Occupation: Student & Personal Assistant

Appearances: Seasons 5 & 6

Who’d Play Him: Sean Faris

The Gopher Who Got Caught in the Crossfire: Steven Chandler was Jacqueline Lamont’s personal assistant, production aide, and occasional spy. Although his official duties placed him around Sunset Studios and its film productions, his real value to Jackie came from his willingness to handle discreet assignments, gather information, and quietly manipulate situations on her behalf.

When Jackie became concerned that Brooke Taylor was neglecting Sunset Studios because of her growing attraction to Kyle Fenwick, she used Steven to push them closer together. At her direction, Steven arranged for Brooke and Kyle to become trapped inside a new restaurant at Moonshadows. The confinement gave them the opportunity to acknowledge their attraction and share a passionate kiss.

Steven could not have anticipated that Don Fenwick would discover they were inside and set the building on fire in an attempt to kill Brooke. David Jennings arrived in time to rescue them, but the incident demonstrated how Jackie’s relatively minor manipulations could place people in genuine danger. Steven remained in her service despite the near tragedy.

Jackie later placed Steven on the Sunset Studios production of House of Palms as a production assistant and her personal source of information from the Acapulco location shoot. While observing the tensions among Stormy Blackthorne, Kyle, director Eric Autumn, and the film’s demanding stars, Steven began purchasing drugs from local dealers. His reckless behavior brought him dangerously close to the criminal activity surrounding the production.

The disorder on the set concealed a much larger conspiracy. Bryan Carlson had become involved with an Acapulco drug cartel after taking Jackie’s angry wish that Brooke would disappear as an instruction. The cast and crew of House of Palms became targets in a plan designed partly to remove Brooke from David’s will and partly to extort millions from the wealthy people connected to the production.

When cartel gunmen attacked the cast and crew, Eric Autumn, Cassidy Solomon, and a security guard were murdered. Steven was kidnapped along with Brooke, Stormy, Kyle Fenwick, and Jack Childers. After Kyle escaped from an abandoned sugar refinery and Jack later fled during a dispute among the cartel leaders, Steven, Brooke, and Stormy were transferred to a deserted bunker in the jungle.

For a time, the people back in Los Angeles believed Stormy had been killed, while Steven and the others remained prisoners with little hope of rescue. James Blackthorne and David Jennings eventually located the captives and killed cartel leader Manuel Pacheco, freeing Steven from the crisis Jackie and Bryan had inadvertently set in motion.

Steven entered the Acapulco production as Jackie’s eyes and ears, expecting to report on romantic entanglements and studio conflicts. Instead, he became a hostage in an international cartel operation and witnessed the murder of several colleagues. His experiences exposed the danger of serving powerful people without questioning how far their schemes might reach. down while trying to help save her.