Victoria Lord
Victoria Lord is a fictional character and matriarch of the Lord family on the American soap opera One Life to Live, played for over 41 years by six-time Daytime Emmy Award-winning actress Erika Slezak.
The character was created as one of the protagonists by series creator Agnes Nixon, and first cast to Gillian Spencer on the pilot aired July 15, 1968. Nixon later recast her with Slezak, who became synonymous with the character role following a continual portrayal spanning her debut March 17, 1971 through the ABC Daytime finale January 13, 2012. Slezak reprised the role in The Online Network continuance of One Life to Live aired on Hulu, iTunes, FX Canada, and the Oprah Winfrey Network from April 29, 2013 through the final episode released August 19, 2013.
The role of Victoria is the mainstay original lead character of the serial, and her storylines focus on drudgery, love, and family troubles. One of the longest-running characters on American daytime television, Victoria weathers widowhood, divorce, a brain aneurysm, a near-death out-of-body experience, being shot, sent to jail, suffering a stroke, breast cancer, rape, recovered memories of being molested as a child, a heart attack, heart disease, a heart transplant, the abduction of three of her five children as infants, discovering she has four half-siblings, the deaths of two siblings, and the death of her daughter from lupus. Most notably, she suffers recurring bouts with dissociative identity disorder throughout the show narrative.
Slezak's tenure as Victoria earned the actress a reputation as a leading actor in American serials, with her portrayal becoming one of the most lauded and longest-running in American soap operas.
Character background
Conception
One Life to Live series creator Agnes Nixon conceived the central role of Victoria "Viki" Lord inspired by her relationship with her domineering father, Harry Eckhardt, and her own married family life along the Philadelphia Main Line in Bryn Mawr. Nixon took further inspiration from lead protagonist Tracy Lord of the 1939 play The Philadelphia Story, portrayed on stage and film by actress Katharine Hepburn.Casting
The role of Victoria was originally cast to Gillian Spencer, who appeared from the July 1968 debut until 1970. Joanne Dorian replaced Spencer from October 1970 until March 16, 1971, when established theater actress Erika Slezak stepped into the role in the following day's episode. Slezak was told she was auditioning for a new character, but when offered the role she learned she was replacing someone else. The producers informed Ernest Graves and Lynn Benesch, who played Viki's father Victor Lord and sister Meredith Lord, of the change in advance, but no one else in the cast or crew knew of the switch when Slezak arrived to work. Slezak became synonymous with the character since her first appearance in the role March 25, 1971, playing Victoria continually for 41 years until the original One Life television finale in 2012. Slezak reprised the role onscreen upon Prospect Park resumption of the serial from April 29, 2013, through the final episode released August 19, 2013.Two other actresses portrayed Victoria while Slezak was on maternity and personal leave: Christine Jones in 1980 and 1981, and Judith Barcroft in 1987. In the summer of 2003, Slezak's real-life daughter, Amanda Davies, portrayed a teenaged Victoria in flashbacks. Leah Marie Hays played the role of a young Victoria Lord in a series of flashbacks as well.
At the death of show and character creator Agnes Nixon in 2016, Slezak eulogized that, "When she hired me to play Viki on One Life To Live, she changed my life and my career and I will forever be grateful to her."
Slezak expressed interest for reprising portrayal of the character in a short-term guest appearance on ABC's last remaining soap opera, General Hospital, in a March 2018 interview with Soap Opera Digest magazine, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the July 1968 premiere of One Life to Live.
Characterization
At the debut episode of One Life to Live July 15, 1968, twentysomething recent college graduate and heiress Victoria "Viki" Lord is described by author Martha Nochimson as "blonde ivory-complexioned... the clichéd American princess," personifying the "woman on a pedestal" archetype. The show's heroine from the outset, ingenue Victoria initially harbors a strong Electra complex and suffers a bout with multiple personalities prompted by her mother Eugenia's absence from childhood and father Victor's incessant grooming of her to eventually helm the family's communication business, Lord Enterprises. As Erika Slezak stepped into the role in 1971, head writer Nixon matured Victoria to a self-assured working woman managing fictional Llanview's predominant newspaper, The Banner. An increasingly headstrong Victoria, relinquishing her primal desires to pander to Victor, marries working-class Banner editor Joe Riley, much to the patriarch's chagrin.By the mid-1980s, Victoria largely adopts a matronly role along with her capacities as well-connected town businesswoman and socialite, though she is still plagued with intermittent bouts of mental illness. The character comes to mother five of her own children onscreen, while providing surrogate nurture to younger siblings Tina and Todd. Since 2000s, the role has evolved to be regarded as the "grande dame of Llanview." In a 2006 Boston magazine article, Slezak remarked of Victoria representing "the very classy, very old-world money," with writer Michael Callahan calling the character "the stiff-upper-lipped matriarch" of the prominent Lord family.
American journalist and soap opera critic Connie Passalacqua Hayman briefly summed up the character role:
... Slezak's 'Viki' is the consummate soap opera heroine, because she has so harrowingly and humanistically triumphed over all her life's tragedies.
Storylines
1960s and 1970s
The eldest child of domineering millionaire publisher Victor Lord, Victoria Lord, often nicknamed "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 Vinny Wolek. 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 December 11, 1969. Joe is presumed dead in a car accident in 1970, and a heartbroken Viki finds comfort with fellow reporter Steve Burke in 1971. After Steve is put on trial and exonerated for the murder of Banner secretary Marcy Wade, he and Viki marry in 1972. When a very-much alive Joe returns in-time for the nuptials, having survived his supposedly deadly car accident, Viki is forced to choose between two husbands. Viki initially stays married to Steve out of obligation, but ultimately divorces him in January 1974. That summer, Dr. Dorian Cramer blames board member Viki for her suspension from Llanview Hospital, and a rivalry is born that will last decades. Viki and Joe remarry in a simple, New York City ceremony in September. In 1975, Dorian becomes the private physician to Viki's father Victor, soon eloping with him. Viki learns she has a half-brother, Tony Lord, and Dorian plots to keep Victor's fortune for herself. In 1976, Victor suffers a heart attack and dies after wife Dorian denies him medication, and in his wake Dorian wreaks havoc on the Lord family. Viki and Joe have a son, Kevin Lord Riley, who is soon kidnapped by jealous Cathy Craig Lord, but is later returned. In 1978, Viki takes in Tina Clayton, the sixteen-year-old daughter of college roommate and 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 October 1979. Also in October 1979, Viki serves as the matron of honor in her friend Carla Gray's wedding to Dr. Jack Scott.1980s
Widowed Viki gives birth to her second son, Joe Riley Jr., in January 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, daughter of Viki's father Victor and not Ted. 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 Buchanan in September 1986. Jessica is kidnapped shortly after birth by Allison Perkins, a disciple of Mitch Laurence; Jessica is soon returned unharmed in December, and Allison institutionalized. In 1988, Viki learns that she married and gave birth to a child in high school with high school sweetheart Roger Gordon, but father Victor had her hypnotized to forget the occurrences. With Viki's memory restored in 1989, she annuls her 1960s off-screen marriage to Roger and initiates a relationship with daughter Megan Gordon, an actress on the soap opera, Fraternity Row. Megan and Viki initially spar, but ultimately get past their initial conflicts and become close.