| Victoria Lord | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Erika Slezak as Victoria Lord | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| One Life to Live | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Erika Slezak (and others) |
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| Duration | 1968–present | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | Episode 1, July 15, 1968[1] |
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| Created by | Agnes Nixon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | Blondie, Queen Victoria, Viki D, Vik (from Todd) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aliases | Niki Smith, Tommy, Jean Randolph, Princess, Tori, Victor Lord (alternate personalities) |
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| Gender | Female | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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| Residence | Llanfair, 1177 Regency Drive, Llanview, Pennsylvania | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Victoria "Viki" Lord (formerly Gordon, Riley, Burke, Buchanan, Carpenter, Davidson, and Banks) is the principal fictional character and matriarch of the Lord family on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live. Created as an original plot device by series creator Agnes Nixon, the role was originated by Gillian Spencer on the debut episode airing July 15, 1968,[2] the latter who Nixon later recast with Erika Slezak. Slezak has since become synonymous with the role, first appearing March 17, 1971 and playing Viki nearly continuously throughout the series run to become one of the most lauded and longest-serving serial actors in American media.[3]
Victoria's storylines focus on drudgery, love, and family troubles. She has remained the matriarchal figure in Llanview since her introduction on the serial in 1968. One of the longest-running characters on American daytime television, Viki has weathered widowhood (three times), divorce, a brain aneurysm, a near-death out-of-body experience, being shot, suffering a stroke, breast cancer, heart disease, a heart transplant, the abduction of three of her five children as infants, the deaths of three siblings, and the death of her daughter from lupus. Most notably, she has suffered from dissociative identity disorder since the inception of the serial.
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Victoria Lord was originally portrayed by Gillian Spencer from the One Life to Live premiere in 1968 until 1970.[2] The role was briefly recast with Joanne Dorian in 1970,[2] and again in 1971 with Slezak,[2][3] who has since become synonymous with the character. Two other actresses have portrayed Viki while Slezak was on maternity leave: Christine Jones in 1980 and 1981,[4] and Judith Barcroft in 1987.[4] In the summer of 2003, Slezak's real-life daughter, Amanda Davies, portrayed a teenaged Viki in flashbacks.[3]
Slezak has received six Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress for portraying Viki in 1984,[5] 1986,[6] 1992,[7] 1995,[8] 1996,[9] and 2005.[10] She holds the record for the most Daytime Emmy wins by a single actress; actors Anthony Geary and Justin Deas also each possess six Daytime Emmys, Geary for a single character and Deas for various characters.[3]
The eldest child of domineering millionaire publisher Victor Lord, Viki has little time for romance when One Life to Live begins in 1968. She clashes with reporter Joe Riley, but they soon fall in love; Victor disapproves and tries to keep them apart. Torn between pleasing her father and following her heart, Viki develops a wild alternate personality named Niki Smith, who falls in love with another man. Viki's illness — apparently caused by seeing her pregnant mother fall down the stairs as a child — is eventually treated, and she and Joe marry in 1969. Joe is presumed dead in a car accident in 1970, and a heartbroken Viki finds comfort with fellow reporter Steve Burke. After he is wrongly put on trial for the murder of his psychotic secretary Marcy Wade, Steve is exonerated, and he and Viki marry in 1972. A very-much alive Joe returns, having survived his supposedly deadly car accident, and Viki is forced to choose between her two husbands. Viki initially stays married to Steve out of obligation but ultimately divorces him and remarries Joe in 1974. That same year, Dr. Dorian Cramer blames board member Viki for her suspension from Llanview Hospital, and a rivalry is born that will last decades. In 1975 Dorian becomes Victor's private physician, then marries him. Viki learns she has a half-brother, Tony Lord, and Dorian plots to keep Victor's fortune for herself. In 1976, Victor dies under mysterious circumstances (although viewers are left with the strong impression that Dorian murdered him). Dorian wreaks havoc on the Lord family, and Viki and Joe have a son, Kevin. In 1978, Viki takes in Tina Clayton, the sixteen-year-old daughter of her best friend Irene Manning Clayton, who is apparently dying of cancer. Shortly after Irene dies, Viki goes on trial for the murder of her nemesis Marco Dane, but she is later exonerated following confessional testimony by Karen Wolek. Joe dies from a brain tumor in 1979, and Viki gives birth to their second son, Joe Jr., in 1980.
After a disastrous relationship with con man Ted Clayton, who brainwashes and drugs her in an attempt to get his hands on her fortune, Viki marries newspaper editor Clint Buchanan in 1982; he adopts both of her sons. Echo DiSavoy, seeking revenge on Clint for her mother's murder, seduces him in 1983 to ruin his marriage, then fakes her own death and frames him for it. Clint is later exonerated after Echo is found alive, and he and Viki reunite. Viki is shocked to discover in 1985 that her former ward Tina Clayton is in fact her half-sister, the daughter of Victor and Irene Manning, Viki's childhood friend. Thanks to the machinations of Tina's boyfriend Mitch Laurence, Viki succumbs to the pressure and Niki Smith returns. Posing as Viki, Niki divorces Clint; Viki later overcomes her illness with the realization that it had actually been triggered by her witnessing Victor and Irene in bed many years before. Clint and Viki remarry in 1986, and Viki gives birth to their daughter Jessica that same year. Jessica is kidnapped shortly after birth by Allison Perkins, a disciple of Mitch Laurence; thankfully, Jessica is returned unharmed, and Allison is institutionalized. In 1988, Viki learns that she had given birth to a baby in high school, but her father had a hypnotist erase the memory. Viki's memory is restored in 1989 when she meets Roger Gordon, the father of her child, whom she had married at the time but had been presumed dead; Viki has the marriage annulled at Clint's insistence. Roger's daughter Megan is revealed to also be Viki's daughter; she and Viki butt heads at first but ultimately get past their initial conflicts and become close.
In 1990, Viki is elected mayor of Llanview, but a shooting and subsequent stroke leaves her paralyzed and in a wheelchair; Niki Smith emerges to aid a paralyzed Viki stand up and shoot Johnny Dee Hesser when he attacks Tina. Viki recovers and later donates a kidney to Megan, who is suffering from lupus; despite the transplant, Megan dies, leaving Viki devastated. Having grown distant with Clint, Viki has an affair with Sloan Carpenter; she and Clint divorce in 1994, and she marries Sloan. Sloan dies soon after from Hodgkin's Disease, just as the existence of a second child of Victor and Irene's is revealed. Viki's stress reaches a critical point when Dorian tells Viki a secret of which she thought Viki had been aware: the fact that Victor had sexually abused his daughter as a child. With this trauma being what had actually initiated Viki's dissociative identity disorder, she splinters into several personalities, one of whom imprisons Dorian in a secret room below Llanfair. Dorian is eventually freed from her confinement, and Viki recovers after realizing she herself (more specifically, one of her alternate personalities) was the one who had smothered Victor to death in 1976.[11] The reviled Todd Manning is proven to be Victor and Irene's illegitimate son; Viki and Todd eventually become close. After a failed reconciliation attempt with Clint, Viki meets and falls in love with Ben Davidson, who is eventually revealed to be the long-lost son of Asa Buchanan and Renee Divine. Ben's first wife, Skye Chandler, comes to town and tries in vain to keep Ben and Viki apart.
Viki is diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, but survives after a mastectomy. She and Ben marry later that year. In 2001, a girl named Natalie Balsom makes the startling claim that she is Viki and Clint's biological daughter, which is confirmed by a DNA test. It is ultimately determined that Viki's enemy Mitch Laurence had secretly raped a drugged Viki around the same time she had conceived a child with Clint. Viki had unknowingly become pregnant with fraternal twins, one fathered by Clint (Natalie) and the other fathered by Mitch (Jessica). Mitch's daughter had been taken during delivery, and Viki had never known that she had more than one child. Mitch, however, had wanted his daughter to grow up loved by Viki in the lap of luxury, and had kidnapped Clint's child. She had been replaced with Mitch's daughter (who would become Jessica), and Clint's daughter (who would become Natalie) had been given away. Niki Smith emerges during the ordeal and plots to kill Ben in order to have her freedom, but when Ben is accidentally shot by Antonio Vega during a hostage crisis, Viki returns. Ben is left comatose after the shooting. In 2003, Victor is revealed to be alive, as he had faked his death years earlier; however, shortly after he returns, Victor dies--- but not before Viki gets a chance to confront him about the sexual abuse he inflicted upon her.[11] In 2004, Viki is diagnosed with heart disease and eventually needs a heart transplant. Coincidentally, a comatose Ben dies just as Viki takes a turn for the worse, and his heart is transplanted into Viki, who recovers but must face widowhood once again.
In 2007, Viki and Clint start dating again, but Dorian decides she wants Clint for herself and plots to break up the couple. Dorian's schemes succeed, and Clint ends things with Viki to start a new relationship with Dorian. Feeling humiliated and defeated, Viki leaves Llanview for a much-needed vacation and finds herself in Paris, Texas, where she tries to reinvent herself by waiting tables at a local diner. It is there that she meets patron Charlie Banks, a recovering alcoholic, and the two begin seeing one another. Viki ultimately returns to Llanview once her family discovers her secret life, and Charlie's search for his estranged son Jared leads him there as well. Viki and Charlie resume their relationship, but break up when Viki discovers that Charlie had lied about the identity of his son in extenuating circumstances. In July 2008, Viki is involved in a car accident with Dorian; Viki's heart stops as a result of the crash, but Dorian manages to revive her. Reexamining her life, Viki reunites with Charlie, and they marry on August 4, 2009. Viki runs for mayor against Dorian and wins; she steps down, however, to help her family deal with the unexpected return of Mitch Laurence, who wreaks havoc on her daughters and murders Jared in the process.
Charlie, devastated over his son's death, falls off the wagon and distances himself from Viki, choosing instead to conspire with Dorian to kill Mitch; though Dorian tries to stop him at the last minute, Charlie ends up accidentally shooting Jessica, who survives. Devastated by Charlie's actions, Viki asks him for a divorce, but thanks to Dorian's meddling, Viki and Charlie reconcile.
Viki and Charlie's marriage is further complicated by the return of Echo DiSavoy, who had almost destroyed her marriage to Clint in 1983. Also a former lover of Charlie's, Echo soon announces that she and Charlie are Rex Balsom's biological parents, the result of a fling they had after Echo left Llanview 27 years earlier. Unbeknownst to Viki and Charlie, Clint is actually Rex's biological father, but not wanting anything to do with Rex (whom he considers a gold-digging troublemaker), Clint changes Rex's paternity results to show that Charlie is the young man's father. Echo, whom Clint forces to go along with his scheme, begins insinuating herself into Charlie and Viki's marriage and uses the situation ---as well as her own drinking problem--- to bond with Charlie, much to Viki's dismay. Soon enough, Clint's paternity test switch is exposed, and a devastated Charlie (who had come to love Rex as his son) turns to Echo for comfort, unaware of her role in Clint's scheme. Charlie and Echo begin a torrid affair behind Viki's back, as Charlie has developed deep feelings for Echo but is unwilling to leave his wife. Dorian, who has suspicions about Echo and Clint's dealings, forges a truce and sides with her perennial frenemy to deal with Echo and her chicanery. Tess, Jessica's wild alternate personality, returns and marries Robert Ford the biological father of her son Ryder. Viki and Clint file for custody of Ryder in order to protect the baby from Tess. Soon, a devastated Viki finds out about Charlie's affair and asks him for a divorce. Hoping to stop Viki from gaining custody of Ryder, Tess taunts her and tells Viki that she's a failure as a mother; unable to handle Tess's cruel words, Viki turns into Niki Smith. Shortly after, Jean Randolph, another one of Viki's alters, takes over. Viki ends up fainting during the hearing for Ryder's custody, and she regains control from both Niki and Jean. The judge decides against giving custody to Viki, Tess, or Robert Ford, instead allowing Joey and his wife, Aubrey Buchanan, temporary custody of the baby. Though Charlie and Echo break up once he learns of all her lies, he and Viki proceed with their divorce, and he leaves Llanview to return to Paris, Texas. Viki is saddened to learn that Clint is dying and needs a heart transplant; she encourages him to fight and reminds him that she went through the same situation herself several years earlier. Viki insists Clint do all he can to make amends for his behavior and get himself in good health, the two grow close once again. On May 25, 2011, Tess' husband (and Aubrey's ex-boyfriend and former grifting partner) Cutter Wentworth blackamils Viki and Clint to extort a piece of the Buchanan fortune and the deed to the Buchanan Mansion in exchange for committing their daughter to St. Anne's. Viki refuses to give in to his demands, but Clint relunctantly agrees to his deal. Viki relunctanatly goes along with Cutter's extortion deal, and sign the commitment papers with Cutter to get her daughter professional help. On Friday June 17, 2011 Jessica returns after Ford helps her escape from St. Anne's and is divorced from her husband Cutter. On June 29, 2011 Viki signs as a witness when Clint unwillingly gives the entire Buchanan fortune to Rex in order to get Gigi's heart. This causes Cutter to lose the mansion thanks to a loophole in the deed saying that Clint could take the mansion back fom him anytime he wanted to, and hands over his house to Rex. Cutter also loses his money when the Buchanans take back their cash payment from his bank account. Clint admits he did Viki wrong and also admits he wishes he could go back and make it all right. Viki is later is visited by Echo, who tells Viki that Dorian caused Clint's heart attack, threatening to drive a wedge between Viki and Dorian's newfound reconciliation. Echo tells Viki this lie to get even with both Viki and Dorian after they both ruined her affair with Viki's ex-husband Charlie. Viki, having been burned by Echo and her schemes and lies before, would rather believe Dorian, her long-time frenemy and her former stepmother, over Echo, who had destroyed not one but two of her marriages.
Viki's half-brother Todd Manning disappeared briefly in 2003. Upon his return, his appearance was radically altered—and he claimed to have had plastic surgery in order to masquerade as Mitch's brother Walker Laurence. Years later in 2011, another man appeared in Llanview, with Todd's "original" face—claiming to be the real Todd, the victim of eight years of imprisonment and torture. After medical tests revealed that the two men have identical DNA, Detective John McBain learns that Todd's mother (and Viki's best friend) Irene is still alive, and he brings her back to Llanview. In August 2011, Irene reveals that she gave birth to identical twin boys: Todd Manning (whom she gave to her cousin Peter) and Victor Lord Jr. (whom she raised alone without anyone's knowledge). She tells Viki and the twins that the real Todd is the man who has recently returned to Llanview. The man who resembles Walker Laurence—and who has been living as Todd since 2003—is revealed to be Victor Jr., brainwashed into believing that he is Todd. In August 2011, Viki takes in her ex-husband Clint under her Llanfair estate after he is sentenced to twenty years under house arrest for various crimes he committed recently, after Viki agrees to put him into her custody since Clint lost his ownership of the mansion to Rex after he blackmailed and extorted it from him in exchange for Clint to get Rex's dead fiance's Gigi's heart. Viki also says good-bye to her lifelong "frenemy" Dorian before she leaves Llanview to be appointed to the U.S. Senate after the previous senator is caught in a sex scandal. Viki and Dorian also find themselves locked into Dorian's mayoral office where they reminisce about their life together over the years they have known each other. They also acknowledge that they are, in fact, friends, before Dorian's husband David Vickers Buchanan unlock the doors to let both of them out before they say their final good-byes to each other one last time before Dorian leaves for Washington D.C. After all those years of acrimony, the Dorian-Viki feud finally ended.
On September 27, 2011, Viki's sister Tina comes back to Llanview for the will reading of her newly discovered brother Victor Jr. Viki is still angry with Tina for all the problems that she endagered her family in a few years ago. Tina wants to make amends, but Viki still doesn't forgive her yet, but lets her stay at Llanfair while she's in town for a visit, whrere she's reunited with her ex-husband Cord. Cord is also still angry with Tina for her dangerous schemes a few years ago. After Tina's dog David Vickers goes missing, Viki finally reconciles with her sister and gives her another chance. Tina is eventually reunited with her dog after Viki sees her walk in her office at the Banner. On October 20, 2011, after her husband Clint turns down another extortion deal with Cutter to get the Buchanan fortune back after he sends Clint a picture of a forged document with Rex's name on it, Rex goes to Clint to say that he wants to give back the Buchanan fortune back to him after he drops his revenge plans against Victor Jr. and Jack. Viki is very pleased and surprised by Clint's sudden generousity towards his son Rex, meaning that he's starting to reconcile with his son, and finally accepting him as a member of the Buchanan family. While Tina and Cord dance around their lingering feelings for each other, it soon becomes obvious Clint and Viki are growing close once more with Tina playfully teasing Viki that she still loves Clint. After Tina and Cord marry for fourth time, and ride off into the sunset Viki deals with Natalie's personal troubles, and Todd's criminal activities to win Blair back. All the while, she and Clint continue to share various tender moments two of which nearly end in a kiss. On December 20 2011 just when Viki returned from Paris, Texas to tell Clint how she feels that she still loves him she sees him idiotically kissing Kimberly Andrews. On December 23, Viki and Clint confront each other about their feelings, after some light arguing and explanation the two finally reveal they are still, and have always been, in love with each other and are officially reunited, after nearly two decades since their last divorce in 1994.
Currently, all six of Viki's alternate personalities are integrated with her baseline psyche. In order of their first appearance on One Life to Live, they are:
Occasionally, circumstances have forced Viki to impersonate one of her alters, particularly Niki and Jean.