ONE LIFE TO LIVE THROUGH THE YEARS: 1980 - 1989

With it's legacy of romance and adventure, ONE LIFE TO LIVE has been captivating viewers for over 25 years. Here are some of the highlights.


1980

Viki gave birth to Joe's son, Joey.

Bo Buchanan and Pat Ashley fell in love in Paris.

Texas millionaire Asa Buchanan made a romantic play for young Samantha Vernon, daughter of psychiatrist Will Vernon. In his bid to woo her, Asa held a spectacular birthday party for her at his new Southhampton Mansion. Samantha married Asa, unaware that Asa's first wife, Olympia, was being held captive in a nearby mansion.


1981

Clint saved Viki from the clutches of the evil Ted Clayton.

Teenager Cassie Reynolds arrived in Llanview to live with her mother, Dorian, who later married Herb Callison.

For decades, Asa led his sons, Bo and Clint, to believe that their mother, Olympia, had died. In reality, Olympia was very much alive! On the night of Asa's masquerade ball, Olympia escaped from the mansion where she was being held and tried to murder the new Mrs. Buchanan, Samantha. Olympia's deadly plan went awry, and she died in a fatal plunge off a balcony.

After a failed romance with Ted Clayton, Viki refused to accept Clint Buchanan's offer to date. Believing that seeing Viki on only a professional basis was too painful, Clint resigned from the BANNER newspaper and went to work for the rival CHRONICLE, where he became romantically involved with reporter Edwina Lewis. Upset over Clint's departure and affair with Edwina, Viki discovered that her feelings for Clint were deeper than she had realized. Finally, Viki dropped her guard and allowed herself to follow her heart and fall in love with Clint.



1982

Once a fine neurosurgeon, the demented Dr. Ivan Kipling returned to Llanview with an outlandish plan to win Karen Wolek's love. The mad doctor planted a mind-altering device inside the brain of Larry, Karen's ex-husband who was still in love with her. Kipling then instructed Larry to do his bidding for him. Larry lured Karen to Kipling, who whisked her away to his South American jungle hideaway. Larry regained his wits, and after the implant was removed, he rushed to the jungle and rescued Karen from the mad doctor.

Viki went to jail for refusing to reveal her source in the baby switching case involving Jenny Vernon and Katrina Karr. While in prison, Viki and Clint decided to marry at Llanfair, which they did after evicting Dorian, who had been living in the mansion with her new husband, Herb. As the widow of Viki's father, Victor Lord, Dorian had been rightfully living at Llanfair. However, the house was supposed to revert to Viki upon Dorian's remarriage. When Dorian refused to leave, Clint carried her out!

Bo was shocked when, on her deathbed, his mother, Olympia, revealed that he was not Asa's son, but Yancy Ralston's. Embittered by the revelation, Bo turned his back on the Buchanan family and changed his name to Ralston. Delila Ralston read about Bo in the newspaper and came to town. They were attracted to one another but because they were cousins, Bo and Delila remain apart and heartbroken. She then married Asa. On the rebound, Bo slept with singer Becky Lee Abbott, who became pregnant.



1983

Karen ran off to Canada with Steve Piermont .

On a boating trip with Brad Vernon, Asa was believed to have been killed in an explosion. Back in Llanview, Bo learned that he was a Buchanan after all, but he chose not to tell Asa's widow, Delila, since he didn't want to shatter her image of her "late" husband. When Asa returned from the dead, Bo informed Delila that they could finally be together. Delila left Asa and married Bo, who didn't know that Becky was pregnant with his child. Fearing that she could lose Bo again, Delila faked a pregnancy. When Becky's new fiance, Drew Ralston, was gunned down in a robbery, she married Asa, then gave birth to Bo's son. When Becky nearly died, she told Bo the truth: he was her baby's father. Bo discovered that Delila knew about Becky's pregnancy in advance, and he ended their marriage.

Clint was framed (and later cleared) for the murder of Echo DiSavoy.

Rafe Garretson's storybook marriage to Samantha Buchanan came to a horribly tragic end when Samantha was attacked by a thug and left to drown in a hot tub at the Llanview Health Club. When Samantha fell into a coma, Rafe's agonizing decision whether or not to pull the plug on his brain-dead wife was complicated by the discovery that she was pregnant! In an astonishing medical procedure, the embryo was transferred from Samantha to her dear friend, Delila. Nine months later, with Rafe assisting in the delivery room, Delila miraculously gave birth to a baby girl, Sammi.



1984

Pianist David Renaldi revealed to Cassie that he was her father. Jenny Janssen fell in love with and married David.

After divorcing Delila, Bo started a new life as "Bill Brady." He moved in with the working class O'Neill family.



1985

Cassie entered into a short-lived marriage with Rob Coronal, son of mob kingpin Alex Crown and Laurel Chapin. Larry fell in love and married Laurel, who died tragically at the hands of mob violence.

At Llanfair, Tina accidentally discovered Victor Lord's secret room, which contained a shocking letter to Viki in which Victor stated that he was Tina's father. When Tina confronted Viki with the letter, she refused to accept the stunning news. Totally traumatized, Viki went into her closet, donned a red wig, and headed to the Backstreet Bar where she introduced herself as Niki! Her schizophrenic persona had returned!

Much-married millionaire Asa Buchanan was leading two distinctly different lives! No one in Llanview had an inkling that Asa was keeping a secret wife on the remote island of Malakeva. Posing as a sea captain named Jeb, Asa married the innocent Pamela Stuart. When Pamela discovered Asa's charade, she feigned a fatal illness to trick Asa into marrying her for real!



1986

Tina journeyed to El Paso, Texas, to investigate a mysterious letter that Clint Buchanan received from Maria Vasquez. In Texas, Tina met Maria's handsome son, Cordero, and the chemistry between the two was instant. After learning from Mitch Laurence that Cord was Clint Buchanan's son, Tina married him. When Cord learned the truth of his parentage and discovered Tina's lies and manipulations, he told her that their marriage was over. On the rebound, Cord developed an intense sexual attraction to brainy Kate Sanders.

Viki and Clint's second wedding day featured a special surprise announcement. Having recently recovered from her most recent bout with schizophrenia, Viki stunned Clint on the morning of their wedding with the joyous news that she was pregnant with their child. In September, Viki and Clint's daughter, Jessica, was born.

While living life on the lam in Europe, Jenny Renaldi and her spy husband, David, were apprehended by David's enemies. Jenny temporarily eluded her captors and managed to send a message home to Viki, Clint, Cassie, and Brad, who journeyed to Vienna, Austria, to rescue their friends.

Viki fainted when she set eyes on Mari Lynn Dennison's distinguished looking father, Tom. He was the spitting image of Viki's late husband, Joe Riley. It was later revealed that Tom was Joe's long-lost twin brother.

Cassie (who had been adopted by Dorian's husband, Herb) found herself a little too close for comfort while investigating the illegal activities of cult leader/drug dealer Mitch Laurence. Mitch attacked and tried to rape Cassie, but before he could finish what he started, Cassie's mother clobbered him with a piece of sculpture. Unable to prove her innocence, Dorian was convicted of Mitch's murder and sent to Statesville Prison. Months later, she was released when a tape was found proving that Dorian killed Mitch in self-defense.



1987

Cord assumed that his pregnant wife, Tina, had died when her boat plummeted over the Iguazu Falls in Argentina. Cord married archeologist Kate Sanders but seconds after their ceremony, Tina stunned the wedding guests when she appeared out of the blue holding a newborn baby that she pretended was Cord's son! The baby was actually the son of Gabrielle Medina and her former lover, Max Holden. Later, Tina and Cord found their own son alive and well in a convent in Italy.

Determined to have her long-ago lover, Clint Buchanan, all to herself, Maria Roberts tried to kill Clint's wife, Viki, by placing a deadly poison on a pair of earrings that Viki's sister, Tina, planned to give her as a birthday present. Just in time, Tina discovered Maria's deadly trick, and in a struggle, Maria was infected with a lethal dose of the poison.

During surgery to remove a potentially deadly aneurysm in her brain, Viki Buchanan had an out-of-body experience in which she was reunited with her loved ones in Heaven.



1988

While recovering at his Arizona ranch from a gunshot wound that caused him to go blind, Clint hopped onto his horse and went for a ride in the desert. In an amazing turn of events, Clint fell off the horse, hit his head, and awoke with his eyesight miraculously restored! One problem, though: Clint had somehow been transported to the Old West of 1888! In a town called Buchanan City, Clint encountered his ancestors, and nearly married Viki' s great-grandmother, Ginny Fletcher. Viki traveled back through time and stopped the wedding, then whisked Clint back to the present. Years later, the question still remains -- was this amazing journey real or just an incredible dream?

Tina promised to love, honor, and obey her faithful fiance, Max Holden. Still, Tina could not deny that her own heart still belonged to her ex-husband Cord. Standing at the altar, reciting her vows, a day-dreaming Tina accidentally called Max "Cord"! Stunned by this slip of the tongue, Max instantly called the wedding off, leaving Tina free to reunite with her true love, Cord.

Tina remarried Cord in a beautiful double wedding ceremony along with fellow bride and groom, Renee Divine and Asa Buchanan. The reception was marred by Tina's arch-enemy, the crazed Ursula Blackwell, who planted a bomb inside Tina and Cord's wedding cake. According to Ursula's plan, when Tina cut the cake, the bomb would explode. However, Max Holden's brother, Steve, became the unwitting victim who was killed by the exploding wedding cake..



1989

Bo Buchanan becomes producer of WVLE's locally produced soap opera, FRATERNITY ROW. The daily drama starred Megan Gordon, a high-strung diva who was brought down to earth by her tender and sometimes volatile relationship with Max Holden. FRATERNITY ROW also starred ingenue Mari Lynn Dennison, the daughter of former hooker Lee Halpern and Tom Dennison, the long-lost identical twin brother of Viki's late husband, Joe Riley.

Viki, Cord, Tina, and Gabrielle Medina were among the residents of Llanview who made a perilous descent deep into the ghostly depths of Llantano Mountain, where they discovered the lost city of Eterna. Trapped in the underground hell for weeks by the evil Michael Grande, the group narrowly managed to escape seconds before the city blew up!

Viki remembered a long-buried secret that she had given birth to a daughter 25 years earlier. Viki went on a search for her daughter -- who turned out to be Megan Gordon! (Roger Gordon was her father.) At first bitter, Megan eventually came to accept Viki as her mother.

Ex-con Austin Buchanan came to Llanview to seek revenge on his uncle Asa. Taken in by Renee and Asa, Austin became obsessed with Sarah Gordon, Roger's other daughter. When it became obvious that he could never win Sarah away from her new love, Bo Buchanan, Austin rigged the brakes on Michael Grande's car, and made it seem that Bo was the culprit. Michael's wife, Alicia, and their baby died in the resulting crash. Austin raped Sarah and she shot him. He eventually took Megan and Viki hostage, and was shot and killed by their rescuer, Clint Buchanan.