André
DiMera is a nephew of Stefano DiMera through one of his brothers.
Having been employed by his uncle Stefano to get rid of any evidence
of his faked death, André was the Salem Slasher.
In the summer of 1983, Renée DuMonde, Stefano DiMera's daughter, married Alex Marshall, an ex-cohort of the deceased Stefano. After she discovered that he had only married her because of her inheritance from Stefano, she told him, and everyone else she felt had done her wrong, exactly what she thought of them at a party that had been organized at the DiMera residence in honor of her recent nuptials. After she finished the very heated speech, she went upstairs, and was soon joined by Tony DiMera, who had realized his strong attraction to her during her speech, and the two made love. Not long after this, Delia Abernathy discovered Renée's body. She had been stabbed with a knife and a raven feather had been left by her side. Upon further forensic examination, however, it was discovered that she'd died from a poison placed on the knife - the stab wound had not been fatal. Renée had been the first victim of the serial killer that would soon be called The Salem Slasher.
It was exactly during this time that Tony seemed to have undergone a personality change. Although Tony was extremely furious at Renée's death, which caused him to offer a $1 million reward for information on her murderer, he seemed strange. He showed affection toward Anna, whom he had already divorced, and even seemed interested in Gwen Davies. Alone in the penthouse, he would receive strange phone calls from someone wearing a ring with a Phoenix insignia on it. Meanwhile, another victim was claimed by The Salem Slasher. This time, it was a nurse from University Hospital who moonlighted as a prostitute, Kelly Chase. Only a week after Kelly's murder, Gwen Davies was also attacked by the knife-wielding killer but escaped unharmed. Not long after this, a third victim was claimed. This time, the new bride of Eugene Bradford, Trista Evans. By this time, Tony seemed to desperate to pin the crimes on someone, supposedly to honor the memory of his beloved Renée. And finally, Tony found his scapegoat. Brett Fredericks, Anna's estranged brother, firmly believed that his sister had killed Renée and Trista. Brett had seen her wiping blood off of her fingers the night Renée had been killed, and Trista had seen her bloody hands as well. This seemed to be proof enough for Tony and he turned her into the police. However, she was not charged with the crime for lack of evidence. Not much later, however, a fourth victim, Leticia Bradford, was murdered by what appeared to be her cousin Eugene.
One
night as Marlena Evans and Sandy Horton walked into prostitute Daisy
Hawkins' apartment, Daisy was killed by the Slasher; problem was that
he looked exactly like Roman Brady, Marlena's husband! Almost all of
the Slasher's victims until now had been closely acquainted with
Roman, especially Trista and Leticia; with this much evidence against
him, Roman was arrested for the murders. Meanwhile, Tony was
instructed by the "Phoenix" to steal a certain object called the Baka
from Eugene. After much trouble, Tony was successful in taking the
Baka from him.
In late 1983, Roman escaped from jail and faked his death by causing his house to explode. During his investigation, he figured out that the killer had framed him by wearing a latex mask of his likeness when committing the crimes. It was at this time that the audience learned exactly why Tony had been acting so incredibly peculiar: Tony was the killer. Or was he? As it turned out, Tony wasn't Tony at all. He was André DiMera, Tony's cousin and Stefano's nephew. Furthermore, Stefano DiMera was still alive, and he was the mysterious Phoenix. André had come to Salem at his uncle's request in order to tie all loose ends that had been left. When Stefano had been jailed earlier that year, he had faked a stroke in his jail cell. He had been taken to the hospital, where he made his escape and a different body from the morgue was tagged as his own. Now, he was eliminating any trace of his disappearance by eliminating those who could cause problems for him. At the same time, he was exercising his revenge on Tony for not being his son. André, who was a failed but classically-trained actor, had been given flawless plastic surgery so that he looked exactly like his cousin Tony. Then, the night of Alex and Renée's party, André took Tony's place while Tony was locked up in a secret dungeon in the penthouse. Renée's death, however, had not been planned. After Tony and Renée had made love, she'd realized that André was not Tony and so he felt compelled to kill her. Kelly Chase was murdered because she was one of the nurses on duty when Stefano was brought into the operation room; she was the one who put a body from the morgue in place of Stefano's and put his tag on it. Trista was killed because she'd discovered some discrepancies in the lab reports regarding the time and cause of death, and it would have been only a matter of time before she discovered the entire truth. Now that those people had been disposed of, André had to cover his own tracks. And so, having taken advantage of the fact that Eugene Bradford was the main suspect in the killings, André had disguised himself as Eugene and murdered Leticia. Leticia had a pet raven and lived with Eugene; Eugene had been a suspect two years earlier of being the Salem Strangler, so her death pointed straight to him.
Thanks to strategically-placed cameras throughout Salem, Stefano and André knew darn well that Roman had not died, and continued to monitor him as he tried to find out who was framing him for the murders. In the meantime, André learned Stefano's curiosity for the Baka. The object was an ancient artifact that had the DiMera family crest on one side, and the Bradford family crest on the other; it proved a link between the two families, which had been forged through a marriage in the 18th century. Legend had it that the Baka held power over the two families. In the hands of the DiMeras, the Baka gave a positive effect that made the family extremely powerful; in the hands of the Bradfords, it had the opposite effect. Stefano wanted the Baka to assure his strength and success. Meanwhile, André and Stefano attempted to drive Eugene crazy by conjuring up ghosts from his past. Secretly, André placed 3-D projectors throughout Eugene's house, creating ghostly images of Trista. And Delia called Eugene constantly on the phone pretending to be his other late wife, Bonnie. Although the ruse worked in the beginning, Eugene eventually learned it was trickery. Meanwhile, André began organizing a grand charity event for the hospital at Stefano's request. This spectacular event would be the setting for the final phase of Stefano's plans. Meanwhile, André continued to have Tony in shackles in the penthouse, all the while romancing Anna.
In early 1984, André finally began to slip up in his role of Tony. It all began with an old friend of Tony's, Louis Coureville, who was shocked when "Tony" didn't remember. This incident awakened Anna's curiosity. But she finally realized that Tony was not Tony when she accidentally discovered the dungeon in the penthouse. Inside, she found the real Tony in shackles wearing a helmet that kept him in the dark. Just as Anna was getting ready to help Tony, André found her and locked her inside the dungeon as well. Meanwhile, following Stefano's orders, André kidnapped Roman (who had figured out that Stefano was behind everything) and held him prisoner in the penthouse. Roman eventually escaped, although that was also part of Stefano's game. Now, everything was set for the last phase.
The
charity benefit was to be a nationally-televised concert featuring
stars like Al Jarreau and Billy Vera & the Beaters. André
was to make one last appearance as the Slasher to claim his final
victim, Marlena. At the end of the show, when Marlena would receive
the money for the hospital, André was to come out in his Roman
disguise and kill Marlena in front of millions, sealing Roman's fate
forever. They would then quickly escape from Salem, while a bomb blew
up the entire concert hall with everyone in it. André only had
one condition: he wanted to take Anna with him. The night of the
benefit everything was set. But just as André was going to
kill Marlena on stage, Alex Marshall, who was extremely drunk,
accidentally tripped André and foiled his entire plan.
André quickly made it offstage and made his way to the
closed-off prop room where an incredibly furious Stefano waited for
him. There, Stefano told André that he was not going to help
him. In fact, Stefano had never planned to help him escape because he
was still very bitter over Renée's death! And so, Stefano
escaped without him and left André to be killed in the
explosion.
Despite
uncle Stefano's rejection, André managed to dodge the police
that had swarmed over the concert hall. After everyone was evacuated
and the bomb disarmed, André ran into none other than Tony and
Anna themselves. They had escaped the dungeon. Now, after months of
torture in the dungeon, Tony wanted to settle the score with
André. And they did it with a good old-fashioned sword fight.
After an intense duel, Tony and André only managed to stab
each other and both wound up being taken to the hospital. Problem:
once in the hospital and out of their respective clothes, it was
impossible to tell who was who. André continued to act like
Tony so that he couldn't be arrested, because the police didn't know
who to arrest. However, he knew it was just a matter of time before
they figured out who was the real Tony. Fortunately for André,
he received a very lucky phone call from Delia. Although Delia
despised him, she felt compelled to help him. And help him she did.
In no time, André was out of the hospital and on his way to
London undetected.
About
six months later, André was still in London acting in a
production of Shakespeare's "Othello," when he decided to gain
Stefano's trust again. Along with Delia's sister, Abigail Abernathy,
he came back to Salem to retrieve one of the prisms Stefano was now
desperately looking for to cure his brain tumor, which he saw in a
newspaper photo dangling from Kimberly Brady's neck. However, when he
arrived in Salem he was led to believe that Stefano was truly dead,
so André decided to proclaim himself the new head of Stefano's
Cartel. In trying to locate the prism, André murdered one of
Stefano's cohorts, Maxwell Hathaway. Finally, he found out that the
prism had disguised as a diamond necklace and it was going to be used
at a photo shoot in Haiti for Anna DiMera Designs. So, André
disguised himself as a pilot and infiltrated the plane going to
Haiti, carrying Eugene, Liz, Hope, Tony, Anna, Bo Brady, Kate
Honeycutt, Calliope Jones, his aunt Daphne DiMera, and Carlo Forenza.
Halfway into the flight, André caused the pilot to have a
heart attack and took over the craft, which soon crashed on an island
in the Caribbean.
Thanks
to the crash on the island and the confusion that followed, Tony was
separated from the rest of the group, and André was able to
assume the role of Tony once again to fool everyone. The performance
of a lifetime came when Daphne died in his own arms as a result of
injuries from the crash. Just as Daphne was about to reveal that
"Tony" wasn't Tony, she died. In the end, André found that
Tony had the prism. When he finally found Tony in the jungle with an
island girl named Jasmine, they battled it out once again. This time,
their fight involved bamboo sticks instead of swords. During the
duel, they both fell into a patch of quicksand. And right then and
there, Stefano, alive and well, showed up and snatched the prism
necklace from around Jasmine's neck and left both André and
Tony to die in the quicksand. While Jasmine pulled Tony out of the
sand, André only sank into it and died.
The character of André DiMera
was played alternately by:
Thaao Penghlis (1983-1984)
Wayne Northrop (1983; 1984)