Angela Channing

Angela Channing (nee Gioberti; formerly Erickson, Stavros and Agretti) is a fictional character on the American primetime drama, Falcon Crest.

The role was originated by Jane Wyman in 1981. For the first eight seasons, Wyman appeared in almost every episode of the series, for a total of 208 of the 227, missing 19 episodes (mostly in the final season) due to health problems and because of the show was taken in a new direction. Angela is the steely, domineering owner of the Falcon Crest wineries. Much of the show over the 9 seasons it aired focused on Angela's scheming (usually successfully) to advance the fortunes of her family company, and to keep sole control over it from competitors and other family members who gain percentages of the winery.

Background

Angela Gioberti was born to Jasper Gioberti and Lily Travers in Tuscany Valley, California. It was Angela's early ambition that convinced her father to dedicate his life to his business only.

When she was only 16, she met Peter Stavros during a stay in Spain.

Angela marries Douglas Channing, the publisher of The San Francisco Globe, a daily newspaper. They had three children: Richard (who was thought to have died after birth), Julia and Emma. They later divorced.

A thorn in her side, was Jacqueline Perrault, the French wife of her brother Jason, who later left Tuscany Valley with her son, Chase, because of Angela's treacherous reign over Falcon Crest.

After their father's death, Falcon Crest was passed down to Angela and her brother, Jason, who have to share the estate 50:50. Both lived on the Gioberti Estate. Jason lived in the Gioberti family's original two–story stone house, and Angela resided in the later built, luxurious, Victorian–style Gioberti mansion. Angela ran the business; Jason, who became an alcoholic after his divorce, was no longer interested in business affairs, his property, or his home. He was next to penniless.

When Julia became pregnant after an affair with the married Dominic Rossini, Angela sent the baby to a distant monastery and lied, telling Julia that her baby died.

Angela disliked Tony Cumson, Julia's husband, and because of her intrigues, she drove him out of Tuscany Valley, and he without leaving a word of goodbye to Julia and their son, Lance. During Tony's absence and Lance's adolescence, Angela took Lance under her way and groomed to be "her heir to Falcon Crest.

Season One

As Falcon Crest debuts, when her daughter, Emma is involved in Jason Gioberti's accidental death, Angela covers for her. When her nephew, Chase Gioberti, receives Jason's share of Falcon Crest and moves from New York City to Tuscany Valley, Angela vows to be rid of them by first earning their friendship. When Chase's old friend, Paul, comes to Tuscany Valley, with a business scheme in order to pay off a gambling debt, Angela promises Paul the money if he can get Chase off the land. But her plan backfires when Paul dangers all of the Falcon Crest vineyards, with her own daughter, Julia, helping Chase in preserving the vineyard. Angela offers to buy Chase's pre-harvested grapes when he tries to collect money for his $50,000 tax bill and hiring men to work for him. After discovering that Carl Reed was in negotiations to buy Chase's grapes, Angela buys the mortgage on his property and strong arms him into backing down from the deal with Chase. Tired of her grandson Lance's irresponsible behavior, Angela becomes disenchanted with him as heir to Falcon Crest. Trying to prove his worth, Lance explodes Chase's pumphouse, which infuriates Angela, and she threatens to disinherits him. In order to spur Lance after his fight with Mario, Angela courts her great nephew, Cole Gioberti, to be her heir to Falcon Crest. By offering to help secure a university scholarship for Mario, Angela gets the charges against Lance dropped. When her son-in-law, Tony Cumson, returns to Tuscany Valley after 12 years and begins to take the attention of Julia away from Lance, Angela begins to interfere. Angela enlists the help of her ex-husband, Douglas Channing, to hire Maggie on as a reporter at his newspaper, The San Francisco Globe in San Francisco. When Emma's ex-lover, Turner Bates, who was on the scene when Jason died, returns, he blackmails Angela after learning the truth. In turn, Angela calls in the police, and Turner, after a car chase, is accidentally killed.

When Angela takes Cole to Rome, Italy to attend an important wine-tasting competition, she is surprised to find Douglas is there, and hopes to rekindle the memory of their honeymoon spent there years ago. Initially, romance flares between Angela and Douglas; however, Angela devastates Douglas when she refuses his proposal to remarry. Meanwhile, Angela leaves Lance in charge of Falcon Crest to test him with the family business, but Lance painfully discovers that he's not as shrewd as his grandmother. Angela begins to toy with Douglas's emotions, playing him against a renowned painter and making Douglas look like a fool. In order to obtain the lucrative Agretti Vineyards, Angela begins plans for Lance to marry the Agretti heiress, Melissa Agretti. After a bitter argument between Angela and Lance, he leaves and falls in love with a girl. When Lance decides to move to San Francisco, Angela attempts to stop them and when Lance succumbs, he leaves the love of his life. After Chase finds evidence that Angela may have been involved in crippling a girl forty years ago, he confronts Angela, who turns the tables on Chase, playing a small excerpt of a recording that leaves Chase believing that his father hated him. When Chase's mother, Jacqueline Perrault (portrayed by "special guest star" Lana Turner), returns to Tuscany Valley, she warns Chase of Angela's treacherous nature and tries to persuade him to leave Falcon Crest. Hatred begins to erupt between the two longtime rivals and Jacqueline informs Angela that Chase will survive and prosper in the valley.

After Ed McKay, a member of the County Board of Supervisors, is assassinated, Chase is encouraged to run for office. In order plot to rid Chase away from Falcon Crest, Angela campaigns against Chase for water rights in the valley and does everything in her power to see Chase defeated, but nonetheless, Chase wins the election. Later, when Emma is caught shoplifting in a jewelry store, Angela threatens the owner that she will destroy him if he decides to prosecute. Angela becomes angry when Lance begins working for his grandfather's newspaper in San Francisco and is determined that he will marry Melissa Agretti, planning to destroy her budding relationship with Cole. Later, when Angela finds out that Chase and Maggie persuaded Julia to take her sister to a psychiatric clinic, she tells Julia the truth about Emma killing Jason, which turns Julia against Chase and Maggie. Angela, in an attempt to foil Chase's inquiries about the circumstances about his father's death, has Philip mislead Chase into believing he might inherit Falcon Crest. Later, Angela attempts to force Lance to marry Melissa, who instead has become deeply involved with Cole. After pressuring Lance, he proposes to Melissa, who has her own cunning reasons for marrying Lance, aside from her father and Angela's scheme to merge Falcon Crest with Agretti Vineyards. While Angela attempts to impede Chase's coroner's inquest into his father's death, she is forced to testify on stand. Later, Angela learns of Melissa's pregnancy following a disastrous honeymoon and assumes Lance to be the father, despite his denial.

After Douglas dies of a seizure, Angela tries to keep Emma sedated to prevent her from testifying, fearing that she could lose Falcon Crest, if Chase's attorney can prove that Jason died under suspicious circumstances. But Emma manages to escape the Gioberti Mansion and arrives to take the stand, confessing how she accidentally pushed Jason to his death while he fought with Turner Bates. The jury rules that Jason "died at the hands of another," thereby giving Chase control of Falcon Crest, but he magnanimously offers fifty percent of the vineyard to Angela. Though she detests the thought of sharing Falcon Crest with anyone, she has choice and accepts the offer.

As the season ends, another threat looms as Angela learns of Douglas's illegitimate son, Richard Channing, who has inherited fifty percent of The San Francisco Globe.

Season Two

Angela begins resisting Chase's claims to half ownership of Falcon Crest. Meanwhile, Angela begins looking for a way to block Richard Channing, as he prepares to take control of The San Francisco Globe as the new chairman of the board. After Gus's death in a gas explosion, Chase threatens Angela with an affidavit accusing her of complicity in Gus's death, and later he forces her to agree in sharing the operation of Falcon Crest with him. Later, Angela deals with Chase using his new role on the Tuscany Valley County Board of Supervisors on trying to break her grip on county water supplies. After Angela tells Richard that he looks nothing like his father Douglas, he vows to destroy her.

Carlo confronts Angela about Lance's abusiveness toward Melissa and vows that Angela will never get his land through Melissa's marriage to Lance. Chase wants to distribute Falcon Crest's wine in Canada, through another distributor other than Kleeger Distributions, which gets a big discount on their wine and is secretly owned by Angela. She charges Lance with keeping Chase from finding out. To counter Chase's efforts on the County of Supervisors to break her monopoly on the valley's water and distribute it to other growers, Angela claims her water is tainted. In turn, Chase orders another test of Falcon Crest's water supply that shows it not to be tainted. Angela threatens Nick Hogan not to vote with Chase against her at the county supervisor meeting. If Nick votes to redistribute Falcon Crest's water to other vineyards, Angela warns that she won't be buying the $17,000 worth of pipes she was going to buy from him. While Nick casts his decisive vote with Chase, Angela warns Chase that he will come to regret his moment of glory. Before Emma disappears, she secretly gives Chase the voting proxy to her twenty percent share of The Globe—Angela hoped would give her control of the newspaper's board of directors.

Angela buys up expensive stock in The Globe and continues to track Emma to get her proxy and after a sudden complication in Melissa's pregnancy confines her to bed, Angela pressures Lance to spend more time with his wife.

After producer Darryl Clayton turns Maggie's script down, Angela meets Darryl in secret and agrees to invest in the film if he will keep Maggie occupied in Los Angeles. Chase discovers that Angela is using all of Falcon Crest's investment funds to buy up stock in The New Globe. Richard confronts Angela after discovering her attempt to take over the newspaper.

Amanda Croft, a woman in her fifties, who had a romantic dinner with Phillip Erickson, becomes suspicious of his relationship with Angela.

Just as Angela has nearly bought up enough New Globe stock to control the newspaper, Richard announces he is going to issue two million dollars more of stock, which is a strategy that Angela and Phillip hadn't foreseen. Angela and Phillip secretly arrange for a Wall Street banker named Kenderson to approach the unwitting Richard. Kenderson proposes to underwrite the new stock issue thereby delaying the offer long enough for Angela to get control of the newspaper. Unbeknownst to Angela, Jacqueline Perrault had been researching Angela's business dealings in Europe and has now provided Chase with proof of Angela's illegal financial activities.

At Falcon Crest, Angela plays Lance and Cole against each other. Angela offers Darryl more money to maintain Maggie's hopes of getting her script produced. In spite of bribing Richard's banker, Kenderson, into postponing the new stock issue, Angela still needs Chase's votes on The New Globe board to take over the newspaper.

Angela becomes furious after catching Lance in bed with a woman, Brenda, after her Founder's Day Party.

Season Eight

In the aftermath of Richard's "death", Angela surprises her family friends with her resignation over the lost of Falcon Crest to Melissa. She later decides to stay in Tuscany Valley and fight for her family's land; and later launches an attack on Melissa. Angela secretly arranges a meeting between Frank Agretti and his long-estranged son, Nick.

When Angela offers District Attorney Fields her support for the governorship in exchange for dropping the murder charges against Lance, he indignantly refuses; however, when Richard offers to hire Field's leukemic son to join the staff of The New Globe, Fields agrees to the deal. After Nick Agretti is enraptured when he witnesses Pilar swimming nude, Angela informs him that she has learned some information he cannot release, revealing that the price for keeping the secret is Falcon Crest itself.

After Angela blackmails Nick with incriminating information about his past, Nick surrenders Falcon Crest to Angela, who begins plans to rebuild the house. She is later disturbed by the news of Libby Carnes, who offers Frank a job in Colombia mining for emeralds.

Angela celebrates the Christmas holiday by surrounding herself with family.

After Angela is outmaneuvered for the purchase of a bottling company, she is determined to learn who is behind the consortium.

Season Nine

As Angela prepares to leave for Greece, she leaves her grandson Lance in charge, though under the strict supervision of her reliable foreman, Frank Agretti. Angela hires a private investigator to tail Pilar. Although Angela disapproves of Charley and changes her vacation plans, Emma stands by Charley despite Angela's interference. Aware that Angela is trying to break up his relationship with Emma, Charley places a pillow over Angela's face and suffocates her. After being found unconscious, Angela is rushed to the hospital, where she slips into a coma. Lance has a difficult time managing Falcon Crest without Angela, particularly when business associates insist on negotiating with Angela, but fortunately, Pilar is able to help Lance deal with their distributor, Ned Vogel. A power outage at the hospital forces the family to consider pulling the plug on Angela's life support.

Richard's plans to run the winery with Lauren run into a snag when Angela returns after regaining consciousness. When Richard informs Angela that she has no legal claim to the winery, Angela pretends to give in, but she is secretly planning to block Richard's marriage to Lauren with the help of Michael Sharpe.

After her plans of ruining Richard's engagement to Lauren falls through, Angela must find another way to stop it. Richard agrees to sell Falcon Crest back to Angela on the condition that half will go to his sons in the event of her death. Lance, however, will receive ten percent now and the remainder after Angela's death. As the wedding reception draws to a close, Angela recalls all the people who passed through Tuscany Valley during the last decade and toasts the future of Falcon Crest.