Name: Shana Sloane, aka Shana Vochek
Portrayer: Susan Keith (January, 1984-June, 1989; June 12, 1990-June 28, 1994); Karen Chapman (temporary January, 1986)
Parents: Cabot Alden & Lillian Sloane
Siblings: Clay Alden (non-biological), Ann Alden
Marriages: Jim Vochek (married in 1987, divorced in in 1988; remarried in 1988 until his death in 1990); Leo Burnell (1994)
Children: Jimmy Vochek, Patti Burnell
History:
1984: Shana is brought to town by Dane Hammond, who is seeking revenge on his former boss, Cabot Alden. Unbeknownst to anyone, Shana is Cabot’s daughter by a former mistress, and when Shana learns the truth and meets with rejection from Cabot, she agrees to work with Dane. Threatening to reveal herself to the rest of the family, she blackmails Cabot into giving her a job at Alden Enterprises and then begins spying on Dane’s behalf, feeding him information that allows him to make several business deals at AE’s expense.
In the meantime, Shana’s return has brought her back into contact with her great love, Jim Vocheck, with whom she had a relationship before he became a priest. Though she’s still in love with Jim, she becomes involved with Mike Donovan, despite Jim’s warnings that Mike’s PTSD issues are what’s driven away his wife, Noreen. Dane encourages the relationship with Mike so that Shana can find out more about AE’s new security system, which Mike is installing, but Shana balks at using Mike in that way, bringing her and Dane into conflict. As her relationship with Cabot begins to become closer, she has further misgivings about her partnership with Dane, but after she and Cabot have an argument, she steals an AE file for Dane which allows him to outbid AE for a plot of land. However, when she learns that Cabot had a heart attack after their argument, she’s wracked with guilt and turns to Jim for comfort, revealing everything to him about why she’s come to Corinth. He urges her to extricate herself from her partnership with Dane, but Dane, suspecting that Shana has switched her allegiance, hires Harry Sowolsky to begin spying on her and when Shana and Jim are stuck together at a remote cabin, Harry gets photos of them in a compromising position.
After Harry tries to rape her, Shana confronts Dane, who shows her the photos that Harry took and blackmails Shana into using her position at AE to help him in another deal. In an attempt to get around Dane, Shana makes a deal with Harry for the negatives but when she meets with him to make the exchange, he tries to rape her again and when he realizes that Jim and Mike have followed her, he opens fire and shoots Jim and is in turn shot by Mike. As Jim lingers near death in the hospital, Shana makes a vow to give him up so long as he survives, but when Jim later whispers her name, she confesses that she will not be able to keep her promise. However, having cheated death, Jim tells her that the experience has bound him even tighter to the priesthood and she turns to Mike, helping him come to terms with his experiences in Vietnam and the resulting trauma.
Meanwhile, from prison, Harry plots to get revenge on Shana and after he takes Jim hostage, he breaks out. In an effort to keep Shana safe, Mike moves into her apartment, but Harry is able to kidnap Shana when he corners her in the AE parking lot and he demands a ransom of $1 million from Cabot to release her. When Shana returns safely, having been rescued by Mike, Cabot is so relieved that he announces to the press that she’s his daughter, and Shana and Mike become engaged.
1985: Cabot gives Shana a promotion and, despite the tensions between them previously, Shana and Ann begin to develop a friendship as they work together on a new cosmetics line. But Shana’s focus on her career causes tension between her and Mike, particularly when he becomes head of security for Amourelle and his co-workers believe it to be the result of his relationship with the boss’ daughter. Her continuing friendship with Jim is another source of tension, making Mike feel jealous. When Dane succeeds in a takeover of AE, Shana turns even more of her attention towards the company while Mike’s attention turns towards his ex-wife, Noreen, who has recently returned to Corinth.
When Mike learns that, due to a clerical error, his divorce from Noreen was never finalized, Shana becomes upset. After he finds out that the process will be delayed further, he lies to Shana and tells her it’s done so as not to cause further problems between them, and when she learns that he’s misled her she begins to question the relationship. Shana’s doubts intensify when Jonathan, posing as his brother Keith, begins pushing Shana and Jim together and reminding them of their intense past in the hope of tempting Jim away from his vows, but it’s ultimately Mike who gives in to temptation and has an affair with Noreen. Unable due to circumstance to break off the engagement before the bridal shower, Mike takes Shana aside at the shower to tell her that he can’t marry her because he’s still in love with Noreen, leaving her angry and humiliated.
In the wake of her break up with Mike, Shana decides to move back to Rome but Jim, encouraged by Jonathan, races to the airport to stop her from boarding her plane, confessing that he’s still in love with her. He tells her that he’s going to make an appeal to his Bishop to be released from his vows and then they can marry, but before he can follow through they learn that Jonathan has been impersonating Keith and he kidnaps Shana. Holding Shana hostage, Jonathan tells Jim that he’ll only release her if he renounces his vows and pledges his soul to the devil, but instead Jim takes out a crucifix and Jonathan releases Shana and then falls from the edge of a parapet and transforms into a snake.
Shaken by their experience with, Jim and Shana rethink their reunion and break off their engagement so that he can remain a priest.
1986: Shana comes into conflict with Doug after he writes an expose about Alden Enterprises and she worries that if he keeps digging, he’ll uncover that the family is about to launch a bid to take the company back from Dane. When Doug publishes a story just before the annual stockholders meeting, Shana worries that Dane will have enough time to rally support, but Cabot emerges victorious and regains control of the company and afterwards Doug and Shana agree to put their conflict aside. Soon the two begin dating and though tensions remain high as his job as a reporter sees him writing various stories about members of her family, he soon proposes. Although she accepts, Shana later admits to Jim that she’s not in love with Doug but hopes that in time she can learn to love him.
After being hit by a car, Jim loses his memory of the years he’s spent as a priest and believes that it’s 1976, the year he and Shana were lovers. When Jim’s doctor tells her that telling Jim the truth could come as too much of a shock, Shana agrees to play along with the idea that she and Jim are still together, but Doug wants her to follow through on their plans to marry regardless of the state of Jim’s memory. When Jim accidentally discovers the truth he tells Shana that, regardless of the fact that he’s spent the last 10 years as a priest, he still wants to leave the priesthood and marry her. Although she breaks up with Doug, she can’t bring herself to accept Jim’s proposal, fearing what will happen when he regains his memory.
Though Jim is met with pressure from his superiors to remain a priest, he remains determined to have a life with Shana and she begins to come around to the idea even though Cabot expresses disapproval of the relationship. In an effort to force Jim and Shana apart, Cabot tries to sabotage Jim’s efforts to find a new job as a teacher, putting him and Shana at odds when she finds out. His efforts only cause Shana to dig in her heels about the relationship, but at the same time Jim has decided to take his psychiatrist’s advice and try hypnosis in order to try to regain his memory, making Shana nervous that if he gets his memory back he’ll end their relationship.
However, when Jim undergoes hypnosis and starts to remember his first break up with Shana, he abruptly comes to and decides not to continue pursuing hypnosis as part of his therapy, determined not to recall the things that drove him and Shana apart. When Jim later sustains another head injury after a fall, the doctors think he may awaken with his missing years returned to his memory, but he does not. Wanting to save Shana from a life of uncertainty, wondering what will happen if and when Jim gets his memory back, Cabot reaches out to Monsignor Fratalini in order to urge him to guide Jim back to the priesthood, but instead the monsignor agrees that Jim should be released from his vows. When the bishop refuses to grant the dispensation until a year has passed, Jim tells Shana that he wants them to marry outside of the church.
1987: The night before their wedding, Shana has a nightmare that Jim has returned to the priesthood and when he fails to arrive at the church on time, she’s convinced that there will be no wedding. However, Jim just had a flat tire on the way over and arrives in time for him and Shana to be married by the judge. Shana and Jim settle in at the gatehouse, but soon Shana finds herself at odds with her recently returned half-brother, Clay, who thinks that control of AE is his birthright as Cabot’s son. When Cabot decides to step down and appoint Shana to take his place as Chairman and Clay to become CEO, she’s thrilled, but he bristles at the idea of her having that much power and begins working to undermine her.
When Cabot confesses to the murder of Nick Dinatos, the situation at AE is thrown into chaos. As Cabot makes plans to step down earlier than expected, Clay begins networking with board members in order to convince them to reject Shana’s nomination as Cabot’s successor and when the board meeting takes place, Clay gains control of the company. Already upset about being maneuvered out by Clay, Shana is in no mood when Jim suggests that it’s time for them to start talking about starting a family. The marriage begins to unravel as Shana struggles to regain some power at AE and Jim becomes frustrated at the frequent business trips she’s being sent on by Clay as he tries to force her out of the company.
When Clay finally pushes her too far, Shana quits and tells Jim that she wants them to have a baby, however, when the company begins to falter in her absence, Clay is urged by multiple people to bring Shana back into the company and he finally relents and eats enough crow that she’s talked into it. Jim worries about how Shana’s return to AE will affect their relationship, but his biggest concern is the memory flashes he’s started having. At first he decides to keep the memory flashes a secret, but by the time he finally works up the nerve to confide in Shana, she informs him that she thinks she might be pregnant. Once they confirm the pregnancy, Jim decides not to tell Shana that his memory is returning.
When Dan Hollister suddenly arrives in Corinth, Shana becomes nervous because they had had a fling during the period when she and Jim were in Rome. Meanwhile, Jim tries to get to the bottom of Dan’s sudden arrival, believing that it may have something to do with the sudden death of Monsignor Fratalini.
1988: Needing to unlock something buried in Jim’s lost memories, Dan convinces him to speak to government psychiatrist Carrie Davis and though Shana is anxious about what could happen if Jim’s memory returns, he tries to assure her that he’s committed to their marriage. Meanwhile, Dan still holds a torch for Shana and Jim begins to suspect that something may have happened between them after Jim and Shana broke up. Jim confronts Dan and then Shana and when Shana expresses relief at the secret being revealed, Jim toys with the idea of telling her that his memory is returning, only to change his mind out of fear that the revelation could negatively affect her pregnancy.
When Shana accidentally finds out that Jim’s memory is back, she runs off and Jim chases her and when he tries to take hold of her, she falls down a flight of stairs and loses the baby. At the hospital, Shana tells Jim that their marriage is over, but he’s determined to fight for their relationship. Seeing his opportunity, Dan begins to move in on Shana and Cabot encourages the potential relationship, but Jim refuses to give Shana a divorce. It’s only when Shana tells him that if he really loved her, he’d let her go that Jim finally relents and agrees not to contest the divorce. Urged by Cabot, Shana goes to Reno to get a quick divorce, but begins to have second thoughts. When he learns that Jim is going to Reno to see Shana, Cabot arranges for her to be out of the hotel at a business meeting when Jim arrives so that he’ll think she left and come back to Corinth. As Jim flies home, Dan arrives in Reno to keep Shana company.
Despite their divorce, Jim continues to pursue Shana and though they sleep together one night, she remains convinced that his place is back with the church. When Clay sends Shana to Rome, Jim follows and a local man plays matchmaker to bring them back together, but when Cabot learns that Jim is with Shana, he sends Dan to Rome to try to stop them from reconciling. However, Jim has already proposed and Shana has accepted and before anyone can stop them, they remarry in Rome. On returning to Corinth, they begin trying to have a baby.
1989: Shana finds out that she’s pregnant and, after locking horns with the real Clay when he returns to Corinth and is given a role at AE, Shana resigns from the company and she and Jim leave town.
1990: Shana returns to attend Jack and Stacey’s second wedding, however, the event is postponed when Heather is kidnapped. When Rick, who was behind the kidnapping, is murdered, Cabot suffers from a heart attack and asks Shana to stay in Corinth to help save AE from going bankrupt. Soon she has another reason to stay when Stacey is charged with Rick’s murder and asks Shana to represent her. As she prepares Stacey’s defense, Shana begins to suspect that Dane knows something about Rick’s murder, but when the trial gets underway things go awry when the prosecutor calls Shana as a witness and she’s forced to admit to a damaging comment that Stacey made about Rick.
As the trial continues, Jim makes plans to come to Corinth with baby Jimmy so that they can be with Shana. However, when Shana is at the airport waiting for their flight to land, she learns that the plane has crashed and that her husband and their son have been killed. Unable to cope, Shana represses her memories of the last six years and believes that it’s 1984 and that Dane has just brought her to Corinth. Her lack of memory leaves her vulnerable to Dane, who wants to ensure that she never gets her memory back so that she will marry him. In an effort to get Dane away from Shana, Cabot has her declared incompetent, but Dane uses Cabot’s efforts against him, driving a wedge between him and Shana so that she’ll have no one to turn to but Dane himself.
Dane pays off a psychiatrist to hypnotize Shana so that she’ll draw a blank any time Jim’s name is mentioned, but when Dane tries to take her out of the country, Shana sees flashes of Jim. Realizing that memories are starting to come back to her, Dane takes Shana away from the airport and goes forward with plans to marry her while Cabot continues trying to get Dane away from Shana. It’s finally Trisha who helps Shana regain her memory, taking her to the Alden nursery and showing her pictures of Jimmy and Jim. After her memory returns, Shana angrily denounces Dane and vows to investigate the plane crash, but as she starts digging, someone plots to stop her from exposing the cover up that has taken place.
After launching her investigation Shana is contacted by Eddie Grant, an inside source who has the maintenance logs for the plane and later turns up dead. Hoping to win Shana back, Dane runs his own investigation, which leads him to Cabot. When he confronts Cabot, the Alden patriarch collapses with a stroke and Shana blames Dane, who decides to keep what he’s found a secret because he knows that the truth would devastate her. As she comes closer to the truth, two attempts are made on Shana’s life by Ralph Barnes, a long-time Alden employee, but Dane is able to come to her rescue both times.
By the time Shana’s investigation begins to lead towards AE, Clay has already planted evidence to make it look like Trucker has been taking payoffs in exchange for approving the defective airplane parts that caused the crash, and when Ralph Barnes turns up dead, Trucker is arrested for his murder. Though Trisha insists on Trucker’s innocence, Shana refuses to believe it because doing so would force her to acknowledge that Cabot could really be the one responsible for the crash that killed Jim and Jimmy.
1991: When Shana confides to Dane that Trisha believes Cabot is the person ultimately responsible for the crash, he admits to her that his own investigation brought him to the same conclusion. When Cabot suddenly dies, Shana is devastated and allows Dane to comfort her, and she continues to struggle when Cabot’s video taped will is played and he takes responsibility for the crash.
Although Dane has become involved with Gwyneth, he begins to turn his attention back to Shana after Clay fails to meet the inheritance requirements of Cabot’s will, leaving Shana as the potential major beneficiary of the estate. Having learned that Dane is headed towards bankruptcy, Shana is mistrustful of his overtures, but it’s Jack who is named heir to Cabot’s fortune, leaving Shana even more resentful and bitter.
When Clay discovers a loophole that could allow him to become Cabot’s heir if he gains custody of Tommy, the baby Trisha and Trucker have adopted and who is Clay’s son by Abril, Shana represents Trisha and Trucker in the custody hearing. Clay wins custody of the boy, but when he’s implicated in Monty’s murder, he and Shana make a deal for her to represent him (and keep secret the information that she has which could get him convicted) in exchange for her getting the presidency of AE. Although Clay is eventually cleared of murder, he later loses custody of Tommy, and Jack is given control of AE, leading Clay and Shana to team up to force him out.
Deciding that the best way to get at Jack is to go after his marriage, Clay and Shana decide to use the Forbes’ new nanny, Dinah Lee, to drive a wedge between Jack and Stacey. For good measure, Shana also gets involved with Dane, using him to get information about Jack, but when he asks her to move away with him and she refuses, he realizes what she’s up to. When Carly gets hold of the tape of Cabot’s will and plays it for Shana, revealing a codicil that had previously remained unseen in which Cabot provides for Shana, she realizes that Clay had double crossed her by preventing the tape from being played in its entirety. Although she tries to make amends with Trisha and Jack, both reject her overtures, and when she turns to Dane, he rejects her as well.
With nothing left to lose, Shana continues to plot with Dinah Lee to steer Jack away from his marriage and when the opportunity presents itself, Shana tells Stacey that Jack and Dinah Lee shared a kiss before he suddenly fired her. Left dealing with the fallout alone, Dinah Lee tells Jack that Shana is the one who told Stacey about the kiss and that she’s been plotting to destroy his marriage. While Jack and Stacey’s marriage survives, Trisha and Trucker’s falters after Trucker, trying to help Jack resist temptation, develops a friendship with Dinah Lee in order to keep her occupied and ends up having an affair with her himself.
1992: Isabelle offers Shana the opportunity to get back into the Alden good graces by helping to publicly humiliate Dinah Lee by arranging for her to be arrested for stealing Gwyneth’s credit card in the middle of a party. Although the plan backfires, Shana is given a real opportunity for redemption when Clay returns to town and confides to her that he’s planning to take AE from Jack. Shana in turn offers to team up with Jack to keep Clay out and, though Jack is suspicious of her motives, he ultimately agrees to give her a new job at the company, but their efforts to keep Clay out put them at odds with Isabelle, who wants him to have another chance.
As part of his efforts to prove himself as AE’s CEO, Jack backs a weight loss venture called Take Off, though Shana is less than impressed with the pitch from Take Off’s principal, Larry Lamont. However, after getting to know Larry a little and bonding with him over shared struggles with weight loss, she and Larry become involved, but unbeknownst to her Take Off is a scam and Larry is also secretly involved with his partner, Jean. When Isabelle discovers proof that Take Off is a fraud, Larry tries to convince Shana that his feelings for her are genuine, but she doesn’t believe it and in the aftermath both Jack and Shana are ousted from the company.
When Trucker sues for custody of his and Trisha’s son, Shana agrees to represent him in court, putting her at odds with the family, particularly Clay and Gwyneth. After custody is decided in Trisha’s favor, Shana shifts her attention to trying to support Stacey, who is struggling to deal with Jack’s sudden death, as well as the feelings that she’s developed for Trucker. As Stacey begins turning more and more towards Clay, Shana becomes suspicious of his motives, especially once Stacey begins behaving erratically and suddenly elopes with him. When Clay tells the family that he wants to have Stacey committed to a mental institution, Shana is convinced that he’s done something to cause Stacey’s mental collapse and is determined to prove it.
1993: When Stacey and Jeremy succeed in proving that Clay was gaslighting her to get control of the AE stock that Jack left her, Shana is determined to see her brother pay and is left frustrated when Isabelle contrives a way to ensure that Clay escapes without consequence. But soon Shana’s attentions are taken up with plans to have a baby. Although she decides to conceive via artificial insemination, she decides that she does not want to use an anonymous donor because it would leave her with too many questions. Instead, she seeks out Leo to be the father of her child, reasoning that since they can’t stand each other, there will be no risk of them becoming emotionally involved with each other. Leo balks at the suggestion due to his relationship with Ava, but when Shana offers to help him out of his financial trouble by co-signing a desperately needed loan, he finally agrees. As Leo and Shana begin spending more time together, about which he is increasingly secretive, Ava becomes convinced that they’re having an affair. Although they both deny it, when he fails to provide a sample for use in artificial insemination, they decide to try to conceive naturally and the experience begins to awaken romantic feelings in both of them.
Shana and Leo continue to insist to each other that their arrangement is strictly business, but the feelings they’ve developed for each other become increasingly difficult to deny. After Shana discovers that she’s pregnant, she and Leo begin to come together as a couple, only for him to learn that Ava is pregnant as well. Reasoning that Shana always intended to raise their baby as a single parent and that leaving her would not amount to abandonment the way it would for Ava, Leo returns to Ava even though he is now in love with Shana. When Jeremy forces Ava’s hand and leaves her with no choice but to admit that she isn’t pregnant, Leo returns to Shana, who has learned that their child may have a birth defect. They debate whether or not to terminate the pregnancy and decide to carry on and try to prepare themselves for the possibility of raising a child with special needs.
During this time Leo’s loan to Shana also comes due and when he’s unable to pay it, she becomes the owner of Burnell’s, causing tension between them. Seizing on it, Ava tries to drive a wedge between Shana and Leo and after Leo and Shana have a fight, Ava lets Shana think that Leo slept with her. Believing that Ava is going to keep interfering in their relationship, Leo tries to drive her away by pretending that he wants to reconcile with her and making her realize that a life with him would make her unhappy. Realizing that it’s really over between them, Ava finally lets Leo go. As Shana’s due date approaches, they learn that the baby will require prenatal surgery to fix a kidney obstruction and though the surgery is successful, after the baby, who Shana names Patti in honor of Trisha, is born they learn that she may have development delays. Although Shana is determined to face whatever may come, she worries that Leo isn’t bonding with their daughter because of her possible disabilities and the two have conflict as a result.
1994: As Shana and Leo begin therapy with Patti, he begins to get past his difficulties and embraces fatherhood, much to Shana’s relief. When Shana is later offered a job in Rome, she and Leo debate whether or not to stay in Corinth and although she’s come to the realization that little is holding her there – due in large part to her realization that she will always be an outsider in the Alden family – she’s reluctant to ask him to leave with her. He convinces her that they should at least investigate the opportunity and, after eloping in Las Vegas, they head to Rome. While there Shana runs into Trisha’s ex-husband, Jeff Hartman, and becomes suspicious of his reaction to the news that Trisha is dead. When she tells Trucker, who has been getting “signs” of Trisha, he flies to Rome to investigate. After confronting Jeff, Trucker is satisfied that Trisha is not with him, and before he returns to Corinth, Shana and Leo tell him that she has accepted the job in Rome and that they will be staying behind.
Loving (1983-1995) 