History
The affluent and renowned Crane family emigrated from Great Britain in the seventeenth century, eventually settling in the coastal New England village of Harmony over three hundred years ago. The Cranes gained a great deal of influence in village affairs by the end of the century. In 1693, magistrate William Ephraim Crane ordered the execution of accused witch Tabitha Lenox after hearing testimony from the young Prudence Standish; as a result, Tabitha has long since held a grudge against William's descendants.
The Cranes first began to amass their multibillion dollar fortune in the eighteenth century through their participation in the Atlantic slave trade; further wealth was derived in the early twentieth century by illegally smuggling alcohol into the United States during the Prohibition and through other unpalatable activities. In more recent generations, the Cranes' main source of reported income has been derived from Crane Industries, the family-run international conglomerate.
Upon the debut of Passions in July 1999, the Crane family consists of patriarch Alistair; his two children, Julian and Sheridan; Julian's wife, Ivy, and eldest child, Ethan; and Ethan's girlfriend, Gwen. The Cranes are quickly established to be a dysfunctional bunch; Julian and Ivy, despite over two decades of marriage, bitterly despise one another and never, during their two years of marriage seen on-air, engage in sexual intercourse with one another, and patriarch Alistair seeks numerous times to murder Sheridan, his own daughter, often enlisting Julian's help in achieving his goal.
The Crane family seems to have largely fallen apart by early 2002 — Ethan, the heir apparent to the empire, is revealed to be the product of Ivy's adulterous affair with police chief Sam Bennett in early 2001, leading Julian to divorce Ivy in August, and Sheridan and Julian are both apparently murdered in August 2001 and January 2002, respectively. Following Julian's murder, Alistair is the only remaining member of the Crane family left until Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald has herself declared the legal Mrs. Julian Crane and takes control of Julian's estate. Theresa eventually gives birth to Julian's son, Ethan Martin Crane, in June 2002, and both Julian and Sheridan are later discovered to be alive later that summer. Theresa continues to hold control of much of the Crane estate, however, until her Bermudan wedding to Julian is revealed to have been a practical joke in March 2003.
In 2002, the writers begin introducing Julian and Ivy's frequently mentioned but heretofore never seen children into the program's storylines. Julian and Ivy's only son, Nicholas Foxworth "Fox" Crane, returns to Harmony in December 2002, followed by his eldest sister, Fancy, in June 2005. Julian and Ivy's third and final child, their youngest daughter, Pretty, returns to Harmony in July 2007 in order to seek revenge against her sister for a fight a decade earlier that left Pretty's face partially disfigured. Julian and Sheridan each welcome the birth of children in the following years — Julian has a daughter, Endora Lenox, with Tabitha in July 2003, while Sheridan gives birth to son Marty Lopez-Fitzgerald in September 2003 and then adopts then-husband Chris Boothe's son, James, in late 2006.
Both Alistair and Julian also learn that they have fathered children with other women. When Julian learns that his son with Eve did not died shortly after birth as had been previously believed, the two set out to find their child, and Alistair eventually reveals the boy to be Chad Harris, who was engaged to Eve's eldest daughter, Whitney Russell. In June 2006, however, Chad learns that his biological parents are actually Alistair and Eve's adoptive half-sister, Liz Sanbourne, and Julian and Eve learned in July 2007 that their son is the intersex Blackmailer that has been terrorizing most of Harmony, Vincent Clarkson; Vincent, as his female persona of Valerie Davis, sleeps with and bears his father's son in May 2008. Alistair also discovers in spring 2005 that his one-night stand in the 1970s with then-Harmony harlot Edna Wallace produced a daughter, Beth.
As of the series finale in August 2008, the only current Crane family members living in Harmony are Julian, Sheridan, Fancy, Endora, Julian and Vincent's unnamed son, and Marty. Chad and Fox are murdered in August and September 2007, respectively, and Whitney moves with her and Chad's young son, Miles, to New Orleans. Beth is also killed in July 2006 in Rome, and custody of Sheridan's adoptive son, James, rests with the boy's father, Chris. Alistair, meanwhile, is murdered once-and-for-all in May 2008; that same year, Pretty is revealed to be suffering from a mental disorder in June and sent away to a mental institution, and Vincent is revealed to be alive and arrested for his crimes in July.
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