Amy Ames
Amy Kincaid (née Ames, previously Rysdale and Britton) was the main heroine on The Secret Storm and was mostly played by Jada Rowland, who grew up in the role, a rarity for any soap opera character. During a break, Beverly Lunsford replaced Rowland in the part.
Amy was the youngest child of Peter and Ellen Ames of the fictional community of Woodbridge, New York. On the first episode, her mother was injured in an automobile accident and died. This sent her father and her older brother and sister, Jerry Ames and Susan Ames Dunbar into grief. The oldest daughter, Susan, became the mother figure, and tended to be very bossy; Jerry went after the driver who caused his mother's death and tried to kill him, but was sent to reform school for this. Amy became worried and everyone was working overtime to make sure her needs were met, because of her young age. During her father's short-lived marriage to Myra Lake (who was one of her teachers), she considered her a mother figure.
Her first marriage was to Kip Rysdale, the son of Arthur Rysdale who had married her aunt Pauline Rysdale. Kip had been with a girl named Nina DeFrancisco, the daughter of his Spanish instructor. When she died, the road opened for them to marry. Then she discovered that she was pregnant by her college professor, Paul Britton. She divorced Kip and married Paul, and from this union, they had a daughter, Lisa. Kip eventually went out with a nasty woman named Janet Hill (Bibi Besch), who had become Amy's stepsister, due to her mother, Valerie marrying Peter, Amy's father. In a classic episode from the mid-sixties, Amy and Janet squared off over Kip.
Meanwhile, Amy had been on a boat with Belle Clemmens' illegitimate daughter, Robin, when there was an accident. Robin drowned, and Belle, totally furious, intended to make Amy's life miserable, which she did with great glee.
Belle stole Paul Britton from Amy, which sent her into a nervous breakdown. She had been helped by a Dr. Ian Northcote, who had married her stepmother, Valerie Hill Ames. She met a man named Kevin Kincaid, and later on, married him. Conniving Belle had married his father, Dan, after using Paul and throwing him away.
After Kevin was paralyzed from the waist down from a fight with a mobster, Amy was artificially inseminated by a Dr. Brian Neeves. (Brian, in love with Amy, had used his own semen without at first telling her.) A nurse named Martha Ann Ashley (Audre Johnson), who was a cohort of Belle's told her what was going on, and Belle used this as a blackmailing tactic against Amy to keep her lover stocked in racing cars. However, this backfired in Belle's face when her lover, Robert Landers, began to see her former ward, Joanna Morrison.
Amy gave birth to Danielle (her child that was artificially inseminated) and found out that Kevin had returned to Woodbridge. He had gone to London for surgery, which was successful, and was in the middle of the living room in Valerie's house. He attempted to walk to Amy, but missed the mark by a few inches, he fell to the floor. Amy fell to the floor as well, joined by her daughters Lisa and Danielle. Valerie came into the room and saw the love that her stepdaughter had for her husband, and they never parted again.
