Seven-year-old Phillip Spaulding's world would change forever in 1977 when his mother befriended Jackie Marler; only he wouldn't know it yet. The son of wealthy
Alan Spaulding and Elizabeth Granville, Phillip had his every wish catered to and was exceptionally close to his mother. While his parents were going through a nasty divorce in 1978, Phillip was having chest pains and started receiving treatment from Dr. Justin Marler, Jackie's ex-husband. Phillip bonded with Justin and after his parents divorced, he encouraged his mother to marry Justin in 1979. At about the same time, Alan married Jackie. Phillip was content to have Justin and Jackie as stepparents and became close to both. However, in 1980, Justin and Jackie would divorce their prospective spouses and find love again with each other. In 1981, Elizabeth would unexpectedly leave Springfield for Switzerland and left Phillip in the care of the Marlers. Though confused as to why his mother left and why he was living with his "Aunt Jackie" and "Uncle Justin" instead of his father, Alan, Phillip accepted the situation and soon left Springfield to attend Lincoln Prep School. Late that year, while Phillip was on Christmas break from Lincoln Prep, he finally apologized to Mike Bauer about his treatment of Mike during the time Mike and Elizabeth were lovers. Thrown out of Lincoln Prep School at 17 (
SORAS), Phillip returned to Springfield in 1982 to attend Springfield High. He and Freddie [later calling himself Rick] Bauer became best friends when Phillip covered for Freddie after Freddie, who was driving with Phillip in his car, was pulled over for speeding and didn't have his driver's license. By this time, Jackie had died in a plane crash and Justin was seeing an Italian woman named Helena Manzini, a relationship Phillip disapproved of because he felt it was too soon after Jackie's death. Meanwhile, Phillip was hanging out with a rough crowd. When Phillip and Freddie were nearly involved in an accident, they realized perhaps the crowd they were hanging out with really weren't their friends and they stopped associating with them. Not long afterwards, Phillip met his first love, Melinda "Mindy" Sue Lewis, who in 1983, out of insecurity, staged a rather dramatic accident while riding her horse and was consequently hospitalized. During his visits to Mindy in the hospital, he developed a strong attraction to her roommate,
Beth Raines. Both Phillip and Rick were attracted to Beth, but Phillip backed off and continued to endure Mindy's spoiled behavior in deference to Rick's attraction to Beth. At the senior prom Rick and Beth went together, as did Mindy and Phillip but it was Phillip and Beth who were named King and Queen. Finally on the night of Mindy's 18th birthday party at the Country Club, Phillip and Beth finally confessed their true feelings for each other in the stables. However, Beth's stepfather Bradley found them and shocked Phillip by telling him the truth about his parentage: Alan and Elizabeth weren't his real parents; the Marlers were. Apparently, Alan felt his wife was too fragile to handle the fact their baby was stillborn and he bought the child Jackie was giving up. After Phillip learned the truth, he was not only furious at Justin and Alan, but also at Mindy and Rick, who both knew the truth before he did and didn't tell him. Angry and hurt, Phillip told Rick he was in love with Beth. Though he had initially rejected both his fathers, Phillip, upon learning Justin was flying out of town, tracked him down at the airport and not only forgave him for keeping his parentage a secret, but also gave his blessing for Justin and Helena to marry. It was at this point Beth was raped by Bradley. Ashamed of what happened, she told no one and rejected Phillip. Phillip turned to Mindy for comfort and she seduced him without using birth control. Alan was also relieved to see Phillip and Beth growing apart since as far as he was concerned Beth was from a lower class and didn't deserve his son. Beth soon moved into the
boarding house to try to get away from Bradley, but he got a court order and forced her to return home. When Beth returned home, Phillip was waiting, and they jumped out of a window and ran away to New York. Not long after, Phillip had an affair with Rick's girlfriend, Meredith Reade after the couple had broken up. Distraught, Phillip agreed not to tell Rick about it and was genuinely relieved when the couple patched things up and got married. Later Meredith found herself pregnant and although Rick knew he wasn't the father, agreed to raise the child as his own without knowing whom the father was. Along came Blake Lindsey, Phillip's PR-agent at Spaulding. Phillip fell in love with her but didn't know Blake was actually paid by Alan to spy on him. After Alex revealed Blake's schemes and her true identity as the daughter of presumed dead Roger Thorpe, Phillip bitterly left Blake but, later, he forgave her and the couple reconciled. Then tragedy struck in April 1989, when during the delivery of Meredith's baby, Rick was forced to choose between Meredith's life and that of the unborn child. Rick chose Meredith. Later, Rick learned from a letter from Alan that Phillip was the father. Though Phillip tried to explain it happened before the couple had married and after they had temporarily broken up, Rick still felt betrayed and it took him a long time to forgive Phillip. Prior to Phillip and Blake's wedding, a series of accidents started occurring. The trouble came to a climax at their wedding when gunfire rang out and Phillip was shot! It was then that the truth came out: Alan was behind the accidents in order to keep Blake from marrying Phillip and accidentally shot Phillip after having a struggle with a very much alive Roger. While Roger was exposed to everyone, Alan wasn't exposed immediately as the shooter. Roger was first suspected but finally convinced Ross, Phillip and Alan-Michael of Alan's crimes so the three decided to trick Alan into walking again. While Alex was in Europe, Roger appeared into the Spaulding mansion and appeared to shoot Phillip and Alan-Michael. Shocked, Alan stood up from his wheelchair, was exposed of all crimes and went to jail. Immediately after his arrest Alan told Phillip he'd forged Beth's death certificate: there was no proof Beth was dead. After learning of Harley's pregnancy, a hurt Susan left Springfield to live with Jim but later corresponded with Harley by phone. Later, Susan called Harley asking for help after she shoplifted a dress, telling her she was at a strange bus station outside Springfield. So, Harley has arrived at the bus station outside of Springfield to collect Susan. While there, a creepy man who had been eyeing Susan turned his attention to Harley. The two of them struggled, and Harley managed to kick him in the groin. Meanwhile, Jim arrived and flattened the perpetrator. When Phillip showed up, he and Jim argued about Harley's involvement in Susan's life with Jim complaining Susan was envious of the life Phillip and Harley lead. Phillip offered to solve the problem by moving the two of them to Springfield and gave Jim a job at Spaulding. Harley was forced to mediate between Phillip and Jim who did not get along with Jim even ended up quitting Spaulding to work at Lewis Construction. However, Phillip continued to grate on Jim, and when Jim threatened to leave town, Harley convinced Phillip to give him a reason to stay. So, to please Harley, Phillip bribed Jim to stay (although by now Jim was dating Beth so he was already planning on staying anyway). That summer, Harley finally gave birth to a son, who was named Alan Cooper Spaulding, with Harley deciding to nickname him "Zach" after the lead in Phillip's novel. In the Spring of 2006, Phillip's Uncle Ross was apparently killed when his plane went down on the way to San Gabriel. After some investigating, Harley learned Alan was telling the truth—Phillip was alive. Rick confirmed it and admitted Ross suspected the truth and set out to find him. Determined not to be found, Phillip asked Rick to have the plane sabotaged so Ross couldn't take off. Tragically, the plane went up anyway and Ross was killed. In late 2007, the specter of Phillip continued to loom over Springfield. It started at Emma's seventh birthday party where she received a gift apparently from her father. Panicked, Olivia went to Alan for protection, unaware it was Alan who sent the gift as a way to manipulate Olivia into helping him. When Olivia tried to bow out, Alan upped the ante by hiring someone to break into her room and trash it. Not long after, Alan unexpectedly hired Harley to find Phillip. Though distressed at the thought of him returning, Harley decided it might be best to know his whereabouts and took the case. It didn't take long to learn Beth had received a gift from Phillip for her unborn baby. However, it came from a courier and she had no clue where Phillip was. At one point, Phillip sent Harley a card telling her to stop looking for him; she'll see him when he is ready. Afterwards, Harley spotted Zach's new sneakers and the boy was forced to admit they came from Phillip. Told Phillip would be at his ballgame, Harley and her partner Cyrus Foley waited and Cyrus tackled a hooded man they thought was Phillip. It was Remy who claimed to have run into Phillip after losing some gambling money in Clayton. Remy claimed Phillip paid him to deliver this package (which contained Phillip's old high school sports jersey) to Zach. Remy told the duo he didn't know where Phillip was, but doubted he was returning to town. Sometime later,
Bill Lewis became involved with Lizzie, and was falsely accused of being responsible for Lizzie's kidnapping (orchestrated by
Dinah Marler and executed by
Grady Foley). Despite her insistence that she believed Bill was not responsible for her kidnapping, Lizzie's faith in Bill began to wain and she slowly turned into Alan's pawn, distancing herself from Bill. In an effort to make Lizzie see reason, Bill (along with his father,
Billy), set out to find Phillip in an effort to get him to help her. Bill was unsuccessful in his search, but things would work out in a way he never expected. On February 9, 2009, in an effort to prevent Beth from marrying Alan,
Coop Bradshaw was involved in a car accident on his way to the church. Badly injured, Coop was pulled from the wreckage by Phillip. In the following episode, Phillip spoke with Alan alone, at Phillip's mock grave site. He then pulled a gun on Alan, but told him he had no intention of shooting him. He even thanked Alan for straightening him out during his time of mental illness. Later that day, he stopped an enraged Buzz Cooper from physically attacking Alan. Phillip's return jolted the entire Spaulding family, and they barely had time to adjust when Beth's and Phillip's 19-year-old son, James, returned from boarding school. James was running a Ponzi scheme and even when Phillip helped clear the charges against him, he resented Phillip's return. Beth was torn between the love of her life and the son who had only known the worst of his father. During this time Beth also helped her daughter Lizzie marry Bill Lewis. Eventually, Phillip learned he was dying. He didn't tell anyone, aside from Lillian, and tried to repair the relationships in his life with the time he had left. Beth found out in what were supposed to be Phillip's last days, and she felt devastated as well as betrayed by Phillip and by her mother. Fortunately for Phillip, Alan agreed to a bone marrow transplant, and saved his son's life, but a few days later, Alan quietly died after attending the double wedding of Lillian and Buzz Cooper and Vanessa Chamberlain and Billy Lewis. Beth was forced to break the news to her young daughter Peyton. Shortly before Alan's death, Phillip had proposed to Beth, and she had happily accepted. James and Phillip were now reconciled and Lizzie was trying for a baby. Beth also decided to return to her first love, drawing. A year later, Beth and Phillip were happily married, and were celebrating the upcoming nuptials of their best friends Rick and Mindy. ==Notable relationships==