JULIE ADAMS

If you're ever working a crossword puzzle and need a twelve-letter word for evil... try Paula Denning.

Although mentioned from the very start of the series, Paula didn't actually appear on camera until 1983. Wife of Senator Mark Denning and mother to Sloane, she spent most of her marriage in seclusion, the apparent victim of agoraphobia. Mark no doubt preferred his wife's absence, but unfortunately, her illness was faked...a ruse to hold onto Mark, whose heart beat double-time for lovely Clarissa McCandless.

When Mark threatened to divorce his wicked wife in mid-1983, the you-know-what really hit the fan. First, Paula had to dispose of Mrs. Mills, an unfortunate housekeeper who caught on to her employer's schemes and promptly fell dead from a heart attack. Next, she arranged a convenient hit-and-run death for nosy psychiatrist Dr. Parker, who wanted to expose his patient's treachery. With murder now her raison detre, Paula hatched the most diabolical plot ever...shooting archrival Clarissa McCandless.

Although she was ultimately caught, Paula underwent surgery for a brain tumor, wiggled out of prosecution for a plethora of crimes, and wrote a scandalous tell-all book about the Clegg dynasty, effectively destroying her unholy alliance with Capitol's other dastardly denizen... Myrna Clegg.

By 1985, Mark managed to extricate himself from their marriage, but that didn't deter a scheming Paula. She had him kidnapped, locked in a secret room in her basement, and hypnotized into believing that she was Clarissa! Although deserving of points for originality, that plot failed, too, prompting a near-fatal drug overdose.

After the suicide attempt and Mark's subsequent death, Paula mellowed -well, for her, anyway- and joined daughter Sloane in Baracq. She was last seen there, held captive by the equally evil Colonel Abdullah, who used her safe exit as leverage against Sloane. No audience will ever learn Paula's fate, but I prefer to think she tricked her way out of Baracq, made a spectacular return to Washington, and continued to wreak havoc in everyone's lives. C'est la bitch!

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