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Margo Hughes (née Montgomery) is a fictional character on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns. She is currently being portrayed by Ellen Dolan
Margo's storylines often focus on family drama and police matters. The character is portrayed as a stoic, hard nosed, determined, who in later years had begun interfering in the lives of her children. A pivotal storyline for the character came in 1992 when the character was raped by two criminals she was attempting to arrest at a holdup. The story was continually rehashed by the show in the years after.
Margo's only marriage on the show was her marriage to Tom Hughes. The couple first met during the investigation of Mr. Big in 1983. The couple was married for 27 years and is the longest married supercouple in US Soap Opera history.
Casting[]
The character of Margo had been with the soap since 1980 and was played by several actresses:
- Margaret Colin (1980–1983)
- Hillary Bailey Smith (1983–1989)
- Ellen Dolan (1989–1993; 1994-2010)
- Glynnis O'Connor (1993–1994)
Originating the role in 1980, The Edge of Night's Colin stayed for two years (eventually marrying her on-screen love interest Justin Deas). In 1983, Bailey took over the role and admitted Deas didn't agree with the idea of the character being recast.[4] "Because he and Margaret (Colin), they were not yet together. This was his way of interacting with her at work, he didn’t like the idea that she wasn’t there anymore. I think I handled him the best and that’s why I got the job. Subsequently we became really good friends."[4] In 1989, after six years with the show, Bailey Smith quit the role, admitting she was burned out after her time on As the World Turns. "I wanted to spend more time with my kids. I felt I had taken Margo to the length I could take her. I needed to do something else. Doug’s feeling was, “Go take a break and come back.” I said, “I’d loved to do that, I just need a break.”[4]
Ellen Dolan was offered the role of Margo Montgomery Hughes in 1989 by then head-writer Douglas Marland. Dolan said four years of Guiding Light helped her prepare for the role. I wanted her to be funny/quirky .... everything you don't get to see in her these days." [5] Dolan's first scene on the show, she revealed to CBS, was aboard an airplane. "My first storyline Casey, my husband’s Casey, had some rare disease and he was going to die. And I unplugged his life support but the way they brought the character of Margo back was they brought her home, so my first scenes were on an airplane," Dolan recalled.[6] Dolan said the writers never wrote the character funny and any humor there was she brought it to the show. "Anything that’s in there that brings a twinkle to anybody’s eye is what I bring to it. In fact, they have to take a lot of it away. They don’t let me do it a lot."[1]
After several years of forecasting the cancellation of the 54-year-old show, Dolan's 20-year role came to an end when CBS ended the show, with the last episode airing in September 2010. When asked how she hoped her character would leave, she replied: "I don't hope anymore."
Backstory[]
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Margo Montgomery grew up thinking she was the daughter of Bart Montgomery and his wife Lyla. The eldest child, she had two younger siblings, Craig and Cricket. Her father was a traveling shoe salesman and her mother a housewife. However, her parents marriage were strained and her father did not hide his dislike for Margo or her mother Lyla. When she became a teenager, her father left and her parents divorced. After her parents divorce, Margo's mother Lyla decided to finish her college education to become a nurse. Moved by her mother's determination to start a new life after her divorce, after graduating high school, Margo also went to college(presumed to be Northwestern) to be a nurse as well. After both Margo and mother Lyla obtained their nursing degrees, Margo, along with her mother Lyla, and teenage younger sister Cricket, decided to leave Chicago behind and moved to the town of Oakdale.
Storylines[]
Upon arriving in Oakdale, Margo immediately became involved with the married James Stenbeck. When Margo confided in her friend Jeff Ward, that James loved her and would marry her. Jeff told her that she was a fool. Meanwhile, Margo was beginning continually perplexed at her mother Lyla's antagonism toward Dr. John Dixon, and his likewise cold demeanor towards Lyla. Not long after, Margo's life changed forever during Dee Stewart's rape trial. Lyla was a witness and seemed to be protecting the accused, John Dixon. Attorney Tom Hughes's questioning of Lyla brought out the truth: John was Margo's real father!! After being exonerated, John ended up being a victim of a hit and run. John was in the hospital for a few days, and started running his own investigation, despite the pleas of Lt. Savage not to. John pretended that he was bling and asked to stay with Margo at the house she lived on the Stenbeck estate. While John was supposedly recuperating, but faking his blindness, he was dismayed to out that Margo was carrying on with the affair with James. John had started to suspect that James was somehow involved with John's nemesis, Dr. Rick Ryan. John was even more convinced when he saw Rick and James having secret meetings and then when James set up Rick to date not only Margo, but also his good friend Hayley Wilson. James started to suspect that John was investigating him. Realizing the John wasn't really blind, James threatened to kill John with a knife. Unfortunately for James, John recorded the whole meeting on a hidden audio tape. Soon, John discovered that it was James who tried to kill him in the hit and run! Meanwhile, Tom, who was dating Margo's Aunt Maggie, tried to convince Margo that John was faking his illness, but Margo didn't believe him.
Finally, one day in August 1981, John tried to play the blackmail tape for Margo, but the only on it was the music from the rock group the Rolling Stones--Margo's sister Cricket had gotten her hands on the tape. John, however, had a duplicate tape in his safe deposit box. Margo, though got angry with John, and told him she was no longer his nurse maid. Later, Margo got miffed when John sought pity from his ex-wife, Kim Sullivan Hughes and Margo's mother Lyla. Tom had obviously made Margo suspicious about John's "blindness", but it wasn't enough, because although Margo ordered John out of her house, she quickly took him back. Later, learning that James was having another affair with a woman named Connie Wilson, Margo realized that her relationship with James was going nowhere and she ended it. It was her breakup with James that led to her career with law enforcement, and she began working as an assistant of Lowell, Colman, and Hughes for her Aunt Maggie. At the same time, Maggie and Tom started drifting apart. Meanwhile, one night, Margo accidentally got locked in at "Fashions, Ltd" while investigating the place. Unfortunately, that night, James decided that there was too many people that suspected he was smuggling drugs and jewels through Fashions and decided to torch the place, with Margo locked inside. Luckily Margo was saved by Ernie Ross and her sister Cricket, and all three got the fire out and saved Fashions. During the time she waited for Ernie and Cricket to save her, Margo stumbled across the cache of illegal drugs and jewels! Despite her having found the evidence, Tom read her the riot act, and he fired her. Undeterred, Margo learned about a connection between James and Mr. Big, and she followed James to Paris to see what he was up to. Soon, she spotted two thugs following James and Miranda Marlowe.
During the course of the investigation in Paris of which they nearly lost their lives, Margo and Tom fell in love. But once they met with Tom's father Bob Hughes and flew back to Oakdale, they had to keep their love a secret since Tom was still seeing Margo's aunt Maggie. Maggie did figure it out, but Margo did not want to hurt her aunt, so she asked Tom to cool it between them. Margo also decided to become a police officer. In May 1982, she passed the Police Academy entrance exams, but everyone worried for her safety. The officer in charge, Captain Aaron Striker, made it clear to Margo that she had to prove herself. In July, she solved one of Striker's cases, and he tried to take the credit, Margo called his bluff. Striker wanted her dismissed, but she caught him in the locker room with a shapely blond officer. Striker realized she'd make one hell of a policewoman and kept her on the force. Meanwhile, Tom finally convinced Margo of his love for her, and she agreed to see him. Later on the year, Mr. Big returned nearly killing Margo at a nightclub on Halloween night. The course of the investigation ended in the African nation of Zanzibar, where they rescued Bilan, Miranda Marlowe's daughter, who was kidnapped by Mr. Big after killing her father Jacques. Also while in Zanzibar, Margo and Tom made love for the first time. The investigation ended when Mr. Big met his untimely demise by being eaten by crocodiles.
When Margo and Tom returned to Oakdale on January 24, 1983, they were thrown a grand surprise party by Maggie and Lyla. Tom and Margo had intended to tell Maggie about their true feelings, but when they walked into the door, Margo collapsed. Margo was taken to Memorial Hospital and it was discovered that she was bitten by a mosquito. She recovered rather quickly but was astounded to learn that Tom had defended the woman who had supposedly kill her father John, Dee Stewart! Margo broke up with Tom and discovered she was pregnant. Sadly, Margo miscarried the baby. Unfortunately, Tom misinterpreted the situation and mistakenly believed she had an abortion. Later Margo would take Tom back, after she learned that John was still alive. Finally, in the summer of 1983, Margo and Tom married in an impromptu ceremony in the park.
Margo's first crisis came when [[Barbara Ryan]] decided that she wanted Tom back. She set it up so that he would believe that they slept together. When Tom told Margo about the "affair", she planned to divorce him. Luckily, she found out there was no affair. She and Tom reconciled, and she became pregnant. Unfortunately, Margo miscarried the baby. Still despondent over the miscarriage, she was crushed when Tom went to Washington, DC to work on the crime commission. During Tom's absence, Margo confided in her best friend [[Hal Munson]]. One night, thinking her marriage was over, they slept together. Right after, Tom returned, and he and Margo decided to put their marriage back together. When Margo learned she was pregnant (with Hal's baby) she fled the country. Tom found her in Greece and ended up delivering her son [[Adam]]. Tom agreed to raise Adam as his own.
A few years later, Margo became pregnant with Tom's child. At the same time, Margo's stepfather [[Casey Peretti]], was terminally ill and made her promise to unplug the machines that he was hooked up to. Margo fulfilled her promise, but charges was brought up against her. Fortunately, the charges were dropped. Margo then gave birth to a son, [[Casey]].
A few years later, Margo's idyllic life would come crashing down in an instant. The night she, Tom, and the boys returned home from a vacation in Cape Cod, Margo went out to pick up a bottle of Tom's favorite wine. Unfortunately, she stepped right in the middle of a hold up. Margo chased the perpetrators into a dark alley in an effort to get their license plate number. Suddenly, the men grabbed her and pulled her into the car where one of the robbers raped her. Afterwards, instead of dealing with her trauma, Margo pulled her energies into capturing the men-Fickett and the man who raped her, Elroy Nevins. When both men were apprehended, the Hughes family were horrified to learn that Nevins was HIV positive. That meant that Margo could be too. Although her initial test results came back negative, Margo had to wait six months for final word on her prognosis. Meanwhile, Nevins plead guilty to the rape but when Tom and Margo discovered that an unremorseful Nevins knew he was HIV positive, they pressed charges and he was tried for attempted murder which led to a stiffer sentence. As the months went by, Tom lovingly supported Margo as she dealt with her rape. Finally, after six months, the Hughes Family was relieved to learn that Margo was HIV negative. The following year, Nevins escaped prison and broke into the Hughes home for revenge. Tom confronted him using Margo's gun and shot him when Nevins reached for his own gun. 
In the meantime-the Hughes took in Dawn Wheeler, another of Nevins's victims, who was HIV positive. Dawn developed a harmless crush on Tom. However, Margo didn't find it so harmless and accepted Jason Benedict's offer to come work in the F.B.I. on a special investigation on the Grimaldi family. After a few months in Washington, DC, Margo started getting homesick and returned to Oakdale to be with Tom and the boys. 
A few years later, Margo was involved in a plane crash. Following the plane crash, she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had to be institutionalized. When she returned, her relationship with Tom and the boys was somewhat strained. 
Shortly after, Margo accidentally killed Deena Silva during a drug bust. Margo felt extremely guilty and asked her son [[Eddie Silva]] to stay with her family. Tom (who was having his own problems) was adamantly against this. Eddie's presence helped further the strain in their marriage. Eddie had a crush on Margo and told her so. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to both, this conversation was filmed and broadcast by [[Emily Stewart]] for Tom to see, in hope that it would break Tom and Margo up. In the fall of 1998, Margo became pregnant with Tom's child. Hesitant at first, she decided that having a child might be good for them. Unfortunately, Margo miscarried. The same night Margo miscarried her baby, Tom was having a one-night stand with Emily. When Margo found out about the affair, she threw Tom out. She relented though and took him back, only to learn that Emily was pregnant. Unable to deal with the fact that Emily was now a permanent part of their lives, Margo served Tom with separation papers. About this time, she met the mysterious Alec Wallace and became friends with him.
Soon, Margo found herself drawn to this complicated and brooding man. Alec intrigued Margo and when he came under investigation by the police, Margo agreed to go undercover even though she was certain that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. When evidence came forth that Alec might have been involved in several deaths, Margo was sure he was innocent and was determined to prove that everyone was wrong about Alec. Margo realized too late that she was wrong. When Margo found Alec in Tom's hospital room after he was attacked, she immediately knew that she made a mistake, and was determined to send him to jail. Alec was on to her though, and he drugged her. The next morning, Margo woke up with Alec dead and no memory of what happened. Subsequently, Margo was tried and convicted for his murder. Thankfully, Margo remembered who really killed Alec and the conviction was overturned. Margo's greatest supporter during this crisis was Tom, who never believed that she killed Alec even when she had doubts. After a harrowing year, Tom and Margo renewed their wedding vows.
Since renewing her vows, Margo spent her time dealing with sibling's various schemes and crisis. She cut all ties with her sister Katie after learning that Katie had lied about (among other things) that [[Chris Hughes]] was stalking her. Margo also had many arguments with Hal over his treatment of Craig. After Hal was forced to resign as Chief of Detectives after decking Craig, Margo inherited his job as chief of detectives. Aside from scorn from the other officers for "stealing" Hal's job, she had to agonize over her actions after arresting her brother for the boathouse explosion, which nearly killed Barbara.
Margo's rape of years ago came back to haunt her when she learned she had Hepatitis C. Deathly ill, Margo's liver failed, and she required a transplant. Fortunately, Katie was able to donate part of her liver and Margo recovered. Instead of taking a break from police work, Margo threw herself into her job and became involved in several criminal investigations. 
In 2004, the Hughes marriage would reach another crisis with the arrival of former football star. and new sports anchor for WOAK, Doc Reese. From the moment she laid eyes on him, Margo, inexplicably, found herself drawn to the man who oozed sex appeal. It soon became apparent that Doc was attracted to Margo as well and he wasted no time flirting with her, flirting that she participated in. Although her best friend [[Jessica Griffin]], tried to warn Margo that she was playing with fire, Margo enjoyed the attention and saw nothing wrong with it. However, as the weeks went by, Margo became more and more attracted to Reese who pursued her with a passion, making her feel desirable. Soon's Margo self-control began to crumble, especially after she found herself caught in a smoldering kiss with Doc in the club's sauna. After stopping things for going too far (only because an employee at the club, Jill, walked in and interrupted), Margo couldn't stop thinking about Doc and began to consider that it might be best to sleep with him, therby getting him out of her system. However, the night she was going to go through with it, Doc unexpectedly refused her and asked her to leave his hotel room. Doc's rejection though worked like a cold shower for Margo and the next morning she confided to Jessica that she was over him.
Unfortunately, Margo's lies, and distracted behavior came back to haunt her when Tom, learned she'd lied to him about working the previous night, finally, Tom saw a pattern to her behavior and accused her of having an affair with Reese. Although Margo tried to tell Tom that nothing happened between her and Reese, he didn't believe her and was convinced that she was holding something back. Trying to satisfy him, she admitted to the flirting but made it seem much more innocent than it actually was. Again, Tom didn't believe her. Soon, Margo found herself being blackmailed by Jill, who asked for a night with Doc in exchange for silence. Although Margo pleaded with Doc to comply, he saw Jill as a troublemaker and refused to go through with it. True to her word, Jill went to Tom and told him about seeing Margo and Doc coming out of the sauna together. Found out, Margo told Tom about the smoldering kisses she and Doc shared but nothing sexual occurred. Although he believed her, it was too late. Disgusted with the way she'd lied to him, Tom filed for a legal separation. At the same time, Margo learned that Doc did have an affair, with Jessica! That knowledge put a crimp in her friendship with Jessica. However, by year's end, Margo healed her relationship with not only Jess, but Tom as well.
Meanwhile, Casey was growing into quite the teenager. Unlike Adam, who was always very responsible, Casey was somewhat of a slacker. During his senior year at high school, Casey was named the father of [[Gwen Norbeck]]'s baby. However, Casey denied it vehemently, although Tom had his doubts, Margo believed him. Months later, after Gwen learned that her baby had died, Casey finally owned up to his parents and admitted that Gwen had been pregnant with his child. Margo was saddened that not only at losing the grandchild she never knew, but also at Casey's failure to own up his responsibility. Because of his history, Margo was wary when Casey grew closer to [[Maddie Coleman]] who ultimately became a good influence on him. In the meantime, Oakdale was saddened when Hal was killed in the line of duty. With her dear friend gone, Margo was promoted to Chief of Police. At the same time, Casey's irresponsibility got him into trouble again-this time gambling from online. Casey racked up a huge debt and resorted to stealing from Lisa in order to pay for it. However, when Casey revealed the truth to Adam, Adam convinced him to set [[Will Munson]] up for the crime. Now a music producer, Adam, unbeknownst to everyone, was obsessed with Will's wife, Gwen. Finally, Casey went to his parents and confessed what he had done. Meanwhile, Adam was nowhere to be found. Several weeks later, Margo would learn that Adam was on the lam after trying to rape Gwen. Still shocked by the actions of her older son, Margo was even more saddened when Casey was sent to jail. Though her family tried to reassure her that she had been a good mother, Margo frequently had doubts.
Eight months later, Casey was finally released. Though Tom warned her to give Casey some time to adjust, Margo immediately began peppering him with questions about his future. Soon after his arrival, Margo returned home, and thought she heard Adam's voice. However, it wasn't Adam but Casey's friend Matt O'Connor. Matt, who appeared to be a good kid, informed Margo that he met Casey at Oakdale University. Instantly taking a liking to Matt, Margo invited Matt into her home. As the weeks went by, Matt seemed to be a good influence on Casey-especially since Casey agreed to take courses at Oakdale U. The one-day Margo was shocked to find a note "I'll be there when you least expect it". That same night, Margo apparently got a call from Adam, asking her to meet him at the church in Luther's Corners. When Tom and Margo went, it wasn't Adam they found-it was Matt who had been shot! Matt told Margo that the who shot him was Gray Girard, his employer. Meanwhile, [[Alison Stewart]] had seen Matti in conversation with Gray various times. Suspecting that Gray was bad news, Alison took her suspicions to Casey and the two found out something startling, Gray's real name was Gerald Nevins! Casey called Margo with the news and Margo realized that it couldn't be a coincidence. Gray must be related to her rapist.
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