Eric Forrester is a fictional character from the American CBS Daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, played by John McCook. He made his debut screen appearance on March 23, 1987, the show's first episode. The character appeared briefly on The Young and the Restless in 1993, 1995, 1996, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2017, and 2021. McCook had also played Lance Prentiss from 1976 to 1980. Eric is a famed fashion designer whom is known for his marriages to Stephanie Forrester. Over the years, he got divorced from Stephanie, and often he aroused her jealousy, when he had been involved with many other women, whom are listed as follows: Margo Lynley, Beth Logan, Brooke Logan, Sheila Carter, Taylor Hayes, Sally Spectra, Maggie Forrester, Lauren Fenmore, Jackie Marone, Donna Logan and Quinn Fuller.
Backstory Eric and his wife, Stephanie, are co-founders of the Los Angeles-based fashion house, Forrester Creations, with Eric as its lead designer. They have five children: Ridge, Thorne, Kristen, Felicia and Angela. Two different retcons have taken away two of his children. The Angela that Eric meets in 1988 proves to be an imposter who replaced the real Angela when she died in an accident years before. In 2001, it is revealed that the biological father of his firstborn, Ridge, is billionaire shipping magnate, Massimo Marone.
Forrester Creations was first started with a $100,000 loan from Stephanie's father, wealthy Florida businessman John Douglas, despite his disapproval of her marriage to Eric. The combination of Eric's designing talent and Stephanie's business acumen and connections made Forrester Creations a great success, both in prestige and profits. For a time, those profits are eaten away by a far less prestigious rival, Spectra Fashions, which makes knock-off fashions all too similar to Forrester designs.
Storylines Eric is struggling in his marriage to Stephanie. Eric declares the marriage "stale" while Stephanie blames their woes on his assistant, Margo Lynley, with whom she suspects he is having an affair. Stephanie inadvertently brings an actual "other woman" into his life when she hires a catering company which has employed the young, Beth Logan. After Eric meets Beth, Eric wants to resume their love affair from thirty years before. Another employee is Beth's daughter, Brooke, who later proves an even more serious rival for Eric's affections.
Eric eventually leaves his wife for Beth, but what brings him back to the Forrester home is the revelation that he has a 24-year-old daughter he never knew about: the microcephalic Angela. Stephanie had pretended she had had a stillbirth to spare Eric the pain of knowing his daughter was so severely disabled. Stephanie had hired a doctor to give Angela around-the-clock care in a secret house, never guessing that Angela would live until adulthood. It turns out the doctor, Todd Powell, had accidentally killed the real Angela years before. The daughter Eric meets is a perfectly functional imposter.
Other urgent matters—including the secret, withheld even from the partly amnesiac Thorne himself, that Thorne shot Ridge in the back of the head—keeps Eric home for a while. Stephanie's machinations, which bring Beth's estranged husband back in town, keep him out of that bed. But then his son, Ridge, and the publishing heiress, Caroline Spencer Forrester, discover the lies Brooke told to keep them apart and Caroline leaves Thorne for Ridge. Ridge ends his relationship with Brooke, and Eric is drawn to Brooke.
Eric offers comfort to a distraught and emotionally disturbed Brooke. Eric began to pursue and support Brooke, and she eventually becomes pregnant with Eric's child. They keep their affair quiet as Eric is in the middle of a divorce and was fearful of what Stephanie might do. Stephanie initially learns of the relationship through Thorne, stunning Stephanie who had no idea her husband and Brooke were even involved. Eric marries Brooke and they welcome their first child, Rick Forrester. Ridge and Brooke become close again and Brooke decides to divorce Eric to be with Ridge. She becomes pregnant with what she believes is Ridge's child, Bridget Forrester, but it is revealed years later that Eric is the father. Eric remains very affectionate and protective of Brooke.
In 2001, the shipping magnate, Massimo Marone, comes to town and woos Ridge's mother, Stephanie. Ridge opposes his efforts, and during a heated argument with him, cuts his hand deeply. This leads to a hospital visit and a doctor's discovery, divulged to Stephanie, that the blood types of Eric and Ridge make it impossible for them to be father and son. Stephanie reveals to Massimo that he is Ridge's father, conceived during a trip to Lake Geneva in their college days. The truth eventually comes out to both Eric and Ridge, and at first it puts an extra burden on the already strained relationship between them. Yet, despite the efforts of Eric's biological sons, Thorne and Rick—who exploit Ridge's lack of a biological tie to Eric—he continues to favor Ridge over the rest of his children.
In 2005, Eric divorces Stephanie when he finds out that she faked a heart attack. He returns to Brooke and they remarry, becoming co-CEOs of Forrester Creations and firing Stephanie. Stephanie later discovers a trust which her father had set up for her 40 years before which Eric kept hidden, making her sole owner of the company. She fires them as CEOs but rehires them as designers, consigned to a basement office. The pair divorce the following year and Eric returns to Stephanie.
Eric's marriage to Stephanie is strained again when he learns that her machinations to get rid of Brooke. This leads, by a circuitous route, to Eric and Donna Logan, Brooke's sister, becoming secret lovers. Eric's family are against this relationship, and scheme to keep them apart. Nick Marone, who now owns Forrester, makes divorcing Stephanie a condition of selling the company back to Eric. Stephanie prepares a more devious plot after she is shot and discovers who shot her: Donna's brother, Storm Logan. She conceals her knowledge that Donna and Brooke's brother, Storm Logan, shot her from the police on the condition that Donna leaves Eric. The schemes fail and Stephanie and Eric divorce, and he and Donna marry later that month.
Eric has a heart attack while having sex with Donna and falls into a coma. Donna has his power of attorney, thus making her acting CEO of Forrester Creations. As CEO, Donna gives promotions to Rick, Marcus Forrester (her newly rediscovered son, whom Eric adopts) and the mysterious Owen Knight; and she fires Ridge, Thorne and Felicia. Later, it is revealed that Eric was deliberately poisoned with potassium chloride, which was probably in the gin he drank just before his attack. Everyone is a suspect, including Owen Knight, who—out of unrequited love for Donna—confesses to the crime to take suspicion off her. But it turns out that Stephanie's sister, Pamela, poisoned Eric by giving him a potassium chloride-laced lemon bar. Her intention was only to weaken him and discredit Donna (thus avenging Stephanie) in the process.
Eric eventually recovers, but the schemes to break up his marriage continue apace. Donna gives her enemies ammunition by allowing Owen to kiss her. Just then, Eric—whom she thought was lost forever—is wheeled into the room and sees them. He eventually forgives her, but Thorne hires Donna and Owen lookalikes to make out in front of a secret camera (which a suspicious Eric himself had installed) in Owen's office. The truth eventually comes out, and Eric and Donna remain together.
At one point, Ridge thought Eric was lost forever, too. He even heard Eric's voice, begging his son to let him go. Ridge listens to this grief-induced hallucination and pulls the plug on Eric's breathing machine. After his recovery, Eric learns of this seeming treachery, which allows his younger son, Rick, to exploit this rift. Eventually, Eric fires Ridge and appoints Rick as President of the company. Later, Eric has a change of heart and steps down as CEO so that he can give the job to Ridge. The animosity between Rick and Ridge reaches new heights when Rick accidentally crashes his car and kills Phoebe. Rick manages to use even this situation as a means of exploiting Eric's pity. But he still is unable to get his way, which leads to him secretly stealing Forrester designs and giving them to Forrester's rival: Jackie M. Designs. Eric eventually forgives his son and resists efforts from Stephanie and others in the family to prosecute him for his crime.
Sales at Forrester are bad. The public hates the marriage between Eric and Donna. The company looks worse when Eric fires Stephanie, who ends up working at Jackie M. Designs, and still worse as Thorne and Felicia quit and Brooke takes a leave of absence. Pam sabotages the latest showcase by showering Donna—wearing the showstopper gown—with honey, both a reference to Brian De Palma's 1976 film, Carrie (in which the title character is showered with blood) and to Eric and Donna's well-known habit of using honey during sex play. All this—along Eric's use of illegal immigrants as employees—gives Bill Spencer Jr., the previously unknown illegitimate son of Eric's old rival Bill Spencer, the chance to take over the company. Bill's various efforts fail, until the Forresters are 30 minutes late on their bank loan. Bill pressures the banker to foreclose and sell him the company. The Forresters are furious, but Eric vows to win the company back. Ridge's daughter, Steffy, outsmarts and blackmails Bill into selling the company back to the clan. Eric, Stephanie, Ridge and Taylor Hayes (Steffy's mother) end up as equal co-owners of the company.
Eric objects when Donna hosts a talk show called The Catwalk, which is owned by Spencer Publications. Especially objectionable is how close this brings her to the Spencer employee, Justin Barber, Donna's ex-boyfriend and the father of Marcus. Their marriage is further strained after Stephanie has a fight with them, then leaves Donna's mother, Beth, who due to advance Alzheimer's and being alone, falls into and drowns in the Forrester swimming pool. Donna wants to press charges, but Eric refuses to let her. Donna realizes how strong the ties are between Eric and his ex-wife, and this realization leads to their divorce. When Stephanie proves to have stage-four cancer, Eric's love for her bubbles to the surface, and the two reunite.
Ridge's son, Thomas (by Taylor), wants to make his mark on the fashion industry with a new line called Taboo, which he promotes via scandal: he surprises Brooke on the runway with a kiss. His purpose is to exploit the public's fascination with his stepmother's pseudo-incestuous romances (with Ridge, Nick, Thorne and Eric), but Taylor worries that Thomas is genuinely attracted to Brooke. Eric supports the line, which leads to a clash with Ridge, who vehemently objects to it. At one point, Eric confesses to Ridge that he feels Taboo is payback: Thomas is doing to his father what Ridge did to his. Eric however, discounts the fact that Brooke was first Ridge's sweetheart, fiancée and almost the mother of his children after she had three miscarriages and fails to see that he should not have dated one of his son's ex-fiancées, let alone marry her.
The relationship between Eric and Stephanie falls into crisis when Eric asks his partner to have a physical approach because he feels a lack of affection, but Stephanie refuses because the Cancer makes her feel unattractive. Eric moves closer again to Jackie. Ridge finds out what is going on between Eric and Jackie and warns his father not to hurt Stephanie again. Eric decides to respect Stephanie's choice and goes back to her. The two again find happiness.