One Life to Live is an American soap opera that was broadcast on the ABC network from 1968 to 2012. The series began with One Life to Live storylines (1968–1979). The plot continues in One Life to Live storylines (1980–1989). The plot in the next decade is outlined in One Life to Live storylines (1990–1999) and the story concludes in One Life to Live Storylines (2000–2013).
1990 to 1992
Lord love the children After discovering that the charity group Tina began working for in late 1989 is really an illegal adoption ring headed by Serena and Ambrose Wyman, Tina, Viki, Roger and Cord team up to take them down. They are helped by Max and Gabrielle who become involved when their son Al is kidnapped to be sold. Ambrose lures them to an old factory on New Year's Eve 1989 where hidden fireworks are set to explode and kill them. Clint rescues them but the Wymans escape after shooting Max. While everyone else is at the hospital, Tina tracks down the Wymans on their yacht and pulls a gun on them. They then gain the advantage and hold her hostage. Clint and Cord rescue her before she is killed and the Wymans are arrested. Soon after, she fails to break up Cord and Debra's relationship, Tina then bids farewell to Llanview and leaves with her son CJ.
Mendorra The final adventures of the Rauch-era feature political intrigue in the fictional country of Mendorra, which has been wreaking havoc on Llanview citizens for years. The royal battle between brothers Prince Raymond and Roland Hohenstein come to head with Sarah and Megan being captured and held prisoner in Mendorra by the evil Prince Roland after traveling there to help Prince Raymond who went blind while rescuing Megan from a fire. Roland hatches an evil plot in which Sarah is to marry Raymond so he can assume the throne. Bo, Cord, Dorian, Cassie and Debra team up to save them and in the conclusion, Bo poses as Raymond and marries Sarah in the cathedral. After the royal wedding, Sarah, Bo, Megan and Raymond escape on skis still dressed in their wedding attire and ski down a mountain with Roland in pursuit (on location in Austria). Then Roland and Raymond battle to the death with good defeating evil and Raymond winning back the throne.
Michael Grande and drug cartels
As the new decade begins, Viki runs for mayor of Llanview on a strong anti-drug platform. Roger Gordon manages her campaign, and the two fight their mutual feelings for each other. Meanwhile, Gabrielle's mother Julia Medina (Linda Thorson), who is every bit the schemer her daughter is, sets her sights on snaring Clint. Making things even more complicated is Viki’s opponent, Herb Callison, whose campaign is managed by newly returned Dorian (now played by Elaine Princi). Viki wins, and becomes a target of the local drug cartel, whose mastermind is Michael Grande.
Michael has alienated virtually everybody in Llanview. When he is gunned down, there is no shortage of suspects. But Megan is arrested, tried and found guilty of the crime. Jake Harrison (Joe Lando), new love in her life, busts her out of jail. Megan is saved from a life-without-parole sentence when her father Roger confesses to killing Michael in self-defense. (He would have confessed sooner, but he had been in a coma.)
Michael’s drug-trafficking business is taken over by Carlo Hesser (Thom Christopher), one of the most durable villains in the series' history. Like Michael before him, Carlo becomes a bitter enemy of everybody in town, is gunned down and there is a major murder investigation that lasts for months. This happens not once, but twice—in 1992 and 1997.
Badderly Island After all the trauma they endured in early 1990, Sarah and Bo decided to honeymoon in July and chose the remote island of Badderly as the place to go. They decided to bring the cast and crew of Fraternity Row along for a location shoot. So Sarah, Bo, Megan, Cord, Spring Skye and company travel to Badderly, but the situation turns dangerous as the gang realize that the island is infested by mobsters. Carlo's son Johnny Dee, his sister Charlotte, Tina who is involved with Johnny join an undercover Marco Dane up to another one of his schemes. Marco falls for Megan again and tries to help the gang escape; they all go undercover, Sarah as a country woman, Megan as a bookworm and Bo as a mobster. Jake and Lucky then travel to Badderly after learning about the island and Jake has to pretend he likes Charlotte so their cover is not blown. Then Marco and Megan try to escape on a raft but it capsizes and Marco has to save Megan from drowning. Then Sarah and Megan walk in the jungle and Sarah finds herself trapped in a pit of quicksand. Megan is forced to leave her and get Bo and Jake who rescue her. Then the gang discovers the drug lab on the island as their cover is blown. Bo is forced to shoot Jake who actually recovers. Then they are held hostage and survive an explosion before defeating the mob. All of the couples happily reunite. They then race back to Llanview to try to save Viki who the Hessers plan to assassinate.
One of Carlo’s early heinous acts is to attempt to have Viki assassinated. He fails but does cause her to have a stroke, leaving her an invalid for many months. Unknown to anyone, Viki begins having hallucinatory visits from her alter Niki. Meanwhile, Carlo’s son Johnny Dee Hesser is stalking Tina (now played by Karen Witter) and insists that the baby she is carrying is his, not Cord’s. One night, Johnny Dee breaks into Llanfair and attempts to kidnap Tina. Viki turns into Niki (who was not affected by Viki’s stroke-induced paralysis), shoots Johnny, and reverts to Viki. Since Tina is unconscious, nobody saw "Niki", and hence everyone assumes that Viki could not possibly shoot him. Months later, Carlo learns the truth and attempts to get even by killing Megan. Gabrielle is ordered by Carlo to drug Viki, which is a part of his diabolical scheme to turn Viki into Niki, and get her to kill her own daughter, Megan. Gabrielle can not go through with Carlo's plan and is later sentenced to fifteen years in Statesville Prison (taking the fall for Carlo, who threatened her son's life).
Bo marries Megan’s sister Sarah, but she is kidnapped and believed killed by Carlo Hesser’s henchmen to keep her from testifying against him. While searching for Sarah, Bo is assisted by FBI agent Alex Olanov (Tonja Walker) who later turns out to be mentally unbalanced, and develops an obsessive fixation on Bo. When Bo begins dating Dorian's daughter Cassie (Laura Koffman), Alex flips out and tries to kill her. Later, immediately after Bo and Cassie are married at Llanfair, Alex shows up with a huge surprise—Sarah, alive and well. Bo leaves Cassie to reconcile with Sarah, but she actually dies from injuries caused by a car accident in November 1993.
1992 to 1996
The mid-1990s are considered by some fans to be something of a golden age for OLTL, in part thanks to head writer Michael Malone, who introduced some popular new characters and introduced some surprisingly novel storylines.
Megan's death Jake and Megan are wed, but almost as soon as they tie the knot, Jake (a P.I.) leaves on an investigation in the middle-eastern country Jaba. Jake disappears, and Megan is left not knowing whether he is alive or dead. Worse yet, Megan begins suffering from lupus. Despondent over losing Jake, she ignores her health and parties heavily, taxing her system to the limit. A desperate kidney transplant (Viki was the donor) fails to save her. Reverend Andrew Carpenter (Robert Krimmer) harbors a crush on Megan, and risks his life going to Jaba to rescue Jake just in time for husband and wife to have one last moment together. Megan dies in Jake’s arms.
Cord is reportedly "killed" in Jaba as well, although he turns up a year later. In the interim, Tina takes up with con man Cain Rogan (Christopher Cousins).
Carlo is believed murdered, and a lengthy police investigation ensues. One of the chief suspects is Alex Olanov, who has blackmailed Carlo into marrying her (and then entertained him with kinky bondage games). While the former FBI agent is not Carlo’s killer, she does take over his criminal empire for a time—reluctantly aided by Mortimer Bern who was separated at birth from his twin brother Carlo.
New relationships
The death of Megan (and supposed death of Cord) sparks a rift between Clint and Viki that grows wider over time. Viki takes an interest in Andrew’s father General Sloane Carpenter (Roy Thinnes), whose personality is disturbingly like that of Viki’s late father Victor. The unthinkable happens when Viki has an affair with Sloane, and finally divorces Clint in order to marry him. Sloane, who suffers from Hodgkin’s disease, is living on borrowed time though. Viki actually marries him while he is in the hospital intensive-care unit, and he dies shortly afterward in 1994.
Dorian shocks Llanview society by brazenly dating Jason Webb (Mark Brettschneider), 21-year-old nephew of Wanda Webb Wolek (Marilyn Chris). Like Dorian, Asa returns to his old ways—he cruelly dumps Renee for the much younger new wife Blair Cramer (Mia Korf). Blair is Dorian’s niece and takes after her aunt by swindling Asa and cheating on him with Max Holden. Blair has her own grudge against Dorian over the treatment of Addie Cramer (Pamela Payton-Wright), Blair’s mentally ill mother and Dorian’s sister.
Max is so smitten with Blair that he barely notices his business partner Luna Moody (Susan Batten), who co-owns the Serenity Springs Spa with him. The wacky, goddess-worshipping, New Age Luna is convinced that she and Max are soul mates—and they are. But before they marry in 1993, Luna had to fight the Specter of Death itself to save Max, and Max faced off with the ghost of Luna’s first husband Johnny; not to mention Alex, who stages a fake haunting of Serenity Springs to drive away business and stage a hostile takeover (she fails). Max later becomes a gambling addict, and Blair (who has broken up with Asa) exploits this weakness to seduce him. But when Luna suffers a near-crippling spinal injury, Max realizes what is important to him and mends his bad-boy ways.
After Blair dumps Asa, he takes up with Carlo’s widow Alex. Asa and Alex are definitely two of a kind—greedy, power-mad and competitive. Alex is also prone to gaudy displays of wealth—such as her wedding to Asa, which she arrives at via a "royal barge" decked out as Cleopatra. She uses Asa’s money and connections to buy social prestige, even running for and winning the election as Llanview’s mayor.
Meanwhile, Viki and Clint’s kids are SORAS-ed from young children to teenagers and young adults. Kevin Buchanan (Kirk Geiger) has a son Duke by LeeAnn Demerest (Yasmine Bleeth) and falls under Asa’s corrupting influence. When LeeAnn breaks up with him to be with Jason Webb, Kevin uses Asa’s connections and money to get a court order declaring LeeAnn an unfit mother, which gives him sole custody of Duke. Jason kidnaps Duke, and LeeAnn goes into hiding with him, but they are eventually found and arrested. Kevin turns over a new leaf though, thanks in large part to the influence of a new love interest—Rachel Gannon (Ellen Bethea), and allows LeeAnn to leave town with Duke.
Homophobia Joey’s new best friend Billy Douglas (Ryan Phillippe) comes out of the closet and is at the center of a major town scandal: wild child Marty Saybrooke (Susan Haskell) spreads rumors that Rev. Andrew had sexually molested Billy, and homophobia spreads through Llanview in the summer of 1992. Andrew’s brother is a gay man who died of AIDS, and he fought against the town’s desire to stigmatize gay people. The storyline culminates with the AIDS quilt coming to Llanview. Andrew and Cassie fall in love and are married soon after.