Caitlin Deschanel
Caitlin Deschanel (née Richards) is a fictional character in the US soap opera Sunset Beach portrayed by two different actresses. The first actress, Vanessa Dorman, portrayed the role from January 9, 1997 to June 18, 1998, when she hit contract problems and was to let go. As of June 24, 1998, she was replaced by Kam Heskin, who portrayed the role until the end of the show, December 31, 1999.
| Caitlin Deschanel | |||||||||||||||
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 Kam Heskin as Caitlin Richards (1998) | |||||||||||||||
| Sunset Beach character | |||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Vanessa Dorman (1997-1998) Kam Heskin (1998-1999) | ||||||||||||||
| First appearance | January 10, 1997 | ||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | December 31, 1999 | ||||||||||||||
| Created by | Robert Guza, Jr. | ||||||||||||||
| Introduced by | Gary Tomlin, Aaron Spelling and E. Duke Vincent | ||||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||||
| Other names | Caitlin Richards | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Student | ||||||||||||||
| Residence | Sunset Beach, California | ||||||||||||||
 Vanessa Dorman as Caitlin Richards (1997) | |||||||||||||||
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Character history
Caitlin was presented as the daughter of a rich lawyer Gregory Richards and Olivia Richards. She fell in love with Cole Deschanel, a mysterious jewel thief and their love was constantly threatened by her over-protective and sinister father. At the same time, Cole slept with Caitlin's mother, Olivia, but he didn't know that Olivia was actually his girlfriend's mother. Various times, Gregory tried to get rid of Cole, even by hiring a hit man to kill him, but he didn't succeed. Thing got even more complicated. At the same time, both Caitlin and Olivia got pregnant. After a car accident, Caitlin lost her baby, but she decided to keep pretending to be pregnant, so she wouldn't lose Cole. Meanwhile, Olivia finally found happiness again with Gregory. Caitlin sought help from Annie Douglas to find a baby that Caitlin could use as her own. At the same time, Annie plotted to win over Gregory, so she decided to make a huge turn-over. When Olivia gave birth, Annie stole the baby and gave it to Caitlin. Olivia thought her baby had died and Caitlin had no idea that she had her mother's child. This, of course caused Gregory and Olivia's divorce.
Caitlin and Cole were finally happy. They had a baby and they got married, it seemed like everything was perfect, in the summer of 1998, Cole and Caitlin were also involved in the tsunami storyline. Cole met his former lover, Francesca Vargas and Francesca tried to win him over, but he only loved Caitlin. When Francesca was murdered, they were also suspects, but none of them murdered her, but Gregory is the one who actually killed Francesca. Olivia was shocked to find out that Caitlin's baby is actually her own. Caitlin had hard time dealing with the truth, and this caused a big fight between Cole and Caitlin.
Caitlin and Gregory were shocked to learn that Olivia and Cole had an affair years ago. It was then revealed that Cole is actually Trey's father. This led to a fight between Gregory and Cole, after which Gregory went missing and everyone presumed him dead. Caitlin had to struggle with the fact that Trey isn't hers and she was even more shocked when Cole was caught by London authorities, and went missing. He eventually returned in the final episode and reunited with his one/only love, Caitlin.