Farewell To A Couple of One Life To Live Stars

Clint Ritchie

Phil Carey

When checking my site stats late last night, I found an abnormal amount of hits were related to OLTL character Asa Buchanan. After doing a Google search, what I was afraid of turned out to be true: Phil Carey (the actor who played Asa from 1979-2007) had died on February 6th at the age of 83 after a bout with lung cancer. Although Carey had a long and successful acting career dating back to the early 50s, it is the role of the much married patriarch of the Buchanan family for which he is perhaps best known. A bigger than life cowboy millionaire who never saw a bush that was worth beating around... Asa spoke his mind no matter what, providing some of OLTL's funniest and most memorable moments. Although he could be an ornery S.O.B., you always knew that Asa loved his family. If you were fool enough to mess with a Buchanan, Asa would make you sorrier than Brenda Lee! Along with loving his family, he also loved the ladies... walking down the aisle 14 times with 10 different women (don't ask)!

While reading one of the stories on Carey, I learned that Clint Ritchie (who played Asa's oldest son Clint Buchanan for over 20 years starting in 1979) died at the age of 70 on January 31st from complications following surgery to implant a pacemaker. As another of my favorite characters on OLTL, Clint could be the tough Texan as well as the tenderhearted husband and father. One of Clint's best scenes was in the 1980s when he broke down in tears because he felt he had lost his wife Viki for good (as a victim of multiple personalities, one of her alters "Niki Smith" had taken over with no sign of letting Viki reemerge). I was one of the many fans who was upset when they broke up longtime couple Clint and Viki and paired her up with Sloan Carpenter in the early 90s. Ritchie left the OLTL on a regular basis in late 1998, but did return periodically in 1999, 2003, and 2004.

Below are a couple of montage tributes to both Phil Carey and Clint Ritchie.