Calling on Collins
Kate Collins left AMC in 1992 to move to Chicago, where she and husband Charles Newell continue to raise their two sons, Jake and Luke. Since then, she’s made multiple return trips to the show to reprise the sister roles she originated, Natalie and Janet. Here’s a recap of those visits.
1997: Though Natalie bit the dust in 1993 (Melody Anderson was playing her at the time), Collins returned as Nat’s ghost, who gave counsel to her troubled son, Tim. Nat urged Tim to give Janet, who was dating Trevor, a second chance.
1998: Ghost Natalie, who gave her blessing to the Trevor/Janet union, was there to welcome the beloved Dillon doggy, Harold, to heaven when he succumbed to cancer.
2001: Ghost Natalie, along with Ghost Jeremy, Ghost Cindy, and some other familiar Pine Valley goners, helped the recently deceased Gillian adjust to the afterlife.
2005-06: This is when Collins reclaimed the role of Janet, who returned to town after Amanda was the victim of a hit-and-run (JR was responsible, but Babe claimed that she was driving). Janet had stopped taking her anti-psychotic medication and unleashed a crime spree on Pine Valley (for which she tried her darndest to frame Jonathan).
She kidnapped Little Adam; she kidnapped Brooke, Joe, Opal and Krystal and tried to sink them in quicksand; she burned down the roadside bar with Greenlee and a pregnant Kendall trapped inside; she put Kendall in a hammock dangling from the Fusion rooftop; she put narcotics in the soup the Chandlers ate at Thanksgiving; she knocked David unconscious and scheduled him to have open heart surgery; she pushed Di through the ice at the boathouse. Janet’s not-so-reliable opinion was that her actions were justified because the people in town had wronged Amanda. She revealed her presence at the Mardi Gras ball, where she tried to convince Erica that Amanda was innocent of Erica’s drugging (she was, in fact, innocent; Josh was responsible but had framed Amanda for the crime). Erica was dismissive, stoking Janet’s ire. Amanda begged her mom to leave town and seek help, but Janet disregarded her and rigged a bomb to explode, killing Ethan. Janet then kidnapped both Babe and Little Adam, whom she renamed Remy (short for Rembrandt) and planned to raise as her own. Amanda tracked down her mom, who was apprehended by the authorities. Amanda was crushed to discover that Janet, in her unspooled mental state, had killed Trevor. Before Janet was sent to a state psychiatric facility, she told JR that she had seen his presumed-dead mother, Dixie, at the Mardi Gras ball. 
2007: Amanda sought counsel from Janet when the Satin Slayer was on the loose, hoping that Janet’s insight into the mind of a psychotic could help stop the serial killer in his tracks. Adam then broke Janet out of the mental hospital and manipulated her into helping him kidnap Krystal and Tad’s newborn daughter, Jenny. Janet ultimately did the right thing and returned the little girl. She went back to the psych ward. Later, Janet met Richie at the psychiatric facility and found him charming. She helped him escape.
2010: Janet was revealed to be Amanda’s stalker, “AmandaFan.”
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