| Dr. Dorian Lord Buchanan | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Robin Strasser as Dr. Dorian Lord Buchanan | |||||||||||||||||||
| One Life to Live | |||||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Robin Strasser (and others) |
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| Duration | 1973–1987, 1989–2000, 2003–2011 | ||||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | May 5, 1973[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | August 25, 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Cause/reason | Moved to Washington, D.C. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Created by | Agnes Nixon and Gordon Russell | ||||||||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gender | Female | ||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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| Title | Dr., Mayor, Senator | ||||||||||||||||||
| Residence | Washington, D.C. Formerly La Boulaie, 56 Lincoln Street, Llanview, Pennsylvania [2] |
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| Elaine Princi as Dorian Lord | |||||||||||||||||||
| Claire Malis as Dorian Lord | |||||||||||||||||||
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Dr. Dorian Lord Buchanan (née Cramer; formerly Callison, Santi, Vickers, Hayes, and Laurence) is a fictional character and matriarch of the Cramer family on the American daytime drama One Life to Live, most notably portrayed for nearly three decades by Robin Strasser. Strasser was cast by series creator Agnes Nixon[5] and first appeared in the role April 13, 1979.[6][7] For most of the show's history, the character has been the show's primary antagonist and Byronic hero.
Strasser won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series in 1982 for her portrayal of Dorian,[7][8][9] and was also nominated for the award in 1981,[10] 1983,[11] and 1985.[12] Strasser has been nominated for Soap Opera Digest Awards for Dorian in various categories in 1986,[13] 1988,[14] 1994,[15] 1995,[16] and 2005,[17] winning in 1996 as "Outstanding Lead Actress."[7][18] Princi was also nominated for a Soap Opera Digest Award as Dorian for "Outstanding Villainess: Daytime" in 1992.[19]
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The character of Dorian was originated by Nancy Pinkerton in April 1973,[20][21] and was subsequently played by Claire Malis from February 1977 to April 12, 1979.[20][21] Strasser was hired for the role by OLTL creator Nixon in 1979, debuting April 13, and left in 1987,[7][21] after which Elaine Princi played Dorian from 1989 to 1993.[21] Strasser returned in January 1993, appearing on February 19 and stayed until February 23, 2000.[7] She reprised the role from April 2, 2003 until August 25, 2011.[7] In 1974, actress Dixie Carter filled in for Pinkerton, who was out on maternity leave.[22]
Dorian arrived in fictional Llanview, Pennsylvania in 1973, along with her mentally ill sister, Melinda. Dorian took a physician position at Llanview Hospital, where she quickly began an affair with her married colleague, Dr. Mark Toland. Melinda, in the meantime, wanted Mark for herself. Upon learning of their affair, she schemed to drive them apart. After attacking Mark with a butchers knife, Melinda was sent to a mental institution.
Dorian and Mark continued their affair. During an intense exchange between the two, Dorian made a careless error on a medical chart, resulting in the accidental death of a patient. Fearing for their careers, the two covered up the crime; extenuating circumstance, meanwhile, led to Dr. Larry Wolek being arrested instead. With the guilt on her shoulders, Dorian later wanted to confess, while Mark was content to allow Larry to take the fall. As they argued over how to handle the situation, Dorian accidentally fell down a flight of stairs and went into a coma. Upon waking, Dorian confessed and was immediately fired by the hospital board; she blamed Victoria Lord, a prominent member, for her termination. This started the rivalry that would last for decades. What Dorian didn't know, and finally learned in 2003, is that Viki cast the lone vote against her termination.
Swearing revenge on Viki, Dorian became the private physician to Viki's ailing father, Victor Lord. With dollar signs on her mind, Dorian ended up marrying Victor, to Viki's chagrin. Dorian discovered that the newly arrived Tony Harris was Victor's illegitimate son. Unable to keep the truth from being revealed, he and Victor shared an emotional reunion. Wanting to ensure that Tony's presence would not take away from her inheriting Victor's enormous fortune, Dorian succeeded in soon turning Victor and Tony into enemies and keeping them at odds. In the interim, Dorian manipulated Victor into altering his will in her favor. Victor ultimately learned that Dorian was behind his and Tony's contentious relationship, and suffered a massive heart attack during his confronting her. Desperate, Dorian isolated Victor from the rest of his family; Victor soon died under mysterious circumstances. In his wake, Dorian was named executor of the Lord estate. With half of the controlling interest in Lord Enterprises, Dorian was the owner of The Banner until Viki assumed control of the newspaper by purchasing Dorian's stake.
With their adversarial relationship as heated as ever, Dorian decided to try her hands at Viki's husband, Joe Riley. Dorian fueled the fire even more when she told Joe that he was responsible for the hereditary heart condition which afflicted his and Cathy Craig's ailing daughter Megan, a secret that Viki had been keeping from him. This strain on Viki and Joe's relationship succeeded in allowing Dorian to become closer to Joe. He started having blackouts, and Dorian soon learned that Joe had a brain tumor; she lied, telling him that he got violent with her during his blackouts. She convinced Joe to leave Viki, for Viki's own good. However, Joe got wise to Dorian's schemes and swore he wanted nothing more to do with her.
Despite her conniving and vindictive nature, she does have a tender and genuine side towards those she cares for. She is also very claustrophobic, which was later explained to be due to abuse at her mother's hands; actress Strasser has stated that this character trait was added because she also suffers from claustrophobia.
Dorian has a long list of people who she has scorned and fought over the years: Pat Ashley, Asa Buchanan, Kevin Buchanan, Sloan Carpenter, Paul Cramer, Tony-Harris Lord, Mitch Laurence, Todd Manning, Julie Toland, David Vickers, Jenny Wolek, Jason Webb, Wanda Webb Wolek and Clint Buchanan. Although Dorian has had many rivals over the years, her most famous and longest rivalry has been with Viki.
For decades, Viki has been One Life to Live's primary heroine, with Dorian as the primary villainess. The two have feuded about almost everything, stemming largely from Viki's contention that Dorian had something to do with her father's death. However, it was later proven that Dorian had had nothing to do with Victor Lord's death, but Viki, in one of her alters, (she has Dissociative Identity Disorder) had killed him to prevent him from sexually abusing her again. In fact, it was Dorian herself who had told her that Victor had been sexually abusing her. In August 2007, Dorian made the startling (and vague) claim that she had actually killed Victor after all. Having planted a seed of doubt in Viki's mind, she refused to elaborate.[23]
Sometimes, however, the feuding rivals often have helped one another in a crisis, such as with Viki's breast cancer, and her heart transplant. (For that, Viki extended to Dorian the job of Chief of Staff at Llanview Hospital.)
One very good example was when the two of them were trapped in an avalanche. Dorian confessed to her arch-rival that she was claustrophobic. And Viki never left her side for a second. This, once again, bonded the two women.
However, despite many truces, the two women are considered frenemies. One minute, the two would be at one another's throats about something, and the next, they would team up against a common enemy, such as Echo DiSavoy, whom both Dorian and Viki have good reason to dislike. Dorian, although Viki would perhaps be loath to admit it, has shown that, in her own way, she does have some care and compassion for Viki. Viki and Dorian have shown that they are more alike than either one would care to admit.
Viki dislikes Echo for destroying her marriages to Clint and Charlie; and Dorian despises Echo for her blackmailing Clint to lie about Charlie being the father of Rex Balsom and the grandfather of Shane Morasco, when, in reality, it was Clint who was the father of Rex and the grandfather of Shane. This is perhaps their biggest truce to date.
Dorian, at some times, often stokes the flames of the feud, to try to get Viki rattled. Examples included Dorian seducing Viki's son, Joey Buchanan; and framing Viki for embezzlement, when Dorian herself had done the dirty deed.
Dorian currently controls one half of Lord Enterprises, including The Banner, the WVLE station, as well as a life interest in the Lord Llanfair mansion. As of 2006, Victoria Lord Davidson discovered the truth about Dorian Lord's blackmail scheme and came to a decision not to turn Dorian in, if Dorian relented her control in Llanfair Mansion. Dorian therefore was forced to move out of Llanfair and into La Boulaie (Dorian's name for the estate once owned by Marty Saybrooke).[2]
| “ | You've spent most of your life being a "Viki wanna-be" ... taking her last name, running a newspaper like hers, naming your house, landing her lover—even her son Joey. | ” |
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— Addie Cramer, February 5, 2008
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Dorian dated Clint Buchanan, breaking up with him after he caught her in bed with David Vickers, which she did out of revenge for what she believed to be an affair between Clint and Nora. Dorian, solely for the sake of revenge for their breakup, organized a hostile takeover of Buchanan Enterprises, setting a series of events in motion which led to the death of Jessica Buchanan's husband, Nash Brennan. When Jessica (in her alter as Tess, which came about as a relapse) tampers with the brakes on Jared and Natalie's car, Viki gets in the car, and dies in the crash. However, Dorian comes to her arch-enemy's aid and, with her medical know-how, brings her back from the dead. To her and David's delight, Viki pulls through and is slated to make a complete recovery. David even offered to annul his marriage to Addie, which Dorian demands that he follows through on. Dorian and Viki have a heart to heart and the two form another tentative truce. Ever since then Dorian has been visited by her the ghost of her husband and a close friend of Viki, Mel Hayes, who oddly manifests himself as an African American woman working various odd jobs.
In Fall 2009, Dorian decides to run against Viki for mayor of Llanview. Dorian's lesbian campaign manager Amelia Bennett (played by the same woman who plays the various incarnations of Mel) arranges a rally and fund-raiser with the LBGT community; in a stunt to gain support for her campaign, Dorian suddenly announces that she is engaged to Amelia, and voices her support for gay marriage. On November 2, 2009, Dorian and Amelia participate in a mass gay marriage, with Dorian vowing to legalize the unions if she is elected mayor.[24] When Mitch Laurence returns yet again from the dead, he blackmails newly appointed Mayor Dorian to do his bidding or he'll kill one of the Cramer women. This causes her family to turn their backs on Dorian, unaware that what she is doing is for them. She then decides to use Charlie's grief over his son, Jared's, death to kill Mitch. However, Mel's ghost once more appears and helps Dorian to see the error of her ways. She then stops Charlie at the last minute but he winds up then shooting Jessica by mistake. She tells her girls the truth about her action and re-instates Bo. All the Cramer women then reunite in Llanview, except Melinda who turns up dead.
Dorian and David eventually reunite and make plans to remarry. On their wedding day, however, Clint has David kidnapped and thrown into a Moroccan prison as revenge for David destroying Clint's marriage to former stripper Kimberly Andrews. Dorian, believing David simply left her at the altar a second time, is devastated and busies herself with her mayoral duties. In March 2011, Dorian begins a flirtation with the much-younger Cutter Wentworth; just as they are about to have sex, David returns to Llanview, having been rescued from Morocco by Bo and Rex. Dorian and David gleefully reunite (after he convinces her that he did not leave her at the altar and was kidnapped by Clint, and to dump Cutter because he was a gold-digging con artist who was only after her money, and would later break her heart and dump her for the money.) and marry for a third time at the Llanview courthouse, with Bo and Viki as their witnesses. Dorian returns home with David from Hollywood, California after production wraps on his biopic "Vicker Man", only to be both fighting about David's alleged affair with his co-star Ionia Masters, who plays the onscreen version of David's wife Dorian in the movie. David denies the affair. Both Dorian and David are unaware that Echo DiSavoy secretly hired Ionia to seduce David away from Dorian, so that she can seek revenge against Dorian for helping Viki to ruin her affair with Viki's now ex-husband Charlie. Echo also told Viki that Dorian caused Clint's heart attack, threatening to drive a wedge between Viki and Dorian's new found reconciliation. However, Echo was merely lying to Viki, to get even with her and Dorian for ruining her affair with Charlie. Viki, in essence would rather believe Dorian, who had been in her life, for good or ill, since her marriage to her father, and does show that she cares about her, over Echo, who hated Viki so much that she ruined two of her marriages.
On July 15, 2011, Dorian is the one to figure out by herself that Echo was the person who was sabotaging her marriage to David after she confronts Echo outside her La Boulaie estate. After Dorian and Echo fight each other using garden hoses, Echo kidnaps Dorian. Echo later takes Dorian hostage at the Minute Man Motel, but Dorian's seven year old great nephew Sam Manning soon saves the day by rescuing her from Echo's clutches while wearing a Spider-Man mask, and spraying Echo against the wall with foam made spider webs. Police Detective John McBain eventually finds Echo, Dorian, and Sam at the motel, where he arrests Echo. Dorian soon reunites with her husband David at the police station, and they both go back home and make love. Dorian is later blackmailed by Rex to drop the kidnapping charges against Echo. Dorian and David attend the movie premiere of "Vicker Man" at the Palace Hotel, where Dorian has a confrontation with Ionia Masters after she notices that both of them are wearing the same dress. David later helps break up the fight by having the movie's director Markko Rivera send Ionia home in a cab. Dorian and David's movie premiere (Dorian served as an executiver producer on the film, while David played himself) is later upstaged by porn producer Rick Powers, who switches the "Vicker Man" movie with his porno flick "Hold The Diploma", which stars local Llanview teenagers Nate Salinger and Deanna Forbes. Dorian and David later learn that Rick put the "Vicker Man" movie on the internet. In August 2011, Dorian announces that she is leaving Llanview to run for the senate in Washington D.C., after the previous senator was caught in a sex scandal. When David finds out about the news, he offers to give up his acting career to be with Dorian in Washington D.C. Dorian refuses David's offer, saying that he get bored with Dorian and that he needs to follow his dream. Both Dorian and David decide to balance their busy careers with David being in Stockholm, Sweden to do his movie, while Dorian runs for the senate, with David coming back to Dorian after three months in Sweden, so that he can be there for her on Election Night in November. Dorian is surprised by a going away party being held by her family before she leaves Llanview. David seeks Dorian, but Starr tells him that she has to say goodbye to the most important person in her life.
On August 25, 2011, Viki goes to Dorian's office to wish her good luck in Washington. Instead, they have a falling out over Clint's actions and heart attack, and Dorian slams the door that Viki left open. Viki decides to leave, but discovers that Dorian jammed it shut when she slammed it "oh, so theatrically." With their cell phones in their cars, no way to call out on the landline and the building empty, Dorian and Viki are left to be trapped together one last time. Dorian says it's fitting that she should be trapped one more time with her nemesis, but instead Viki claims that Dorian is her own nemesis and the two are more of "frenemies." After a quick argument, Viki apologizes to Dorian for blaming her for Victor's death. She goes on to tell her that she is, in fact, her friend and that, "in a very odd way", she loves her. She tells Dorian that she is truly sorry for ever causing her pain. Dorian, on the verge of tears, utters the words, "I hate you". She tells Viki that she wanted to be the one to apologize and be the bigger person, with Viki replying, "so be it." They tell each other that they will miss one another, and they toast to each other. A montage of the two is shown and Viki tells Dorian that she has made her life. After all the years beginning with a misunderstanding about Dorian's termination from the hospital, their long-running feud ended. David shows up rescuing them both, but was annoyed with Dorian for hugging his "best friend", and Dorian tells him that Viki is her "very, very good friend". After arranging to be able to talk on the phone periodically, (when David suggested it, both of them answered in unison, "It's not the same!") Dorian and Viki shake hands one last time and say good-bye to one another. As David and Dorian turn the corner on their way, Dorian says "Well, you know that expression, one door closes, another door opens."