Larry
Welch is the biological son of Victor Chorvat; he is the adoptive of
son of Jim and Geraline Welch, and thus the adoptive brother of Ben
Welch. Larry is the ex-husband of Cynthia Welch and Hope
Williams.
In the summer of 1983, Liz Chandler was tried for the attempted murder of Marie Horton. Her trial introduced Salem's new and vicious District Attorney, Larry Welch. Larry's ruthless attack won him the case and established him as a force to be reckoned with in Salem. He would prove himself yet again later that year, as he relentlessly tried to indict anyone he could for the murders committed by the Salem Slasher. He would finally find his escapegoat in Roman Brady. Thanks to some circumstancial evidence and two eyewitness reports, Larry was able to have Roman arrested. When Roman escaped from jail, Larry spearheaded a campaign to capture him, and swayed the public and the authorities to believe that he was the Salem Slasher. Even though Roman's innocence was eventually proven, Larry's apparent dedication to his job scored favorably with the community.
Larry obviously had ambitions of holding a higher public office. For him to achieve his goal, he needed to build a social image. And his social image would look much better with a wife by his side. Although Larry was attracted to fellow attorney Gwen Davies and she to him, he was dismayed at her lack of seriousness concerning a relationship. After a few fruitless dates toward the end of the year, Larry began shopping elsewhere. He finally found what he was looking for when he was invited to Hope Williams' birthday party. More of a society event than a mere birthday bash, Larry was instantly attracted to the young heiress' looks but, more importantly, her status. In addition to being a very wealthy young woman, Hope was one of the well-respected Hortons. And so, Larry stealthily flirted with Hope at her party after she and her significant other, Bo Brady, had a very public fight. Hope was certainly flattered by Larry's attention.
Later
that evening, Hope's father, Doug
Williams, suffered a heart
attack when he found her in bed with Bo Brady. Hope felt responsible
for Doug's condition, Larry stayed by her side and comforted her. In
the days that followed, Larry made sure to insinuate himself into
Hope's life, counseling her and, basically, earning her trust. He
also earned the trust of her family. Tom
Horton, Julie
Williams, and, of course,
Doug, made no secret that they preferred Larry over Bo as Hope's
suitor. Though Hope continued to be in love with Bo -- a fact obvious
to Larry -- their relationship continued to suffer. Finally, they
broke up. And Larry was conveniently there to pick up the pieces.
After a while, Larry and Hope grew very close, and he asked her to
become his wife. In doing so, he scored symptathy points by
remembering his first wife, Cynthia, who had been tragically run over
by a car (Larry neglected to mention that Cynthia had just left him
when she was killed.) Hope was touched by the fact that Larry opened
up to her and promised to think about his proposition. He tried to
influence her decision by taking her on a trip to Las Vegas, where
she continued to become more interested in him. Meanwhile, Bo Brady
was shot. When Hope heard of it, her reaction told Larry that she
still hadn't forgotten him.
Meanwhile,
Larry discovered that Bo's new supposed lover, Diane Parker, was a
former prostitute who was hiding from her pimp. Better yet, he
noticed that she was mildly interested in Bo. As a result, Larry
decided to coerce Diane into helping him break up Bo and Hope for
good. If she didn't, he would make sure that Nick, her pimp, would
hear about her. Larry's plan certainly worked, as Diane reluctantly
played both Bo and Hope in order to create a permanent rift between
them. Thinking that Bo no longer cared for her, Hope accepted Larry's
proposal. Larry then whisked her away to New York City while the
wedding preparations were made. When they finally returned to Salem,
it was time for their wedding. Everything went off without a hitch.
However, Larry received an unpleasant surprise when he lifted the
bride's veil to kiss her. Rather than finding Hope, he found Howie
Hoffstedder, a friend of Bo Brady's, wearing a wig. Such was Larry's
fury that he decked Howie and began a frantic search for Hope. She
would eventually be found in the Simmons farm in Brookville with Bo;
men taking orders from Larry forced her to leave Bo Brady a note
saying good-bye and kidnapped her. Afterwards, Larry made sure that
Bo was arrested for various misdemeanors. In jail, thugs apparently
sent by him gave Bo a good thrashing that sent him to the hospital.
Finally, Larry then had a good talk with Hope in which he explained
to her that he would make sure that more terrible things would happen
to Bo and her family if she didn't marry him. Thus, Hope willingly
married Larry out of fear.
However, Larry was not actually the one behind such nefarious acts. At this time, Maxwell Hathaway, a powerful New Orleans banker, arrived in Salem with his daughter Megan. It was he who was telling Larry what to do and how to do it. Maxwell belonged to an occult international syndicate called The Cartel. It was The Cartel's wish for Larry to advance to higher public office in order to have an ally in the government. The plan was to groom Larry for an eventual federal office, possibly the presidency. And so, now that Larry was married to an influential, well-to-do woman, the order of business was for them to raise a family. By way of a butler named James London, Maxwell kept tabs on Hope and Larry and informed him that he needed to get Hope pregnant. Feeling the pressure from Maxwell, Larry tried to seduce Hope. Unfortunately, Hope didn't hide the fact that he sickened her and refused to have anything to do with him. The stormy situation led them to sleep in separate rooms. However, he continued to try to get her into bed in order to fulfill the Cartel's desires. That finally came to an end when Hope told Larry that she was pregnant with Bo's child. She claimed that she and Bo had made love at the farm just before his men had kidnapped her. At first, Larry was suspicious of the story, but Tom Horton confirmed to him that she was pregnant. Elated, Larry gave Maxwell the news and pretended that Hope was pregnant with his child. Larry and Hope would both pretend it was their child to have that task finally out of the way. In the meantime, he turned to Gwen for comfort and began to have a secret affair with her. Though it only began as a casual fling, both Larry and Gwen grew to care a great deal about each other.
Meanwhile, The Cartel urged Larry to run for the office of Lt. Governor. The campaign would call for Larry and Hope to pose publicly as a loving, expecting couple. Though Larry wasn't thrilled with the idea, he was enthused by the possibility of winning the election. However, Hope refused to go on the month-long campaign, citing medical reasons related to her pregnancy. Larry was somewhat suspicious of this and tried to have Hope examined by his own physician, but Tom Horton managed to put him off. Nevertheless, Larry remained suspicious and decided that Hope would stay in their home permanently throughout the campaign, guarded by one of his men, Will Robbins. The campaign had an auspicious beginning, but soon it all unraveled thanks to a little scandal regarding Larry's parentage. Word was leaked to the press that Larry Welch was as un-American as one could possibly get. As it turned out, Larry was the son of a Communist scientist named Victor Chorvat, who had sold secrets to the Soviets in the 1950's. To avoid espionage and treason charges, Chorvat worked with the Soviets to strike a deal with the United States in which he would be traded for an American spy. And so, Chorvat escaped to the Soviet Union, leaving his 5 year-old son behind, who would later be adopted by the Welches. As a result of these news, Larry's popularity plummetted. To make matters worse, Larry's connection to the Cartel, Maxwell, was suddenly killed, leaving Larry utterly defenseless.
Still reeling from the results of this scandal, Larry came home one day to find Will attempting to rape Hope. He saved her. However, Will then told Larry that his wife wasn't expecting; she'd been faking the pregnancy with a pillow and meeting Bo Brady behind his back all along. Furious, Larry accosted Hope and they fought on the staircase, until Hope hit him so hard that she sent him tumbling down the stairs. Hope thought Larry was dead, but he was just unconscious. When he finally woke up, he found that his wife had skipped town on a private jet headed for Haiti. His wife's desertment and her fake pregnancy forced Larry to save face by stating publicly that Hope had miscarried and had gone to Haiti to recover. Hours later, her airplane would crash into the Atlantic Ocean. The plane's crash quite possibly saved Larry's campaign, for he once again took to the cameras and gave a tearful speech about his loving wife being on that plane. The public sympathized with Larry so much that, as the polls were closing, his popularity rose once again. Larry ended up winning the election by a narrow margin and became the state's next Lieutenant Governor.
Ecstatic, Larry privately celebrated his victory and his riddance of Hope with Gwen. Nevertheless, Gwen was not happy. For months, she had been Larry's dirty little secret, and she wanted more from him. Finally, she confessed to Larry that she had been the one to leak to the press the news about his real father. She had done it out of spite for being kept on the side as a mistress when she actually loved Larry. Though initially enraged at Gwen, Larry also admitted his feelings to her and promised that soon they would be able to be together. He was sure that Hope would not return to Salem. So confident was he of this that Larry began to spend Hope's money, since it would eventually go to him. Unfortunately for him, most of the passengers on the plane survived and were found alive on a deserted island. Hope was one of those survivors. When Hope finally returned to Salem, a televised press conference was called to welcome the survivors back. At that conference, Hope unexpectedly revealed everything about Larry: his connections to the shady Cartel (which had been discovered to be headed by criminal Stefano DiMera), his blackmail of her, and her fake pregnancy. The outrage caused by Hope's public declarations gave Larry no other choice but to resign.
Seething from his astounding downfall, Larry sought to find a way to make not just Hope, but the entire Horton family, pay for what she had done. He didn't have to wait very long to get his opportunity. On New Year's Eve, Anderson Manufacturing exploded and a man on fire ran from the plant. Tom and Alice Horton were driving by and tried to help the man. That man, Paul Selejko, died as a result of Tom's treatment, which included a morphine shot. Upon hearing this, Larry urged Gwen to represent Paul Selejko's son, Speed, in a negligence lawsuit against Tom Horton. Though Gwen was hesitant about hurting the Hortons, she went ahead with the lawsuit to please Larry. Meanwhile, Larry began a nasty smear campaign against the Hortons in the media.
Also
during this time, Leopold Bronsky, a Soviet businessman and a friend
of Victor Chorvat's, arrived in Salem in order to bring the last of
three "Prisms" to Salem. Stefano DiMera had utilized the Cartel and
its members to acquire three prisms (crystal-like objects) that
Victor had designed for the Soviet Union, the last of which was
disguised inside an ice sculpture. In theory, when placed together
underneath a laser, the prisms revealed coded designs for various
technological and medical breakthroughs. That was the reason for why
Stefano wanted them. However, Bronsky knew of a different purpose for
the prisms. One evening at the Body Connection, he invited Larry to
have a chat with him in the hot tub. There, Bronsky explained that
the third prism was nothing but a booby trap against the United
States; once it was thawed out of its ice casing, the prism would
change into various colors until finally turning blood red, at which
point it would cause an explosion so devastating that it would
destroy most of the state. Bronsky urged Larry to gather his things
and leave the city, and he certainly took that in consideration. On
another note, later that same evening, Megan Hathaway was found dead
in the very hot tub where Larry and Bronsky had their clandestine
meeting. The curious detail about her death was that the hot tub was
electrified, yet Megan had died of a blow to her head. Even more
curious was that Hope was the one who found Megan and was suspected
of murder. Meanwhile, one of Larry's fingers was badly
burned...
Megan
Hathaway had actually been Stefano's daughter and helped him in his
quest to find the Prisms. After his political defeat, Larry had held
Stefano and Megan responsible for ruining his career. As a result,
the police questioned him about Megan's death. However, Larry said he
was innocent, proposing that Stefano was repeating what he had done
with the Slasher murders and eliminating all the members of his
Cartel. Since there was no evidence to link Larry to Megan's death,
he was free of suspicion. Almost immediately, Larry began to make
plans to leave for Europe and urged Gwen to come with him; he didn't
tell her that Salem would soon be history. Naturally, Gwen refused,
as she was still trying to win the case against the Hortons. This
turned out to be a moot point as the prism was successfully diffused
and disposed of by the ISA. During this time, Larry began to have
strange nightmares. In one of his nightmares, he recalled how he had
argued with Megan at the Body Connection after speaking with Bronsky.
Megan had been furious at Larry for going along with Chorvat's
revenge because it meant Stefano would die. During a violent
struggle, Megan tried to shove Larry into the electrified hot tub,
but Larry pushed Megan away and against the wall; the blow to her
head killed her instantly. Afterwards, Larry placed Megan's body in
the electrified hot tub and left the scene. Unbeknownst to Larry, he
tended to talk in his sleep. While having one of his nightmares, Gwen
woke up and heard him confess to killing Megan.
It wasn't long before Larry noticed that Gwen knew his secret. After killing Megan, Larry had taken her gym bag, which contained all of the equipment she had used to electrify the hot tub, and hidden it in his closet. Larry saw that Gwen had moved the gym bag and also perceived her to be jumpy around him. Afraid that her conscience would lead Gwen to tell the police the truth, Larry began to slowly poison her with arsenic. However, Larry soon felt guilty for hurting the only woman he had ever cared about and decided to stop. But when Larry overheard Gwen playing a tape of his nightly confessions, he resumed his plot. She had recorded him talking in his sleep and planned to tell Chris Kositchek, so Larry decided to kill her despite his affection for her. Larry poured a glass of orange juice and dumped the entire bottle of arsenic in it, ready to give it to Gwen. Just as he was going to give it to Gwen, Larry had a change of heart at the last moment and confessed to Gwen everything that had happened with Megan. Gwen decided to stand by him because she loved him too much to abandon him. Unfortunately, Larry forgot to dump the tainted juice and Gwen drank it. When he returned to the kitchen where he had left it, he found Gwen lying in a coma on the floor. Gwen survived the close call and quickly recuperated. However, knowing that Larry had tried to kill her, she realized she could never trust him. Although she promised that she would never tell anyone the truth about Megan, Gwen packed her bags and left Salem.
Meanwhile, Larry obtained a job working for Linda Anderson in her quest to acquire Salem real estate. While working for her, Larry discovered that she and Alex Marshall had purposely blown up Anderson Manufacturing on New Year's Eve; Paul Selejko had planted the bomb and gotten himself killed. With this information, Larry was able to blackmail Linda and Alex for a tidy profit. In November 1985, ruthless businessman Victor Kiriakis was arrested for running a drug ring. Victor, with whom Larry had done business, summoned him to his jail cell. Larry was shocked to hear that Victor knew he had killed Megan (how Victor found out was never explained.) Victor promised Larry that he would never reveal that secret if he confessed to being the head of the drug ring and going to prison in his place. Victor assured Larry that he would not do more than two years in a minimum-security white-collar prison. As an added incentive, Victor offered Larry $5 million. Preferring to be rich and serve time for drug trafficking, rather than possibly serving time for murder, Larry gave in to Victor's blackmail and confessed to running the drug operation. He was quickly convicted and sent to prison.
In October 2002, Larry returned to Salem. Having just been released from prison, he had chosen to finally exact his long-overdue revenge on Bo and Hope, whom he blamed for all of his misfortune. He did this by spying on Hope for several weeks and finally kidnapping her in Cedar Rapids, Iowa along with her son, Zack.
More information to
follow!
The character of Larry Welch was
played by Andrew Massett from 1983-1985, and again from
2002-present
Back to the Character Histories
Back
to Beth's Days of Our Lives Page