Y & R: The Five Phillip Chancellors
Addition of Two Phillips to Daytime Soap's Cast May Confuse Viewers
Jun 28, 2009
Anyone who’s watched CBS’s The Young and The Restless in the past few months has probably asked the question at least once, ‘Why do all the Chancellors keep naming their sons Phillip?’ Indeed, the show is about to jump from having no Phillips on screen to having two Phillips (Phillip Chancellors III and IV) and an apparent Phillip III impostor. Viewers are rightfully confused about which Phillip is which, and on-line fans have even devised their own naming convention for them, referring to Phillip II as Saint Phillip, Phillip III as Drunk Phillip, and Phillip IV as Soccer Phillip. Get the real scoop on all the Phillips below.
Phillip Chancellor I
Phillip Chancellor I was the father of Phillip Chancellor II. He was never seen on-screen.
Phillip Chancellor II
Phillip Chancellor II (portrayed by John Considine and Donnelly Rhodes) was the husband of Katherine Chancellor until his death in 1975. While they were married, Katherine began drinking to liven up her ‘boring’ life. This put a strain on Phillip and Katherine’s marriage, and Phillip began to have feelings for Katherine’s young maid and hairdresser, Jill Foster. When Katherine discovered that the two had feelings for one another, she made plans to go to AA and mend her marriage.
But when Jill discovered she was pregnant with Phillip’s child, Phillip asked Katherine for a divorce so he could be with Jill and their baby. This made Katherine start drinking again. She signed the divorce papers while drunk, but when she realized what she had done, she tried to convince Phillip to save their marriage. When he refused, Katherine drove their car off a cliff. Phillip and Jill married on his deathbed, although the marriage was later deemed invalid. This was the start of a life-long feud between Katherine and Jill.
Phillip Chancellor III (aka Langley Ashby)
Phillip Chancellor III is the product of the affair between Phillip Chancellor II and Jill Foster Abbott. He was born Phillip Foster in 1976, although he was aged to 16 in 1986, which should make him 39, rather than 33. When Phillip returned from boarding school (now portrayed by Thom Bierdz), he had a drinking problem and a strong resentment towards his mother Jill for sending him away. Consequently, he chose to live with Jill’s arch-nemesis Katherine, who was married to his deceased father. Jill fought for custody, but the judge granted temporary custody to Katherine when Phillip expressed that he got more attention from her than his mother ever gave him. This fuelled the already fierce feud between Katherine and Jill.
Katherine had Phillip’s name legally changed to Phillip Chancellor III and Phillip got over his drinking problem while living with her. He befriended Christine Blair and Nina Webster, and began dating Christine, although Nina wanted him for herself. One night, Nina got Phillip drunk and seduced him, leaving her pregnant. After Phillip proposed to Christine, Nina revealed her pregnancy, which horrified Katherine and Jill, who, in a rare moment of unity, teamed up to prove Nina an unfit mother and keep her from ‘ruining Phillip’s life.’ Eventually, Phillip married Nina, but the struggles of being a husband and father caused him to start drinking again. One night, he ostensibly crashed his sports car while driving drunk, and was killed in the accident.
It was recently revealed, however, that Phillip has been alive and well in Australia for the past twenty years. He has been working as a bartender and living under the alias Langley Ashby.
Ethan “Cane” Ashby (The apparent Phillip III impostor)
Cane Ashby (portrayed by Daniel Goddard) came to Genoa City in early 2007 in search of his birth mother. It seemed that he was the true Chancellor heir after a drunk and bitter Katherine switched him at birth with another baby because she couldn’t bear to have Jill raise her husband’s child. Katherine had apparently given baby “Phillip” to a woman named Violet Montgomery, who called him Ethan. Violet died two weeks later, and Ethan was sent to Australia to live with her brother, Langley Ashby. He then adopted the name Cane Ashby, and had no idea of his true origins or status as Chancellor heir.
A few months after he came to Genoa City, Jill and Cane were reunited with one another, although the evidence for them being mother and son was shoddy at best (the initial DNA test came back negative, although the second came back positive). Nonetheless, Jill accepted Cane as her long-lost son and Cane came to forgive Katherine for giving him away in a jealous rage. Cane fit right into the Chancellor family, and despite being a bartender with no business experience, took a job as Director of Acquisitions and Mergers at Chancellor Industries, eventually becoming CEO of Chancellor subsidiary Jabot Cosmetics.
When Phillip Chancellor III’s widow, Nina Webster returned to Genoa City, she was immediately suspicious of Cane, and became intent on proving he was a fraud. Nina determined that Violet Montgomery was in an Arizona hospital battling pneumonia when the babies were allegedly switched; therefore, Katherine couldn’t have given Cane to her. She exhumed Philip III’s body, only to find an empty casket. Nina then demanded that Cane take another DNA test. Cane, however, submitted a vial of Phillip’s blood for the test, which suggests that he is not the true Chancellor heir, and is working with the real Phillip III.
Phillip “Chance” Chancellor IV
Phillip Chancellor IV is the son of Phillip Chancellor III and Nina Webster. He was born on-screen in 1988, which would make him 21 years old. John Driscoll debuts as Phillip IV (who will now be called “Chance” in order to distinguish him from his father) on July 16, 2009. This will be the first time the character has been seen on screen in eight years. Apparently during his absence, Chance joined the military and recently served in Iraq. He has also been secretly dealing with the possibility that he has the deadly genetic disorder Huntington’s Disease.
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