Steve
Olson is the son of Ben and Addie Olson, brother of Julie Olson, and
half-brother of Hope Williams. He is also the father of Spencer
Olson. Steve began as a smart, well-mannered son of wealthy parents.
But as he grew up independently, he soon learned how to take
advantage of people in order to achieve his own goals. In the end, he
became nothing more than a common, smooth-talking
con-artist.
When Steve first appeared, he was merely a sounding board for his sister Julie. She had been caught stealing from Bartlett's Department Store and was in a heap of trouble with their parents. Steve told her to be sensible and accept any punishment their parents gave her, but Julie only threatened to run away. Although Julie resented their parents' lack of attention, Steve seemed to almost bask in it. He was studious and independent enough to handle things on his own. That's why when given the chance to go to a prestigious boarding school, Steve gladly accepted. In April 1966, Steve left Salem. Sometime during his high school years, Steve decided to join his parents, who had moved to Paris.
In
the summer of 1972, Steve returned to Salem to visit his mother, who
had moved back to Salem following Ben's death, and his sister. Steve
quickly struck up a light relationship with Mary Anderson. However,
Steve was not satisfied with the lack of entertainment in Salem.
Longing to be back in the big city, Steve stopped seeing Mary and
went back to Paris at the end of the summer.
In
the fall of 1978, Steve met up with his sister and her new husband,
Doug, when they visited Paris. Steve was overjoyed to see Julie, but
only because he was broke and desperately needed to pay gambling
debts. He immediately asked Doug for a large amount of money without
Julie's knowledge. Later, he asked Julie for money without telling
Doug! After only spending a day with them, Steve had already extorted
large sums of money. When they invited Steve to come back to Salem,
Steve readily agreed. He began working at Doug's Place as a host with
Dave, but he desperately wanted to make money and fast. His first
step toward that direction was to create a rift between Doug and
Julie so that he could get money from them more easily. Also, he
stole some money from the petty cash box at Doug's Place and made it
look like Theresa Harper, a singer/waitress at Doug's Place, had
stolen the cash. However, he realized that he couldn't keep on
stealing from Doug and Julie like that forever. Julie, who was
founding a jewelry boutique named Chez Julie, asked him to help her
out with the store. Steve quickly realized how he could use Chez
Julie to his advantage and decided to be Julie's bookkeeper! In no
time, Steve had embezzled over $50,000 from his own sister. Suddenly,
he decided that Chez Julie would benefit from selling unique antiques
as well as jewelry, and traveled to Paris to do some shopping. Aside
from shopping for antiques, Steve also visited his girlfriend Mimi
Grossett, and assured her that they'd soon be rich.
While he was scheming to get rich quick, Steve also became infatuated with Mary. Though she was involved with Chris Kositchek, Steve was able to sweet-talk her into dinners. Even though Mary told Steve numerous times that she wasn't looking for a relationship with him, he made Mary believe that there was more to Chris' friendship with Stephanie Woodruff than met the eye. Before long, Steve successfully slithered his way into her life. But despite all his scheming, Steve always took a backseat to Chris.
Meanwhile,
Steve got yet another brilliant idea when he got wind of someone
named Earl Roscoe who could create fantastically flawless replicas of
antiques. Steve got in touch with Roscoe and asked him to create a
few dozen replicas to sell at Chez Julie. The replicas sold very
well...but Steve sold them as originals and pocketed the profit! Soon
after, Theresa, who knew of Roscoe's talent, took notice of the
artifacts being sold at Chez Julie and mentioned it to Doug. Doug
began to watch Steve and soon discovered what he was doing. Knowing
that Doug was onto his game, Steve sold his last batch of phony items
to Harold Trask, a wealthy banker, and prepared to leave the country.
At the last moment, Doug managed to get hold of Steve's check and his
plane tickets and told him to turn himself in for grand larceny.
Desperate, Steve held Doug at gunpoint and took his belongings. He
would have made it out of the country, but the guilt of having used
Julie was too much. He returned soon after his skirmish with Doug to
Doug's Place. He and Doug made a deal: Doug wouldn't expose his many
crimes if Steve told Julie that the antiques he'd been selling were
fakes. Steve agreed and confessed to Julie, and agreed to take the
blame in order to keep Chez Julie from being closed down. However,
Steve still viewed Doug as a potential threat and vowed to break his
relationship to Julie. After Julie was scarred in a fire, Steve did
everything he could to convince her that Doug was too shallow to love
her. After some time, Steve achieved his goal and Julie divorced
Doug.
Having lost his easy money, Steve focused his attention toward Mary, who he still lusted after. He continuously instigated fights between Chris and Mary, to the point where she and Chris finally broke up. Steve took the opportunity to date Mary, but she was still hung up on Chris. One night, on his way to pick Mary up for a date, Steve saw Chris slightly hit her with his car by accident. Seizing the moment, Steve took a distraught Mary to his apartment and poisoned her mind against Chris, making the accident seem like more than what it was. Finally, he convinced Mary to sue Chris. Even though she hadn't been physically harmed, Mary agreed to go along with Steve's game to get even with Chris for hurting her. Steve hoped that this lawsuit would make Mary his once and for all, and provide him with a comfortable amount of money.
Meanwhile, Steve traveled to Paris once again to attend a jewelry auction for Chez Julie with his Parisian girlfriend Mimi. At the auction, he met the wealthy Byron Carmichael, who looked remarkably a lot like Doug, except he was much older, had gray hair, cancer, and a mustache. Steve became acquainted with Byron and told him all about Doug. Also while in Paris, Steve met with a former business partner, Durand, who claimed that a girl from Salem named Trish Clayton had stolen diamonds from him. Seeing an opportunity knocking, Steve promised to retrieve Durand's diamonds. In the meantime, he and Durand plotted to smuggle canes containing diamonds to the U.S.
After returning from Paris, Steve was disappointed to find that Mary dropped the lawsuit. Still, he considered himself victorious in getting Chris out of Mary's life. He continued to date her, and soon she offered him a public relations job at Anderson Manufacturing. He hoped this would get him into Bob Anderson's good graces and assure him a wealthy future.
At the same time, Steve successfully smuggled the canes from Paris and kept them at Chez Julie, saying that they were only worth about $250 each. Although he asked Maggie and Julie not to touch those canes, Maggie wound up selling two of them. When Ed Simpson, Durand's henchman, came to the store to pick up the canes, he noticed that two were missing and threatened Steve's life if he didn't get the diamonds in those canes back. Steve was able to retrieve one of the canes, which Maggie had sold to Alice as a present to Tom. But the other cane had been sold to Harold Trask, who had subsequently gone on vacation in Europe. Desperate to have some uncut diamonds, Steve went to Trish and demanded that she return Durand's diamonds. She refused, however, and Steven was forced to threaten her. Trish had problems of her own, because she didn't have the diamonds either. Both Steven and Trish were running scared, and Ed Simpson thought that both were working together to swindle Durand. But just when they believed that things couldn't get better, Simpson wound up murdered. Maggie had found him trying to crack the safe at Chez Julie and shot him when he'd attacked her! Steve and Trish agreed to keep their connection to Simpson a secret to avoid being prosecuted for diamond smuggling. Trying to get away from his connection to Simpson, Steve hastily informed Julie that he was resigning as manager of Chez Julie and that Maggie could take care of the store herself. But he still had that pesky problem with Durand's cane, the one Harold Trask had bought. When Harold finally returned from vacation, Steve managed to buy it back from him and was finally able to give Durand his entire cache of diamonds back.
Over at Anderson, where he was Stephanie Woodruff's assistant, Steve already had one powerful ally: Linda Anderson. He and Linda had been in cahoots when Mary had been planning to sue Chris. And Linda was willing to help him snag Mary. Every seemed to flow well for Steve, and after a bit of time dating Mary, Steve finally decided that their relationship should be more exclusive (Mary was also seeing Alex Marshall on the side.) She agreed to become more intimate with him, and they took a romantic ski trip and made love. After that, Steve asked Mary to marry him. She turned him down flat. She didn't want to commit. With nothing left in Salem, Steve made preparations to return to Paris.
Before leaving, Steve needed money and had time for just one more scheme. The year before, he had unwittingly helped Lee DuMonde romance Doug Williams. Now, he was seeking payment. Steve knew that Julie still loved Doug, and vice-versa, and that Lee had only married him for his money. So Steve ordered Lee to divorce Doug and give him half of her settlement. However, had fallen for Doug and said no way. Steve threatened to tell Doug that Lee was a goldigger and had cheated on Byron, her late husband, many times. Fearing that she'd lose Doug, Lee gave Steve a cache of emeralds that had belonged to Byron. With this small fortune, Steve bid adieu to Salem and returned to France.
In 1991, Julie mentioned that Steve
was still living in Europe and had a son named Spencer from an
affair. Not much else is known about Steve's current
whereabouts.
The character of Steve Olson was
played by:
Flip Mark (1965-1966)
James Carroll Jordan (1972)
Stephen Schnetzer (1978-1980)