1980: Because the character has been aged, his birthday is officially listed by ATWT as July 6, 1971, but viewers first learned of Paul, then 3, when Barbara started getting mysterious calls from his adoptive parents, Raymond and Claudia Colfax. She eventually confessed to Tom that she had given birth to the boy after a whirlwind love affair with Swedish royal James Stenbeck while she was in art school in New York; they had broken up because his family wanted him to marry someone else. Without telling James he had a son, Barbara had given Paul to good friend Claudia to raise, but Claudia's new husband, Raymond, had become abusive to his wife and child. Tom helped Barbara win back custody -- just as James came back to town. Babs resisted a romantic reunion with the dashing aristocrat and became engaged to Tom, but Stenbeck soon learned that he was Paul's father and confronted her on her wedding day. Babs tearfully left Tom at the altar and ran off to the Caribbean with James.

The Stenbeck fortune first became a problem for the couple when Charles Ivenstrom, whose daughter was pregnant by James's brother, tried to kill them so his grandchild-to-be, rather than Paul, would inherit the money. Barbara was shot, but survived, and she and James married. Following Charles's arrest, the funny uncle accused James of wedding Barbara so he would have access to Paul's inheritance. James assured Barbara that this was ridiculous. By year's end, he had hired Margo as Barbara's private nurse; Margo would become his lover.