Jack Harcourt Deveraux and Jennifer Rose Horton are fictional characters and a supercouple from the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives, whose history spans from 1989 until 2012. The two have been portrayed by more than one actor/actress since their inception, but were originally, most recently, and most famously portrayed by Matthew Ashford and Melissa Reeves. Fans have nicknamed the couple "J&J" or JnJ" (for Jack and Jennifer) on internet message boards. For their portrayal of Jack and Jennifer's romance, Ashford and Reeves won Soap Opera Digest Awards for Favorite Supercouple in 1991 and Best Love Story in 1992.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
Storylines Backstory Jack Deveraux was the adopted son of Harper Deveraux. Harper was a U.S. Senator, and Jack was an aspiring politician, but it was revealed that Harper was a sociopathic killer. At one point, Jack was a suspect for the killings in town, and it seemed that his father was actually trying to frame him.
Unbeknownst to Jack, he was really Billy Johnson, Jo Johnson's son and Steve Johnson's baby brother. Jo had given up her boys for adoption when she feared that her abusive husband Duke would kill them. Young Steve Johnson watched helplessly as his baby brother Billy was adopted and taken from him.
Jack was raised in the lap of luxury, but he was not given a very compassionate upbringing. When he came to town, he tried to woo Kayla Brady and when Steve found out Jack was really his brother and that Jack was dying from Hodgkin's disease, he pushed Kayla away and encouraged her to marry dying Jack. Jack recovered, and Kayla was unable to consummate their marriage. Jack felt that Kayla just needed time to get to love him, and he tried to be patient. Kayla became sick when Harper began poisoning her, and Steve saved her life. Steve told Kayla why he had pushed her away and then the two began an affair, with plans to end her marriage to Jack after his election. Jack found out about the affair and was enraged by Kayla's constant rebuffs and promises that she would one day be ready. When he was rebuffed again, he showed her the pictures and then he raped her in a violent rage.
In the ensuing months, he descended full-time into his anger and let it shape and define him. Desperate to please his father (who was a sociopathic misogynist), Jack tried to be Harper's son and he worked hard at bringing down the people who had scorned him: Kayla and Steve. He tried to warn Steve away from his wife by having him beat up. Eventually Steve and Jack fought on the rooftop of the loft where Jack had lived with Kayla. Jack fell and almost died, but Steve gave his baby brother a kidney, saving the younger man's life.
Eventually Jack found out he was Steve's brother, and he was angry and bitter. He gave Kayla a divorce but still maintained that he was provoked into his attack on her, and refused to call it rape. He plea-bargained to domestic assault when she took him to court, and he continued to harass her whenever he saw her. He claimed he had been railroaded into that plea-bargain.
Meanwhile, Melissa Horton, his assistant and Jennifer Horton's cousin, was in love with him. He was encouraged by his stepmother Angelica to use Melissa's feelings for him to try to secure Harper's Senate seat, left empty by Harper's conviction for murder. The other candidate was Melissa's adoptive father, Mickey Horton, and Angelica felt that Melissa's support of Jack would lend strength to his campaign.
Melissa saw Jack making romantic plans with another woman on the day of their wedding, and she left him at the altar. Jack's career aspirations as a politician were in shambles, and he spent a great deal of time and energy trying to destroy Mickey Horton's reputation, as well as that of Mickey's nephew and Jennifer's brother: Dr. Mike Horton. Having completely alienated his biological family as well as the Hortons and Bradys, Jack was mostly a social pariah.
1989–90 Desperate to keep "The Spectator" from printing an exposé on his dirty dealings as a politician, Jack purchased a controlling share and changed his destiny. He abandoned his political goals and became a newspaperman. At first, Jack's involvement in the paper was purely intended to squelch the truth, but soon he became caught up in the actual business of reporting the truth.
Jennifer was young and fairly inexperienced in the ways of life. Although she had had many puppy-love romances, Jennifer had yet to consummate them, waiting for the "right guy". Jennifer began a college internship for Jack as a cub-reporter. Her initial feelings towards Jack were unfavorable due to his treatment of Kayla and Melissa, but Jennifer soon learned that her boss had a different side to him.
Jennifer refused to let Jack make excuses for the terrible things he had done, and she called him on the carpet whenever he tried to use his newspaper to gratuitously hurt people he didn't care for. She also gently pushed him to try to get closer to his family.
Jennifer was dating Emilio Ramirez, a former gang member who had also had some negative dealings with Jack during the days when Jack was actively tormenting Steve and Kayla.
Jack started to develop feelings for Jennifer and started half-heartedly pursuing her while trying to throw monkey-wrenches into her relationship with Emilio, who he deemed to be a deadbeat and not good enough for her. Jennifer didn't seem to return those feelings at first, but began to see that Jack wasn't someone she needed to fear and the two formed an odd friendship. Emilio left town after a skirmish involving Adrienne (Jack and Steve's younger sister) and her ex-husband Justin. Emilio, who had had sex with Adrienne, had tampered with Justin's car, and although he wasn't sent to jail, Jennifer could not be with someone who would do something like that.
Jennifer wanted to foster a baby girl named Hannah after Hannah's mom was convicted of robbery and sent to jail for three years. Ironically, Hannah's mother had committed the crime so that she would have the shelter of prison when giving birth. Jack, who himself felt he had been abandoned by his mother Jo, refused to write an editorial supporting Hannah being with her mother in jail.
Jennifer was then injured in the pursuit of a story for the Spectator, and a frantic Jack realized that he was in love with her. He concocted a plan to fake marriage with Jennifer so that Jennifer and he could spend more time together in a more intimate setting. At first, Jennifer was very wary of the idea and point-blank brought up the fact that his track record was lousy and he was very difficult to trust. In the end, she agreed to the plan, but the foster agency refused to give a baby to a man who had assaulted his ex-wife.
Jack was hurt by this, but Jennifer was honest with him about how his past made it hard to trust him. Jennifer decided to move into the apartment Jack had rented out to fool the social worker, and with some behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the still-tricky Jack, she ended up fostering the baby for a short while.
Jack was adorably endearing helping feed and care for the very young child, and seeing him with the baby made Jennifer develop warmer feelings towards him. Jennifer lost custody when Sally's parents decided to take custody of their granddaughter. Jennifer was furious with Jack for failing to warn her about this when he had known it was happening, but in the end, she turned to him for comfort when she realized he just didn't know how to tell her.
Emilio came back to town, and Jennifer ended up getting involved with him again, but by now, Jack was always on her mind. She did not yet realize she loved Jack, but she verbally and emotionally sparred with him in a way that gave off super-couple sparks. Jack continued to try to move in on Jennifer, but refused to admit that was what he was doing.
Jennifer's constant urging that he do the right thing ended up having a huge effect on Jack. The newspaper business was also a very good influence on him, and before he knew it, he found himself wanting to do good things for the sake of doing them, and not for the sake of being thought a hero. He tried to subtly get closer to Steve, Adrienne and Jo; Steve was very leery of the purported change.
Steve's presumed-dead wife Marina came to town and blackmailed Steve to help her find a key. Intrigued by this, Jack started to try to snoop around, and Steve kept warning him to keep out of it. Eventually, Jack struck up a friendship with Marina's very kind sister Isabella, whom she had been keeping locked up in a sanitarium. Jack helped Isabella escape, and the two struck up a genuine friendship. At this time, Isabella's blind acceptance of him, as well as the other good influences in his life, had pushed Jack into becoming the kind of person who took responsibilities for the things he had done. Jack began to feel that he was a terrible person who didn't deserve a woman like Jennifer. He was terrified he would end up hurting her like he had hurt Kayla, or the way Harper had hurt all the women he had attacked, or even the way Duke had hurt his mother and sister.
As Jack began to realize the depth of how bad his past actions were, he frantically sought to push Jennifer away. Jo Johnson and Isabella Toscano both tried to get him to see that he and Jennifer made sense. Jennifer had fallen in love with Jack by now, and she was finally admitting it to herself. Although initially against the match, her grandmother was also starting to see the magic between the two.
Jack ended up finding the missing key and helping Steve find Kayla, who had been kidnapped by Victor Kiriakis (who also wanted the key, since he had been searching for it for years) this finally brought Jack together with Steve, and although his relationship with his family was still on shaky legs, Jack was asked to be Steve's best man at his remarriage to Kayla, who was also struggling to accept the reformed Jack. During the Key incident, Jack had tried hard to persuade Kayla not to leave Steve, and Kayla had finally realized that Jack really did want to help bring Steve and Kayla together.
Jack discovered that the treasure behind the key was Isabella's mother's diary. The diary revealed that Isabella was Victor Kiriakis's daughter, and that Isabella's father, Ernesto, had killed Isabella's mother. Frantic to protect Isabella from this harsh and terrible truth, he ripped out the truth-revealing pages and gave her the rest of the diary.
Jennifer tried to force Jack into declaring himself by getting engaged to Emilio, but Jack held steady. Jennifer tried on numerous occasions to seduce him, but Jack tried very hard to resist her, believing firmly he did not deserve Jennifer.
Harper contacted Jack in an effort to get Jack's help in convincing the parole board that he should go free. Jennifer and Jack shared a very passionate set of kisses when Jennifer tearfully begged Jack to start seeing himself as a good man. Jack was convinced that he was just like Harper and that he owed to Harper, as his son, to help him.
Jennifer desperately wanted Harper to leave Jack alone, because Jack was doing so well at travelling a redemptive path. Jennifer felt Harper was a toxic weight around Jack's neck. Furious that a "little girl" presumed to tell him what to do, Harper told a frightened Jack that he would kill Jennifer if she continued this behavior. Although Harper was in jail, Jack knew that his adoptive father would find a way to make it happen, so he pushed Jennifer away by firing her.
Jennifer was quickly hired by WATB, a television station, and ended up becoming an anchorwoman.