Character Profile: Harry Sowolsky

Name: Henry “Harry” Sowolsky

Portrayer: Ed Moore (April, 1984 – January, 1988; January, 1989 – July, 1989; March 28, 1994 – April 18, 1994; December 13, 1994)

Parents: John & Maggie Sowolsky
Siblings: Kate Rescott
Marriages: Unknown woman
Children: Steve Sowolsky

History:

1984: Harry comes on the scene as Dane’s henchman, tasked with spying on Shana and Jim so that Dane can collect evidence that will allow him to blackmail Shana and keep her under his thumb. In the process, Harry becomes fixated on Shana and attempts to rape her, but she’s rescued by Jim and afterwards unable to positively identify Harry when he’s brought in for a police lineup. Knowing that Harry has the negatives of some compromising pictures of her and Jim, Shana contacts him to make a deal to buy them from him, but he uses it as another opportunity to attempt to rape her. When he realizes that Jim and Mike have followed her, Harry pulls out a gun and fires, hitting Jim and then trying to flee, only to be shot by Mike.

Harry is tried and convicted for shooting Jim and sentenced to a 25 year prison term. Blaming Shana for his predicament, he vows revenge and spends his time behind bars plotting against her. Harry feigns being ill in order to be moved to the prison hospital and then requests that Jim come to see him. When Jim obliges, Harry gets hold of a gun and takes Jim hostage, breaking out of prison and telling Jim that he plans to flee to Canada. After knocking Jim out, Harry takes off, but instead of going to Canada, he returns to Corinth, where he holds Dane at gunpoint and demands a $50,000 pay off. However, when he discovers that Shana is Cabot’s secret daughter, he decides to forget about Dane and instead kidnaps Shana in order to collect a ransom. Before he can collect, Shana hits him with a rock and flees, with Harry chasing after her. Although he manages to catch up with her, Mike finds them and rescues Shana, sending Harry back to prison.

1985: When Harry’s son, Steve, begins dating Trisha, her mother, Gwyneth, becomes determined to break them up and reaches out to Harry to get his assistance. When she offers to help him get an early release in exchange for him breaking up Trisha and Steve, he agrees and pressures Steve to help him out. Although Steve is reluctant to break up with Trisha, he can’t stand the guilt of being responsible for Harry remaining in jail and goes along with the scheme by telling Trisha that he’s no longer in love with her. Although Gwyneth’s intention was to renege on their deal, Sam, the lawyer that she hires for Harry, double crosses her by helping Harry for real, resulting in him being released from prison.

Upon his return to Corinth, Harry blackmails Dane into making him head of security at AE and then befriends Dane’s wife, Ann, but Harry’s triumph is short-lived when Steve is charged with rape by Cecelia. In an attempt to help his son, Harry tries to bribe Cecelia’s father into dropping the charges, which only makes the situation worse. Steve is convicted and sent to prison, where a friend of Harry’s looks out for him when he gets on the wrong side of another inmate.

1986: With a stockholders’ meeting coming up which could result in Dane being ousted as CEO of AE, Harry goes to Ann and provides her with proof of Dane’s affair with Gwyneth and convinces her to go to the meeting to cast her own vote instead of allowing Dane to vote as her proxy. Dane loses his position and, infuriated, tries to strangle Ann, but Harry rescues her and gives Dane a beating. Having earned Cabot’s gratitude for saving Ann, Harry is assured of having a permanent place at AE and turns his attention back to trying to help Steve, who has broken out of prison and gone on the run with Trisha. While trying to track them down, Harry realizes that someone with an inside track to the Aldens is feeding information to Spider, the man who wants to kill Trisha and Steve, and tries to figure out who it is.

While still searching for Trisha and Steve, Harry pursues a romantic relationship with Gwyneth, who constantly rebuffs him. When he wins the lottery, he thinks his chances with Gwyneth could improve, but she continues to be repelled by his rough manners and Ann offers to coach Harry in how to be the kind of man Gwyneth would be attracted to. In the process, Ann begins feeling attracted to Harry herself and he soon finds himself juggling the two women.

Having returned to Corinth and been forced by Cabot to break up with Steve in order to keep him from going back to prison, Trisha has become involved with gangster Nick Dinatos. Believing the man will be dangerous to Trisha, Gwyneth asks Harry to investigate him, which he agrees to do in exchange for her arranging for Steve’s garage to get a contract to service all the AE trucks. However, this deal proves to be Harry’s undoing as his growing gambling addiction makes him a target for Nick, who maneuvers him into going deep into debt and then offers to forgive the debt in exchange for Harry getting him access to the AE trucks, which he intends to use for drug trafficking. Not wanting to give in to Nick, Harry tries to pay off the debt and borrows money from Ann, only to lose it all at the casino tables. After Nick pressures him by sending thugs to rough up Kate, Harry finally agrees to get Nick access to Steve’s garage so that he can get at the AE trucks.

Feeling low about having betrayed Steve – both by giving Nick access to his garage and by helping to separate him from Trisha – a guilt ridden Harry avoids seeing Ann. When she finally tracks him down, he confesses to her that he’s lost all his money, only for her to tell him that she still loves him anyway.

1987: Following the death of Nick Dinatos, Harry buys the River Palace casino and tells Ann that once he’s got the business off the ground, he wants them to start talking about their future. Ann is on cloud nine, but a jealous Gwyneth stirs the pot by trying to make Harry feel anxious about the class difference between Ann and himself and by trying to entice him back to her. Harry resists Gwyneth’s charms and proposes to Ann, but later has second thoughts, worrying that Gwyneth was right that their class differences make the relationship impossible in the long run. His anxieties begin to cause performance problems in the bedroom, which in turn causes him to become more open to Gwyneth’s overtures. When Gwyneth invites him over for a drink, he accepts and the two quickly end up in bed, but Gwyneth has also invited Ann over and when she arrives, she finds Harry in nothing but a towel.

Ann breaks up with Harry, who is brought even closer to Gwyneth after Steve is shot and the two hold vigil at the hospital with Trisha. In the wake of Steve’s death, Harry and Gwyneth officially begin dating, but the relationship is short-lived once Ava informs Harry that Rick was forced to leave AE as a result of rumors that he was having an affair with Gwyneth. Although he’s initially unwilling to believe Ava’s claims, he’s increasingly suspicious of Gwyneth’s involvement with Rick. When he finds a gift Gwyneth has bought for Rick, he confronts her and she reveals the truth that Rick is her son, whom she had given up for adoption. Horrified when he learns that Gwyneth initially denied Rick when he came to Corinth, Harry breaks up with her.

1988: With Steve having died and his relationship with Ann having failed, Harry decides to pull up stakes and leave town.

1989: Harry returns to town with a folder full of information about Clay and Alex, but quickly tries to leave town when he realizes that someone is trying to frame him for murdering Clay, who has suddenly gone missing and is actually Alex, who has been impersonating Clay for two years. He’s arrested, but at his arraignment the real Clay Alden reveals himself and the charges are dropped, with Clay later explaining to the Aldens that he sent Harry to Corinth ahead of him to help get the imposter out of the way.

With the Clay/Alex secret now out in the open, Harry shifts his attention to trying to get Ann back, but she’s become involved with Dan Hollister. However, though Dan dies not long after, Harry and Ann do not reconcile and he decides to suddenly leave town, lest Clay draw him into doing any more of his dirty work.

1990: Kate gets word that Harry has been presumed dead in an avalanche.

1994: Harry’s ghost appears to Ava, who is in a coma after being shot, and takes her to visit heaven, where he shows her a vision of things that will occur in the future in Corinth.