Oliver Fish

Oliver Fish is a fictional character on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live, portrayed by Scott Evans from January 15, 2008 through April 12, 2010. The June 2009 announcement that the character would be romantically linked to another man in an ongoing storyline came to wider attention when Patricia Mauceri (Carlotta Vega), was replaced after reportedly voicing personal religious objections to her character's involvement in the plot.

Impact and controversy

Initially brought in as Oliver for five episodes in January 2008, Evans returned more than 30 times over the next year-and-a-half, noting in a June 2009 interview with AfterElton.com that his appearances had been "building up" since the beginning of 2009. Oliver played a supporting role in several storylines, and was briefly linked romantically to two female regular characters, Layla Williamson (Tika Sumpter) and Stacy Morasco (Crystal Hunt).

On June 15, 2009, the openly gay Evans confirmed rumors that Oliver would be going through a "coming out story" and hinted at the character's possible past and future romantic entanglements with male character Kyle Lewis (Brett Claywell). "I think right now it's going to be a story of his journey and how he's dealing with all this stuff ... he's doing everything in his power to kind of put this [being gay] on the backburner and not let it be a part of his life, but with Kyle in the picture, it's just coming to the forefront."TV Guide later quoted Sue Johnson, vice president of daytime programming at ABC, saying: