Tom Hughes | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Scott Holmes as Tom Hughes, 2010
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As the World Turns character | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Portrayed by |
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Duration | 1961–2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
First appearance | May 1961 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Last appearance | September 17, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Created by | Irna Phillips | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Introduced by | Ted Corday | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Spin-off appearances |
Our Private World | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Classification | Final, regular | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Profile | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation |
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Residence | 724 Pinewood Lane Oakdale, IL 60324 |
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Parents | |
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Half-brothers |
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Half-sisters | |
Spouse |
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Sons | |
Daughters | Lien Hughes |
Stepsons | Adam Munson |
Grandsons | Billy Norbeck |
Uncles | Don Hughes |
Aunts |
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First cousins |
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Thomas Christopher "Tom" Hughes is a fictional character on the American soap opera As the World Turns. He was played by a number of actors during the character's 49-year tenure on the show, the longest-running actor being Scott Holmes, who took over the role July 3, 1987, and remained until ATWT's cancellation in 2010. He is an attorney in Oakdale.
The character of Tom Hughes has been played by many young actors before being aged in 1969.
Tom Hughes was born onscreen in May 1961 to Bob and Lisa Hughes. His parents divorced when he was young and Tom largely blamed his father for the break-up, due to his mother's having poisoned his mind against him. Lisa, tired of Oakdale, took Tom to LA and dropped him off at a military school. His grandparents, Chris and Nancy, brought him back home, and he was put in Bob's care. However, young Tommy was still angry at his father, and started acting up by destroying daddy dolls. Luckily, Ellen Lowell was able to reach out to Tommy and got him to see not only how much Bob (and by extension Nancy and Chris) loved him, but made him realize how much his dad, a busy young doctor, was needed.
Later, when Tom was a bit older, he became insolent and Lisa again shipped him off to boarding school for a brief time. When Tom returned, he was shocked to learn that his mother had lied to him about the baby she was caring for. Lisa told Tom that the child, Chuckie, was the child of an ill friend, when in reality, he was Lisa’s son by Michael Shea, with whom she had been having an affair. Tom denounced her as a liar and wrote her off. At this point, a teenaged Tom was becoming rebellious. He was obnoxious to his grandparents, Nancy and Chris, who shared Lisa's conviction that Bob had become neglectful of his son. Tom's uncle, Donald Hughes (Bob's brother) was the only one in the family who was able to develop a good rapport with Tom. In one conversation, Tom complained to his uncle that being prepared for adulthood was like being "a Boy Scout ... a straight arrow going nowhere." Don correctly sensed that Tom was going nowhere but downward, thanks to his long-haired boarding school roommate, Hank Barton, Hank was a criminal who was getting Tom hooked on speed, and enlisted Tom's help in robbing Hank's father's pharmacy. Bob also became concerned about Tom's attitude and warned him he'd cut off his financial support unless he took Lisa back into his life. Tom begrudgingly needed his father's advice, acting little more than cordially to his mother.