| Meg Cummings | |||||||||||||
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| Susan Ward as Meg Cummings (1997) | |||||||||||||
| Sunset Beach character | |||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Susan Ward (1997-99) Sydney Penny (1999) |
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| Created by | Robert Guza, Jr. | ||||||||||||
| Duration | 1997-99 | ||||||||||||
| First appearance | January 6, 1997 | ||||||||||||
| Last appearance | December 31, 1999 | ||||||||||||
| Classification | Former; regular | ||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||
| Date of birth | November 24, 1974 | ||||||||||||
| Home | Sunset Beach, California | ||||||||||||
| Occupation | Waitress Executive Assistant Business woman |
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| Alternative image(s) | |||||||||||||
| Sydney Penny as Meg Cummings (1999) | |||||||||||||
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Meg Evans (née Cummings) is a fictional character from the US NBC soap opera Sunset Beach, played by Susan Ward. Meg was the serial's main protagonist throughout the whole run. Sydney Penny temporarily took over the role while Ward was filming for the film The In Crowd.
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Susan Ward was cast into the role of Meg after her agent submitted her for the role.[1] Ward was already known to series creator Aaron Spelling after starring in his series Malibu Shores.[2] Ward requested "to be put up for the nice girl", via her agent. She also said she preferred playing "nice girl" Meg more than mean characters she had previously played.[1] Ward began filming a role in the 2000 film, The In Crowd. While she had to leave on a temporary basis, Sydney Penny took over for one month, until Ward returned.[3] The serial's creator, Spelling, was impressed with Penny's portrayal of Meg so he cast her into another series he created.[4]
| “ | She thought she would meet her handsome friend and immediately ride off into the sunset. Yet as soon as she walked on the beach, she had her backpack stolen. She began to realize things were not as easy as she expected.[5] | ” |
Meg is featured in the first scenes of Sunset Beach. Her storyline sees her arrive from Kansas to escape her unfaithful fiance Tim Truman (Dax Griffin) and find a man she has been talking to over the internet, Ben Evans (Clive Robertson).[6] However, Meg is not aware of Ben's identity. Ward said that Meg is just a "small town girl" who "follows her heart". Meg wants to "find out what the world has to offer", finding out the identity of her internet romance is the "first thing she has ever been passionate about."[2]
After leaving her fiancé Tim at the altar, Meg travelled to Sunset Beach to find a man she had been chatting with over the Internet. Without any knowledge as to who that person might be, Meg slowly got to know the residents of the town, people who had helped her when she fell off a pier after trying to catch a girl that stole her backpack. She took a job at a local bar owned by Ben, a lonely widower, and she soon realized Ben was actually her Internet soul mate. The two began to fall in love, but things didn't go as smooth when Ben's neighbor Annie Douglas (Sarah Buxton) decided to keep Ben for herself, and she stopped at nothing to try and achieve that. Meg also learned her ex-fiancé Tim followed her to Sunset Beach, and she had no idea that he helped Annie mess with her love life.
In one of their crazy attempts to break the couple, Annie and Tim had lured Meg to cave that later caved in, without realizing that Ben had followed Meg. The couple made love for the first time, but Meg had no idea Ben was delirious, thinking that he's making love to his ex-wife Maria Torres Evans, who had died three years ago. Annie's plot revealed that Ben had no memory of making love to Meg, and a hurt Meg had decided to return to Kansas. Ben refused to give up and he convinced Meg to return to him. Annie still didn't stop with her schemes, and Meg became more confused about Ben's behavior.
While spending the holidays on a private island, Meg and her friends were attacked by a mysterious murderer. The murderer was revealed to be Ben, but once the terror was over, it turned out that Ben was being impersonated by his twin brother Derek Evans (Clive Robertson), who held Ben captive in an abandoned warehouse. Meg had no idea she was being scammed until she found a picture of Ben and Derek together. In a final showdown, Derek was presumed dead, and Meg and Ben resumed their happiness. However, the moment was proven short-lived, when Ben's presumed-dead wife Maria turned up alive at their wedding.
"Meg, the suffering virgin, is in her early 20s. This is the Juliet role. Her primary function is to cry. She sleeps only with her intended. She has true friends and true love, but everything conspires to keep her from the bliss we want her to have. For example, her recent wedding ceremony was interrupted by the arrival of her new husband's presumably dead wife, a victim of five years of amnesia. Only Meg has two "normal" parents, who have trivial roles."[7]
Meg tried to hold on to her love, but Ben was struggling to decide between the two women he loved. When she finally had enough, Meg broke up with Ben and found comfort in her close friend Casey Mitchum (Timothy Adams), who had recently broken up with her sister Sara Cummings (Shawn Batten). Meg and Casey eventually broke up, realizing that they are better off as friends. Ben starts acting strangley and tells Meg he is going to stay with Maria for the sake of his son. However, Ben has been kidnapped by his identical twin brother. Derek uses his own son and Maria's amnesia to make their plot believable, Meg accepts it. Tim finds out the truth so Derek murders him.
Derek and Tess Marin (Tracy Melchior) decide to perfect their final stage of their plan, killing Ben and Maria and stealing the money. However Maria discovers the truth and is taken hostage. She realises Ben is still in love with Meg. Casey and Sara are taken hostage when they discover the truth. Carmen asks Meg to find Maria, when she searches the house for Maria, Meg finds evidence that Ben is actually Derek. Meg goes to see Derek and seduces him and steals his gun and threatens him with it. Tess distracts Meg and Derek locks Meg in the basement with Maria, Ben, Casey and Sara. Meg is happy that Ben is still alive. Maria manages to attack Tess and ties her up, while Meg saves Ben from being strangled by Derek. After a big fight between all the hostages and captors ensues and Derek is shot dead in the process. Tess is sent to prison and Ben and Meg start their relationship once again. Maria accepts Ben did not love her because he always loved Meg. Meg goes to Vanessa Hart (Sherri Saum) and Michael Bourne's (Jason Winston George) wedding, when Ben sees Meg at the church, he asks Meg to marry him straight away. After the double wedding, Meg returns home with Ben. Meg has a dream that everyone in Sunset Beach were actually her old friends in Kansas. However, she wakes up and realises it was a dream, Meg and Ben share the final scene of Sunset Beach.
In 1998, Meg and Ben were nominated in the category of "Best Couple" at the Soap Opera Digest Awards.[8] Michael Saunders of The Boston Globe said that if you watched the serial, you just watched "the adventures of Meg Cummings, the headstrong lass who left Kansas for Sunset Beach."[9] Candace Havens of the Kingman Daily Miner opined that the character set the "tone and pace" of Sunset Beach.[10] In 2011, Bibsy M. Carballo of The Philippine Star said the growing trend of destroying wedding dresses against tradition in the Philippines, originated from Meg destroying her dress.[11] The Daily Record said that Meg's final dream sequence was "possibly the best" ever one featured in the soap, adding that it was unmissable.[12] While Merle Brown from the publication said the love triangle storyline with Meg, Ben and Maria lasted for too long. As Sunset Beach made no "excuses" about the duration of the storyline, Brown said it was one of the serial's qualities.[13]
Darrin Farrant of The Age said that Meg seemed like a "naive" character. He added that "poor Meg" had no idea Ben was her internet lover and opined that because Sunset Beach story pace seemed slow it would probably "unfold over many episodes".[14] While his Age colleague, Simon Hughes, said that Meg was a "country mouse" in comparison to her cousin, Tiffany Thorne (Adrienne Frantz). He opined that Meg's "inarticulateness" was part of her charm.[15]
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