| Lucinda Walsh | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| As the World Turns | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date of birth | December 22 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Lucinda Walsh (formerly Esteban, Guest, Dixon, Stenbeck, and Wheatley) is a fictional character on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns. Lucinda was portrayed by daytime veteran actress Elizabeth Hubbard who first appeared in April 1984 until the Series finale on September 17, 2010. Actresses Jessica Platell and Kate Anthony portrayed Lucinda via flashbacks in 1993 and 1996 respectively.
Conception[]
Development[]
Since her first appearance, Lucinda has been portrayed as a no nonsense businesswoman. Growing up dirt poor, she had to fight her way to the top. She uses the same vigor to fight for her family. She would do anything for her children, grandchildren, and other family members. After two cancer scares in 2005 and 2008 has mellowed her a bit, and in the end she truly found happiness with someone who loves her for her.
Backstory[]
Born Mary Ellen Walters in Peoria, Illinois. She was the only daughter of Mr. Walters and Gloria Walters Keller. Her parents divorced shortly after her birth and she was primarily raised by her mother in her early childhood. When she was twelve her mother married again to George Keller and soon became pregnant. Dirt poor and feeling her daughter was in the way, Gloria sends Mary Ellen to live with her father. Mary Ellen would write letters to her mother asking about the baby and also asking to come home. After getting no reply, she decides to close that chapter of her life and after living with her abusive father for four years, she would run away to Montega, South America. While living in Montega, she would meet and marry the powerful Jacobo Esteban. The two would have a daughter Sierra. Although she married into prestige, there was no love, and soon she fall in love with another man. When Jacobo learned the truth he banished her from Montega and she changed her name to Lucinda, and married the man she loved Martin Guest. The pain of losing Sierra was unbearable and Lucinda desperately wanted another child. However Martin was sterile and they decide to adopt. Martin would find a baby girl in New Jersey and named her Lily. They was a happy family until Lucinda learned Martin illegaly adopted Lily. Guilty and ashamed, Martin would commit suicide in front of nine year old Lily. Not long after Martin's death, Lucinda married Owner and CEO of Walsh Enterprises, James Walsh. And when he died she bought his company out from his weak willed son, who would later commit suicide.
Storylines[]
Lucinda and her sixteen year old daughter Lily arrived in Oakdale in April of 1984. Upon arriving in Oakdale, she tried to steal Whit McColl's newspaper from him, as she blamed him for her Martin's suicide. She also started a rivalry with Dr. John Dixon for a seat in the hospital board. She seemed fearless until she learned about the coup in Montega. Afraid for the safety of Sierra whom she introduce as her "goddaughter", she would send one of her employees Craig Montgomery to rescue her. John would soon learned the truth about Lucinda's true relationship to Sierra and also about her past. They soon begin to bond and became friends, and later lovers.
With the arrival of Sierra, Lucinda tried desperately to keep thier family connection a secret. Also at the same time, she tried to discourage Lily's relationship to Dusty Donovan, John's ward, as she felt he was a bad influence on Lily.
Sierra's parentage and meddling into Lily's love life was just two of Lucinda's problems. She also had to deal with the secret of Lily's adoption. She had never told her youngest daughter that she was adopted. Lucinda had started getting annonymous phone calls, for a Mrs. Martin Guest, and saying they knew all about Lily's illegal adoption from baby broker Clifford Breyer. It didn't take long for Lucinda to come face to face with the voice-it was a young woman named Marie Kovacs who tried to blackmail Lucinda with the information. Although Marie was able to get Lucinda to write her a check for $500,000, she was shocked when an angry Lucinda tore the check in her face. Days later Marie would end up dead, and after an anonymous tip from Marsha Talbot, Lucinda was called in for questioning. Fortunately she was quickly taken off the suspect list.
With the Marie Kovacs fiasco gone, Lucinda seemed to have everything under control. She hired a new stableboy Holden Snyder, and she and John got married. However things will come to a blow when Sierra found out the truth Lucinda was her mother. She left her relationship with Craig and impulsively married Tonio Reyes. Also to Lucinda's dismay, Lily was getting quite close to Holden and his family, the Snyders. Lucinda felt her Lily was better than the Snyders. And she did everything she could to tear Holden and Lily apart.
As time passed Lucinda's relationship with Sierra improved while her relationship with Lily was drifting furthur apart. Lucinda was still trying to drift apart Lily and Holden's relationship. The more she tried, the more Lily got closer to the Snyders, whose down home values was very contrast to Lucinda's controlling nature. Lucinda soon became jealous of Lily's relationship with Holden's oldest sister Iva. Lucinda did everything she could to drive the Snyders away from Lily. Then she was rocked with shocking news from Iva-she was Lily's biological mother. Iva threatend to tell Lily the truth if Lucinda would stop trying to control her life. After battling with Iva for weeks, they decide it was best for Lily not to know the truth.
Lucinda would soon hire a new stableboy Rod Landry. After a brief calm period, things would come to blow when Craig and Betsey's plane went down off the coast of Greece, Iva mistook Rod helping Lily calm down and impulsively blurt out the truth that they was Lily's real parents. A confused and angry Lily blasts Iva and runs off. Iva went to Lucinda and told her the whole truth of Lily's conception. At age 13 Iva was raped by her adoptive cousin Rod, whose real name was Josh Snyder. Ashamed Iva would run away to New Jersey and gave birth to Lily, who she gave to baby broker Clifford Breyer who in turn gave her to Martin Guest. Finally understanding Iva, the trio along with Josh located Lily. After a rocky start Lily would soon bond with real parents as well repair her relationship with Lucinda.
Lucinda's controlling nature would soon rear its ugly head with the arrival of John's long-lost son Duke Kramer. She couldn't stand him and paid Julie Wendell to get him out of town. When John learned that Lucinda plotted against his son, he promptly divorced her although they remain good friends. Lucinda almost lost Lily when she kept the fact that an amnesiac Holden was alive an well in New York City. After almost losing her family force Lucinda to examine why she was so controlling and it forced her to change her ways.
Lucinda would take a new liking to her new employee, Connor Jamison. She opened her home to her and Connor quickly rose the corporate ladder. However Connor would turn the tables on Lucinda and revealed herself as Connor Jamison Walsh, the granddaughter of Lucinda's late husband James Walsh. She would buy Walsh Enterprises right under Lucinda's nose and soon earn her wrath. However, Connor felt justified as she felt Lucinda took the company from her father who killed himself.
Not the one to lay down and grovel, Lucinda would start her own company Worldwide Enterprises with the help of her son-in-law Craig. It became a success, more successful than her previous company Walsh Enterprises. To make sure Worldwide continued that success she hired Neal Alcott to be her graphic artist while she hired Royce Keller an architect to construct a tower for Worldwide. Lucinda and Neal would become fast friends, and they began to really love one another. Soon Lucinda would learn some disturbing things about Royce and became quite confused when Neal would take up for him. Convinced Neal was hiding something from her, she soon hired an private investigator to find out more about Royce and Neal. However before she found out anything, Neal would be found dead, her head bashed against the fireplace mantel!! After learning from Neal's boyfriend Scott Eldridge that Royce and Neal were siblings, she went to Royce to send her condolenses. However Royce, grieving and very upset with Lucinda did not want her sympanthy and soon blurted out Lucinda's long deceased mother's name. Horrified, Lucinda finally learned the truth, Royce and Neal were her long-lost maternal half-siblings, the children of Gloria and George Keller.
Lucinda tried desperately to form a relationship with her brother but Royce angrily refused. He blamed Lucinda for the abuse he and Neal suffered at the hands of their mother, who in thier childhood, told them over and over that she should have kept Mary Ellen(Lucinda) as her life didn't improve any better with her new family. While Lucinda gave Royce his space, she began to notice Royce becoming more imbalanced. As the search for Neal's killer was still ongoing, she hired Dr. Brad Wyndham to help Royce remember the night Neal was murdered as he became the number one suspect. Lucinda refused to listen to Dr. Wyndham that there was more to Royce than meet the eye. The trial soon started and it became apparant that Royce was suffering from D.I.D. One of Royce's alters witness Scott leaving Neal's apartment in a very angry mood. The alter, Roger, went to Neal and she told Royce that it was time for all of Oakdale to learn the truth about their ties to Lucinda. Neal was aware of Royce's illness and tried to get Royce to come back. However Roger refuse to listen and shoved Neal into the fireplace mantel. Royce was found not guilty by reason of insanity and Dr. Wyndham successfully emerge all Royce's alters into one.
Not long after Lucinda and Royce would find out another startling revelation. Royce had a twin sister. Apparantley Gloria couldn't afford two babies and gave the girl up for adoption. Lucinda would eventually find her sister Samantha Markham. Feeling regret of what her mother did to Sam, she opened her home to the young woman. However, unbeknownst to Lucinda, Sam was a high profile professional con artist. Although she tried to play dutiful sister to Lucinda, in reality she was doing all she can to scam Lucinda. Working with her mentor Elliot Markham tried to steal Lucinda's prize Pissarro and replace it with a copy. However, Lucinda and Craig caught on to her and Lucinda vehemently denounced Sam for betraying her. Though Lucinda pressed charges against Sam, she was freed, due to lack of evidence. Lucinda would eventually forgive Samantha and the two formed a real strong sisterly bond.
Lucinda's life would be rocked to core with the returned from the dead James Stenbeck. Even though they had cross paths since Lucinda's arrival in Oakdale, thier history was never revealed. Years ago, before any of them set foot in town, they had an passionate yet brief affair. Lucinda had just gotten married to Martin, which at the time was rocky. Lucinda soon became pregnant and after a diffcult labor she was told that her son was stillborn. However, James told her that it was lie and that attorney David Allen the prosecutor to Lily's case of the murder of Diego Santana was their son. This revelation put Lucinda in a difficult position between her two children, especially after Lily was found guilty and went to prison. Lucinda would bound with David. Eventually Lily was released from prison and told her mother not to trust David. Lucinda soon learned the truth, James had lied, eventhough David was his son, he was not hers, her infant son had died at birth after all. She also found out that David had known for quite sometime. Furious, she vowed revenge against the Stenbecks and joined Lily and Holden to bring them down.
David soon became unbalanced and sink the boat the Valleta, which many of Oakdale's residents were on board to celebrate Nancy Hughes's birthday!! Soon word got around that David was missing, and a horrified Lucinda would learned that Holden and Julia Lindsey killed him and buried the body. Fearful of what James might do to her family if he learned the truth, Lucinda seduced him and they became lovers again. Also around this time, Lucinda would meet a young girl named Georgia Tucker who her sister Sam paid her medical bills before disappearing without a trace. She hired a private investigator and was shocked to learned the girl was Sam's daughter. Thrilled of being an aunt, she quickly took the girl in and become a mother figure to her.
James would soon get closer to the truth of what happend to David. Knowing James would go after Holden if he learned the truth, she impulsively married him. However, James would soon learned the truth anyway and planned a trap to kill Holden. Lucinda learned what he was up to and tried to stop him, however Lucinda would fall to the trap instead which nearly kills her. She became paralyzed and could barley talk. Against her wishes Lily would send her to a rehabiliation clinic in Florida to learn how to walk and talk again.
Lucinda would return to town months later, Although she made a full recovery, she fake her paralysis to set a trap for Reid Hamilton. While in Florida, she learned from Lily that Reid was tormenting her family and co-conspirit with David to switch her newborn daughter with someone else's baby. Wanting Reid to pay for his crimes, she forced his girlfriend Molly Conlan to be her spy for her with the promise to publish her novel. She soon learned that Reid and David were one and the same and with her plan worked, he was promptly arrested and put away.
Lucinda became a constant support for her family, like taking her grandson Bryant in. She would be shocked when she learned Lily had a double. The woman Rose D'Angelo was in town for months masquerading as Lily, fooling everyone. She learned from Lily how she met Rose thru Simon Frazier who was looking for a diamond, which happen to belong to Rose. After learning the diamond was orginally owned by the Carpenters, the biological family of Iva Snyder, she called Iva to fill her in on the news, and the two went to the orphanage where she gave birth to Lily. They would learn Iva gave birth to twins!! An out of it Iva gave birth to her firstborn who was very sickly. She stayed in the orphanage for eight months until she was adopted by the D'Angelos. Lucinda became a mother figure to Rose until her untimely death in 2003.
After a few years of being a support to her family during their crisis, Lucinda was dismayed to learn there was a lump in her breast. Unwilling to accept that she needed help, Lucinda tried to keep it from her family and go on as usual. It didn't take long for her daughters to know the truth and they insisted she get proper treatment. Chemotherapy would take its toll on Lucinda and she defied her daughters by seeking alternative in Mexico. Although she tried to keep it a secret, they would soon find out and in the end she agreed to undergo traditional proceedure. Soon the cancer would go in remission.
Not long after Craig used Lily in order to upsurp Lucinda. After becoming close to her, he unknowingly got her to sign over control of the company to him. Lucinda was unforgiving at first, she softened when she learned Lily was battling an addiction to pain pills, and Lucinda sent her love and support. Meanwhile, Lucinda concoted a scheme to get her company back by enlisting Meg Snyder to get in Craig's good graces. When the plan failed to get results, Lucinda poisoned Craig. However Meg quickly found him and he was immediately rushed to Memorial. Craig knew Lucinda poisoned him but lied that it was an accidental overdose. Soon after, Craig offered to hand over Worldwide if Meg married him. Lucinda insisted that Meg accept the offer and even stopped Paul Ryan from stopping the ceremony. Later thing took a tragic turn when Paul fell to his apparent death. Lucinda urged Meg too testify that Craig killed Paul but Meg refused since she knew he tried to save him. Meg then shocked Lucinda when she decided to keep Worldwide instead of given it to Lucinda.
Determinded to get her company back, Lucinda enlisted the help of Evan Walsh IV, the son of the young man who stole Walsh Enterprises from her years ago. Evan was a young medical researcher and Lucinda set it up for Craig to invest in his research. Despite objections from Dr.Bob Hughes and Dusty Donovan, Evan's project was approved by Memorial after Bob lapsed into a coma and his son was named interim Chief of Staff. Weeks later, Lucinda would be horrified when Dusty, whom she had known since he was a teenager was murdered. Soon after, Evan took Lucinda hostage and demanded more money from the project. Though Lucinda was able to discreetly call Lily and alert her to the situation, Lily didn't understand the message and met Lucinda at Memorial. There, Lily walked right into a trap and both ladies were taken hostage. It became all too clear that Evan drugged Bob and killed Dusty when he was on the verge to finding out. Evan dragged the ladies to the roof, but luckily Lily got the upper hand and stabbed Evan with his own syringe killing him instantly. Days later Meg would return Worldwide, but a guilt-ridden Lucinda decides to give it to Paul Ryan.
Afterwards, Lucinda's grandson Luke Snyder received a great deal of money from his natural father Damian. Though Luke wanted nothing to do with his father, Lucinda convinced him to do some good with the money. With Lucinda's encouragement, Luke started a charitable foundation. To facilitate matters, Lucinda arrange for an acquaintance, Brian Wheatley, to head the foundation. Brian had a solid reputation and had a high success rate. While Brian helped Luke, he also got close to Lucinda. After a whirlwind courtship the pair quickly got married. Unfortunantely, Brian seemed to go out of his way to be intimate with Lucinda. Though Luke firmly believe that Brian was a closted homosexual, Brian continually denied it. Afraid of his grandmother getting hurt, Luke finally blurted out the truth in front of her during an argument with Brian. Afterwards, Brian finally admit it to everyones, and perhaps himself that he was gay. Brian and Lucinda quickly had the marriage annulled and Brian soon left town.
Sometime later Lily went to Lucinda who begged her to tell Craig a long ago secret. He had a son he never knew. Years ago in Montega, while still married to Sierra he had an affair with the maid Lydia Carras. Lydia became pregnant and gave birth to a son Gabriel, whom she told Sierra to never tell Craig. She kept her promise but she will tell both Lily and Lucinda what had happend. Gabriel was now living in Oakdale, and Lily felt that Craig deserved to know the truth. Against Lucinda's wishes, Lily would tell Craig the truth. Determined to get Craig out of their lives, Lucinda got Gabriel to lie that Craig assaulted him before he set the fire in Monte Carlo. Suspecting Lucinda was influencing Gabriel, Craig escaped police custody and tried to threaten her to undo the damage she's done. As Lucinda and Craig's battle wages on, Craig would tell Lily of Lucinda's machinations.
Soon after Craig convinced Lily to go into business with Carly Tenney. Seeing a chance to ruin Craig, Lucinda arranged for a man named Blackthorn to sell Craig an nonexistent factory. Later, Lucinda summoned her granddaughter Lucy to town, but Sierra show up first to ensure that Lucinda wasn't using Lucy as a pawn against Craig. Meanwhile, Craig caught on to the scam, and informed Lily of her mother's scam. Blackthorn proved to be a dangerous presence, and Lucinda called mafia boss Ralph Manzo, whom she knew from her days as Mary Ellen, for help in warning him off. When Manzo suggested that they run away together, Lucinda stated she long given up that life. Upset that Lucinda used her for a scheme against Craig, Lily stood up to her mother and wanted her out of her life. However, Lily had a change of heart and told Lucinda that thier estrangement would not be permanent. Not long after, Lucinda's old friend John Dixon return to town and invited Lucinda for a fling in Amsterdam. A month later the couple return. When opted to stay in Oakdale, Lucinda decided it was time to open a new chapter in her life. She stepped down as head of Worldwide and told Lily she can take her place if she wanted.