterred by Katheryn's firing, doesn't leave so easily. This serves to anger her even more, and she takes a vase and throws it at her in a pure rage.
She then screams at Wyatt, who screams back at her, and she slaps him. (After doing so, she breaks down crying in Hanna's arms) She also gains a measure of satisfaction by slapping Celine, pulling her hair and dragging her out by her hair. During this trial, they discover that Amanda did not kill herself, but was rather murdered. However, it was later revealed that she indeed had taken her own life.
Katheryn also describes the day that she met Jim Cryer at age 15 and the day that she married him. She doesn't describe it as a blessed day, but it was more like a day that she would rather forget. During this recitation, Katheryn's hatred for Jim comes out in clear view of everyone, and then again, she orders Celine out of the house.
When once again her enemy refuses, Katheryn finally goes on a rampage and slaps, knocks down, kicks and drags Celine by the hair. Celine finally realizes that she is not wanted and she is escorted outside. After her fight with the former housekeeper, Katheryn smokes a cigarette.
During the fight between Jim and Wyatt, it is revealed to her that while Wyatt was away at a camp and was being molested by a priest, that Celine and Jim were together. Wyatt reveals to his mother all of Jim's various infidelities, mainly with babysitters, Celine, Candace, his high school math teacher and various other women, as well as all the e-mails and the letters he had written bragging about his constant cheating. Katheryn is even MORE infuriated with Jim, after hearing flat out from her son about her husband's brazen infidelity.
She surprises Hanna by showing up at her house, and she finally meets Benny and immediately likes him. Going inside Hanna's house makes Katheryn feel right at home. She loves how warm, inviting and simple Hanna's house is, as opposed to her large home. Katheryn tells Hanna that she doesn't have any friends. Hanna at first reassures her that she has Veronica, but Katheryn tells her that Veronica is only her friend when it suits her and her image, and her loyalty is not genuine. She enlists Hanna's help in preparing the funeral. Then again, Katheryn says "I don't have anyone", but this time, Hanna tells her, "Yes, you do, Mrs. Cryer. You've got me, and I'm right here." A grateful Katheryn then drinks her tea, and is comforted by her best friend.
Katheryn was also arrested, along with Veronica, David and Jim after Jeffrey and Wyatt call them on their crimes. When Wyatt gets his inheritance, he overdoses, and lands in a coma, which at first, Katheryn refused to see him; although she does relent and this allows her to finally break free of her unhappy life. Although she was not pleased with what Wyatt had done, her being his mother outweighed everything and she then bonded with her son, as she should have done.
She would find out that Veronica Harrington, her so-called "friend", had ordered Wyatt to be raped in prison, and her fury against her was unmatched. While fighting with Veronica, she would also shoot attorney Jennifer Sallison (yet ANOTHER one of Jim's flings) to death. Katheryn revealed that Veronica was born of a poor family, who did not really like her; she had slept with Katheryn's father to get a scholarship for law school; was truly in debt to the bank that Katheryn was the head of the board to, and was not as classy as she thought she was. It is because of this that she preferred Hanna to Veronica.
Much later, Katheryn finally gets one up on her hated husband when she moves every stick of furniture out of the house while her husband was in his office on a phone call. She gloated that she would sell the house out from underneath him. She then up and walks out on her hated husband, with plans for divorcing him.
Storylines[]
-Welcomed her recovering addict son, Wyatt, back into her home, along with his mentally unstable sister, Amanda, visiting from college with her friend (2013) -Smoked medical marijuana bought for her by her maid Hanna (2013) -Diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a secret treatment and double mastectomy with the help of her maid and friend, Hanna Young. (2013) -Scared off her husband's ninth mistress, Candace Young, whom she refers to as Nine. (2013) -Has a serious confrontation with Celine Gonzales about her shabby treatment of Hanna, and her relationship with Jim. (She derisively calls Celine "Four") (2014) -Saddened when Hanna quits her job as housekeeper, but remains her friend and helps her with medical expenses for her son, Benny. (2014) -Has a tearful reunion with Hanna and pleads with her to return to work, which she does, in spite of Jim's refusal to even treat her with respect (2014) -Finds out her daughter, Amanda, killed herself (2015) -Finally fires Celine Gonzales and fights her mercilessly (2015)