Soaps’ Best Villains of All Time Part 2 : Carlo Hesser – ‘Once Life To Live’

“One Life to Live’s” primo villain Carlo Hesser [Thom Christopher] has been on the lam since he broke out of prison in 2005. As a merciless mobster, Carlo wreaked havoc all over Llanview – the bad news drug trafficker brought trouble to town in a big way. And after Victoria Lord Buchanan [Erika Slezak] killed Carlo’s son Johnny Dee Hesser [Anthony Crivello], Hesser became even more ruthless and focused on getting revenge on the Buchanans.

Among Carlo’s many crimes was the kidnapping of Megan Gordon [Jessica Tuck] and Sarah Gordon [Jensen Buchanan/Grace Phillips], but how brutal are you really if you just drop someone off in Amish country instead of offing them. Who but a villain would not only be blackmailed into marriage to cover his crimes, but then decide that woman – Alex Olanov [Tonja Walker] – is highly beddable. Those two heated up the small screen with their steamy sexcapades.

Carlo was such a monster that his own niece Stephanie Hobart [Robyn Griggs] killed him (or so everyone thought) as revenge for Carlo murdering her dad – Carlo’s own brother – Joseph Hobart. But like a cockroach, it’s hard to kill Carlo and he then returned as alter-ego villain Poseidon and bilked Asa Buchanan [Phil Carey] out of tens of millions with the help of kinky wife Alex. After he and Alex split, he took on partner in crime RJ Gannon [Timothy D Stickney] to torment the Buchanans.

Related: Soaps’ Best Villains of All Time Part 1: Roger Thorpe – ‘Guiding Light’

Carlo died a second time, this time to a seemingly fatal bullet to the brain but, you know, you can’t kill a great villain on a soap opera. This time his ex-wife Alex was the murder culprit but it turns out that she killed his somewhat nicer doppelganger Mortimer Bern. Why is there always a good twin? Couldn’t they both be patently evil? Not in Carlo and Mortimer’s case, though. After his second “death” Carlo was off the map for a while and then finally faced justice for his crimes and was sent to prison.

Carlo resurfaced briefly in Europe, was part of an elaborate plot with his other daughter Talia Sahid [BethAnn Bonner] that culminated with an embarrassing same sex incident that made the news. Carlo disappeared again after forcing his daughter into a bad marriage and assuming the identity of dead twin brother Mortimer Bern. Carlo is the best kind of villain because he was visually intimidating as well as having a rich and terrifying character build-out. He was sexy, yet scary, complex yet occasionally caring.

Emmy award winner Thom Christopher says of playing Carlo, “I have always taken things to the razor’s edge. That’s what I do. It doesn’t scare me to go that far out because you meet yourself… it becomes a Feydeau nightmare, an emotional jagged edge scraping us through the most perverse laughter… I love being an actor.”

Fans certainly loved Christopher as Carlo, but what did you think of OLTL’s Hesser? Did you love him, hate him, love to hate him? Let us know what you thought of One Life to Live’s Carlo Hesser and if you agree that he was one of soap’s best all-time villains – share in the comments section below!