Grace Bennett
| Grace Bennett | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passions character | |||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Dana Sparks | ||||||||||||
| Duration | 1999–2007 | ||||||||||||
| First appearance | July 5, 1999 | ||||||||||||
| Last appearance | January 30, 2007 | ||||||||||||
| Created by | James E. Reilly | ||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||
| Residence |
Harmony (1979–2004) Italy (2004–07) | ||||||||||||
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Grace Bennett is a fictional character from the NBC/DirecTV soap opera, Passions. Grace had been played by Dana Sparks from 1999–2005 and 2006–2007. Unknowingly gifted with supernatural powers, Grace is presented early on as the ideal wife, mother, and homemaker; however, Grace's perfect family life begins to noticeably fall apart in 2000, when her husband, Sam, is revealed to have fathered a son with another woman and a mysterious man arrives in Harmony, claiming to be her husband from her pre-amnesia days. Grace's Roman Catholic faith leads Grace to choose a life with David instead of Sam, and Sam and their children, hurt, turn their backs on her. Grace moves to Italy with David in mid-2004 and is not seen on-screen again until late in 2006, when her daughter Kay admits that Sam's ex, Ivy, had hired David to pretend to be Grace's husband in a ploy to win Sam for herself. While in London awaiting a flight back to the United States on January 4, 2007, Grace is killed in a bus explosion engineered by Vincent Clarkson.
Character history
Grace has no memories prior to Sam rescuing her from a Boston fire in the late 1970s. It is said that the evil witch Tabitha set the fire due to Tabitha not wanting the Standish women coming into their full powers. He got her name from a piece of paper he found in her pocket. They married soon after, and he brought her home to Harmony, to live in the house where he grew up. Over the years they had three children, and Grace helped Sam raise his much younger brother Hank. Grace and Sam looked for her family, but after the births of their children, Grace decided that she didn't need to know her past. That worked until after their oldest, Noah, left home for university. Grace started wondering about her family, so Sam started using the Internet to search for them. He found a woman, "Seeker", in a chat room, and managed to realise that she was a member of Grace's family. Grace was thrilled to learn that she had a twin sister. Over the years Faith tried to find her sister but due to the evil witch Tabitha Lenox, who was also Grace's next door neighbor, she couldn't do so. She didn't realise that her own children had met her niece, Charity, and that her daughter, Kay, was keeping the two apart in the hopes that Charity and Faith would leave, and she would get Miguel.
Grace and Faith managed to connect once, via their computers, but then couldn't. Faith was the victim in a fire set by an ancient enemy of the Standish family (the Bennetts next door neighbor, Tabitha). Her twin sister was dead, but Grace had something to hold on to. Her niece, Charity. Once Charity was out of the hospital, Grace and Sam moved her into the Bennett home. Grace soon realised that, like her, Charity has something special about her. While Grace received visits from a little angel girl, Charity had premonitions. She never realised that her premonitions were warning her about a new friend of hers, Ivy Crane.
For nearly two years, Grace believed that Ivy was a good friend of hers, because Ivy made her believe that. At no time did Grace ever suspect that Ivy was merely pretending to be her friend to break up her marriage. She began having nightmares about a woman who wanted to take Sam away from her, and even had Sam's son. Her worst nightmares ever came true the night of Ethan and Theresa's engagement party. Not only did she learn that Sam had committed adultery with Ivy (before he met Grace), but Ethan Winthrop is Sam's son! In a dead faint, she fell down the stairs of the Crane mansion, and woke up in the hospital fighting for her life, and that of her unborn son (the child the doctors had told her it was impossible to conceive). Her mental condition was fragile at best, and seeing Sam and Ivy in a compromising condition was the last straw. Grace lost the baby, and blamed Sam for it. Grace also cursed Ivy with her Standish powers.
It took Grace hours to convince Sam to take her home, and when they got there, they found out that Charity had been seized by the demons of Hell. Grace blamed Sam for that as well, because she knew something was wrong and he wouldn't take her home. Shortly afterwards they all tried to find a way to save Charity but all failed resulting in the Bennett house being sucked into the ground by demons of hell. Grace, Jessica and Charity moved in at Tabitha's house. Sam moved in at a hotel. Sam and Grace were finding it hard to connect. Her anger didn't last long though. After hearing Sam once again blast Ivy for her selfishness and tell Ivy how much he loved his wife, Grace, she forgave him. Until she found out he knew she was there the whole time.
Sam and Grace finally settled things between them, until a man named David Hastings came to town, claiming to be Grace's long-lost husband from before the fire. David also claims that Grace is the mother of his teenage son, John Hastings. David is actually a man who was blackmailed by Ivy to break up Sam and Grace, and Grace is not John's mother. This made Sam and Grace's marriage tear apart once again. Kay, the middle of the children, got angry at this and wanted to become evil. Grace always take Charity's side over Kay; this angered her even more. One day, as she went to a park, she overheard David and Ivy plotting to tear Grace and Sam. Kay then, angry at her mother, started to work with them. One day Kay got very angry and left home. She then stayed over at Tabitha's house. Whilst there Kay told everyone about David and Ivy. But at first nobody believed her (except her father). Once Kay discovered that Tabitha is really a witch and whats in her basement she wanted to show and tell everyone. But when Tabitha showed her what will happen she then changed her mind and worked with them. In March 2004 she decided to leave Harmony and go with David and John to Italy. Having a Dysfunctional marriage with Sam.
Eventually, Kay exposes what she, Eve, and Ivy did, causing Sam to kick Ivy out of his home. Sam contacts Grace and tells her everything, and Grace immediately plans to return to the United States. While getting ready to return to Harmony, Grace receives a mysterious phone call. She exclaims to the mystery caller that "My mind is made up! I won't be a victim anymore!" before she hangs up. She is able to see Kay in her wedding dress thanks to a camera phone, and tells Kay, Jessica, Noah, and Sam that she loves them and will hopefully be back in time to see them at Fox and Kay's wedding reception. She also warns Sam that someone is going to try to hurt their family and friends, and she will tell him in person who it is when she returns. She is seen getting on a bus that will take her to a different airport so that she can return home when a man disguised as a priest blows up the bus, killing her on January 4, 2007. It is later revealed that Vincent Clarkson was behind the bomb, and it is implied that Grace discovered that Alistair Crane was alive in Europe and that he subsequently ordered her death.
Supernatural incidents
Grace, like all other Standish descendents has powers. It was mentioned and seen by Tabitha that she has the power to curse. When Grace found out about Sam and Ivy's love affair she lost her baby due to the pressure of finding out. She became angry with Ivy and then cursed her with her Standish powers; however, unlike Kay, Grace never knew how to use her powers properly. Grace also frequently received visits from the little angel girl about danger which threatened her and her loved ones.
Hidden Passions
According to the book hidden passions Grace and Faith's parents were Zachary and Mercy Sutter. But when Tabitha killed their father, Mercy took her maiden name Standish. It is said in the book that Grace had known about Sam through her Standish powers and knew they would be in love. In the book she at one time prayed and saved Sam and ivy at the time when Tabitha tried to kill them. One day when Mercy had a visit from a little angel girl about one of the twins giving birth to a powerful Standish descendent, Mercy and Faith went to church and prayed. Meanwhile, Grace became skeptical and left for a world tour and when she did she went to Boston where Tabitha had set a fire to her apartment intending to kill her but she survived and suffered amnesia. It was during that fire that Sam had rescued her. Information from the book about this has not been shown (on-screen).