| Leanna Love | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Young and the Restless | |||||||||
| Portrayed by | Barbara Crampton | ||||||||
| First appearance | October 1987 | ||||||||
| Last appearance | January 11, 2007 | ||||||||
| Cause/reason | Left town | ||||||||
| Created by | William J. Bell | ||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||
| Aliases | Leanna Love | ||||||||
| Gender | Female | ||||||||
| Occupation | Journalist | ||||||||
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Leanna 'Love' Randolph (formerly Newman) was a fictional character in the American soap opera, The Young and the Restless. She was portrayed by actress Barbara Crampton from October 1987 to 1993. She then returned from 1998 to 2002 and briefly reappeared from February 2006 until January 2007.
Leanna first appears on the show as the obsessed ex-patient of psychiatrist Steven Lassiter, who was Ashley Abbott's husband and starts stalking the newly-weds. During the course of the show, she becomes more of a mainstream character, still ambitious and obsessed, but this time with money and fame. She is a cloud with a silver lining, as her sensitive side emerges multiple times. Jack Abbott (Terry Lester/Peter Bergman), the arch-nemesis of Victor Newman (Eric Braeden), arranged for Leanna to write a sensational tell-all biography of Victor under the pseudonym of Nora Randall entitled Ruthless: The Victor Newman Story. Ironically, Victor had also hired her to write an authorized biography of his life, under the pseudonym Kelly Carpenter. Without Jack's knowledge, Leanna added an extra chapter to "Ruthless" that exposed Jack's sister Ashley's (Eileen Davidson) affair with Victor, including Ashley's subsequent abortion. Victor's ex-wife, Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott), who was pregnant with Victor's baby, hoped that they would eventually resume their marriage. But when Ruthless was published, Victor assumed that Nikki was the one to give "Nora Ranall" the information about Ashley's abortion (an assumption that was true) and quickly divorced her. In a surprising move, Victor married Leanna, in order to prove the press that he did not divorce Nikki in order to marry Ashley. Because Leanna felt guilty about the expose novel, and had come to genuinely care for Victor, she wrote another book called Victor Newman - Man and Myth, under her real name. Meanwhile, Victor devised a plan to punish Jack for his role in the publication of Leanna's book about Victor's life. Victor orchestrated a takeover of Jabot, displaced Jack and made Brad Carlton (Don Diamont) his superior. Victor and Leanna soon divorced and Victor married Ashley.
Five years later, following Victor's divorce from Diane Jenkins (Alex Donnelley), Leanna made another appearance. Diane's scheming lawyer, Michael (Christian LeBlanc), arranged for Diane to appear on Leanna's talk show, The Leanna Love Show, in order to gain public sympathy for the settlement hearing. Still bitter over Victor's treatment of her five years ago, Leanna was happy to oblige. As revenge for this, Victor tricked Leanna into selling him The Leanna Love Show, and then fired her.
In 2006, Leanna, now a journalist, returned to Genoa City to interview Ashley, who was being charged with the murder of Tom Fisher (Roscoe Born) (she was covering for her amnesiac father, John (Jerry Douglas)). Leanna lied to Ashley that she would paint a flattering picture of her, but instead, made Ashley look guilty.Leanna has been scheduled for a debut in the end of May 2011.
Leanna returned once more in 2007 to conduct an interview with David Chow (Vincent Irizarry) about the death of Carmen Mesta (Marisa Ramirez).