The Wolek family were one of the fictional core families on the American soap opera One Life to Live when it debuted in 1968. They were the working class reflection of the affluent Lords, with early storylines exploring the ways these families interacted and contrasted. The family was created around the relationships of Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Wolek, a character who appeared from the debut episode in summer 1968[1][2] through the spring of 2004.[3]
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Vincent "Vince" Wolek is an original fictional character on One Life to Live, brother of Larry and Anna, and distant cousin to Karen and Jenny. The role appeared from the debut episode July 15, 1968 through 1981, reappearing in 1987.
Dr. Larry Wolek is a fictional character and an original protagonist on the American serial One Life to Live, appearing from the series inception July 15, 1968 through 2004. The former brother-in-law of central heroine Victoria Lord, the role was notably portrayed for over three decades by Michael Storm, from 1969 through 2004.
Karen Wolek is a fictional character and housewife on the American soap opera, One Life to Live, appearing from 1976 through 1983. The role was most notably portrayed by actress Judith Light from 1977 through 1983, garnering two consecutive Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress during her tenure.
In 1969, Dr. Jim Craig fell in love with Vince and Larry's sister, Anna Wolek. They married, and Anna soon clashed with Jim's rebellious teen daughter, Cathy. Cathy soon started abusing drugs, eventually persuading Jim to take her to Odyssey House in New York City for treatment. Anna left town to live in Florida following the death of her husband Jim and brother Vince Wolek.
| Jenny Wolek Renaldi | |||||||||||||
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| One Life to Live | |||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Katherine Glass Brynn Thayer |
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| Duration | 1975–1986 | ||||||||||||
| First appearance | June 1975 | ||||||||||||
| Last appearance | May 1986 | ||||||||||||
| Created by | Agnes Nixon Gordon Russell |
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| Gender | Female | ||||||||||||
| Cause of death | Killed in an avalanche | ||||||||||||
| Occupation | Secretary Former nun |
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| Title | Dr. | ||||||||||||
| Residence | Switzerland | ||||||||||||
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Jenny Renaldi (née Wolek; formerly Siegel, Vernon, and Janssen), a distant cousin of Anna, Vince, and Larry, came to Llanview in 1975. She was a novitiate nun who was preparing to take her final vows. Fate had something different for her though, and she fell in love with blue-collar worker (and half-Jewish) Tim Siegel. When Jenny announced she was leaving the order to marry Tim, her cousin Vinny heatedly objected - he thought Tim was 'stealing Jenny from the church'. Vinny got into a fist-fight with Tim, one that aggravated a latent brain aneurysm in Tim. Jenny ended up marrying Tim on his deathbed! Even though it was an accident, it was a long time before Jenny forgave her cousin for his actions (or before Vinny forgave himself.)
No longer a nun, Jenny took a secretarial job with Dr. Will Vernon, and found herself in a tortured Oedipal love triangle as both Will (married at the time) and his son Brad fell in love with her. Jenny chose to be with Brad and married him. But only after vows were exchanged did Jenny realize what a cad he really was. Despite a rocky marriage, Jenny became pregnant and looked forward to motherhood. Unfortunately, she lost her baby under extremely bizarre circumstances (she went into early labor after discovering that Brad had raped her sister Karen). The baby died in the maternity ward, and sister Karen (displaying well-meaning, but remarkably misguided judgement) switched the dead baby with that of someone else's living baby. For several years, Jenny reared another woman's baby, actually thinking it was her own child. During that time, Jenny left Brad for good and married Dr. Peter Janssen, only to become widowed. It was only a short time after losing her husband Peter that Jenny learned the truth about Karen's baby-switcheroo, and made the extremely painful decision to give the child back to her rightful mother Katrina. Unbeknown to all both the child that Jenny had lost and the child she had reared were fathered by her ex-husband Brad Vernon.
Jenny next fell in love with David Reynolds, also known as David Renaldi, the former lover of Dorian (and father of Dorian's daughter Cassie). Despite being married to Herb Callison at the time, Dorian did her level best to split up Jenny and David. After finally resolving that feud, Jenny and David wed. Only then did Jenny discover that David was a spy and a double agent, pretending to be working for the Soviet Union but actually reporting to the U.S. government on communist espionage activity. Jenny relocated to Switzerland with David in 1986. Years later, David Renaldi returned to Llanview with the news that Jenny had been killed while skiing by an avalanche. (By then, however, the Wolek family had largely been written out of the storyline and was a distant memory to most of the characters still on the show.)
| Dr. Daniel Wolek | |||||||||||||||
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| Michael Palance as Dr. Daniel Wolek (1990) | |||||||||||||||
| One Life to Live | |||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Neal Holland Eddie Moran Michael Palance (and others)[4] |
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| Duration | 1971–1979, 1983–1987, 1989–1991 | ||||||||||||||
| First appearance | November 17, 1971 | ||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | August 1991 | ||||||||||||||
| Created by | Agnes Nixon | ||||||||||||||
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| Nickname(s) | Dan, Danny | ||||||||||||||
| Gender | Male | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Physician | ||||||||||||||
| Title | Dr. | ||||||||||||||
| Joshua Cox as Dr. Daniel Wolek (1986) | |||||||||||||||
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Dr. Daniel Wolek, later known as Danny or simply Dan, was the only son of Dr. Larry Wolek and his wife Meredith Lord, born on-screen November 1971. His twin sister was stillborn, causing his mother to suffer post-partum depression. In 1973, Daniel's mother dies of a cerebral hemorrhage following a freak accident during an attempted robbery at the Lord estate, Llanfair. Larry raises Danny as a single father with help from his sister, Anna, and brother, Vince. Danny later attends to boarding school overseas.
Danny returns on several occasions, returning to Llanview on an on-going basis in 1986 as Dr. Dan Wolek, an resident physician at Llanview Hospital. He dated shy Allison Perkins briefly before she fell under Mitch Laurence's spell. Dan returned again in 1989 and soon became a rival to his own father for the affection of nurse Brenda McGillis. Later, when the nefarious Michael Grande sought to woo Brenda, Michael rigged a malpractice case so that Dan was fired from the hospital. He then ran a clinic for low-income Llanview residents and fell for Laura Ellis, the estranged wife of one of Carlo Hesser's mob lieutenants. Dan left town with little fanfare in 1991.