Lawrence Alamain
Lawrence
Alamain is the son of Leopold and Philomena Alamain. He is the
brother of Forrest
Alamain (John Black),
grand-nephew of Vivian
Alamain, and father of
Nicholas Alamain. The Alamain were a prestigious European family of
noble descent from an obscure Mediterranean country. From birth,
Lawrence was betrothed to Katerina
Von Leuschner, a member of an
equally prestigious European family of noble descent. Lawrence and
Katerina were to be married on November 2, 1990, Katerina's 25th
birthday; in doing so, they would fulfill an alliance that would
empower both families. Lawrence only met Katerina one time, at a
dinner he arranged at her boarding school in Switzerland when she was
a teenager. Shortly thereafter, Katerina disappeared. Finally, only
two months before Katerina's birthday, she was located.
On September 28, 1990, the
much-mentioned Lawrence Alamain appeared in New York City during a
party at his country's embassy to meet his future bride. Katerina Von
Leuschner was a ravishing woman with long golden hair and an air of
elegance about her, who looked and acted just like she had when
Lawrence had met her at the Swiss boarding school. There was only one
problem: Katerina was an impostor. Katerina, the one Lawrence was
meeting at the embassy and getting formally engaged to, was
Jennifer
Horton, an American from
Salem and Katerina's best friend from boarding school. However,
Lawrence was fully aware of this mistake. In fact, he was taking
advantage of it. Lawrence knew that Jennifer would bring Katerina
back to him. Meanwhile, Katerina was living in Salem, going under the
name of Carly Manning. He had been keeping tabs on Carly through a
company that he owned in Salem, Jencon Oil. Jencon was establishing
an oil refinery near the Salem River, and their plans were met by
much controversy because of the environmental and economic impact
that it would have on the community. Many protests were made against
the company, most led by Carly and a friend of hers, Bo
Brady. Meanwhile, a producer
named Porter Rollins arrived in Salem to begin producing a teenage
horror film and attained Nick Corelli, Victor
Kiriakis, and Shane Donovan
as investors. The production of the movie was redundant, confusing,
and plagued by mishaps. Money was spent but never accounted for, a
fire broke out, ghosts haunted the set, and drugs were found on one
of the actresses. The people affected by these mishaps were all tied
to influential townspeople, and Lawrence was behind all of it. The
movie was a ruse meant to distract everyone from his plans involving
Jencon Oil and its hostile takeover of the forested Green Oaks area.
Soon, the Jencon project began to be sabotaged by a criminal known as
the Riverfront Raider. Also, Bo, Carly, and Steve Johnson began
investigating Jencon, getting ever closer to finding out that
Lawrence was the head of the company.
By
marrying the Katerina impostor, Lawrence would gain the Von Leuschner
fortune and also lure Katerina out of hiding. But Lawrence also had
another ace up his sleeve. He was holding Katerina's younger brother,
François Von Leuschner, hostage. Meanwhile, the wedding plans
with Jennifer began. Lawrence feigned not knowing her real identity,
but at the same time intimidated Jennifer into going along with her
charade. In New York, the embassy hosted their engagement ball. All
during this time, a strange man seemed to hover over Jennifer
pretending to be English nobility. Lawrence would soon find out that
he was Jennifer's snoopy, intrusive, journalist, off-and-on boyfriend
Jack
Deveraux. Lawrence also
pretended not to know who he was, but managed to keep him at bay.
Meanwhile, Lawrence was alerted to the fact that Bo Brady was the
Riverfront Raider and had discovered various corrupt dealings that
Jencon had made. Wanting him out of the way, Lawrence ordered for a
bomb to be placed on a boat he'd rented, with a note attached that
read, "Farewell Bo Brady. Your friend, Lawrence Alamain." However,
the one injured in the explosion was Steve, not Bo. Steve survived
the explosion and seemed to recover. However, Lawrence ordered
someone in Salem to make sure Steve didn't survive because he had
read the incriminating note. As Steve's condition improved, the
doctor, who was working for Lawrence, switched his IV bag at the
hospital. Shortly after, Steve apparently died. Apparently, but not
surely. After Steve's funeral service, gravediggers working for
Lawrence switched Steve's coffin for an empty one and took Steve
away. Why they did this would never be revealed. Although Nick
Corelli, who had been following Lawrence's orders, was arrested for
causing the boat explosion, he was working on a plea bargain with the
police; he'd tell them everything about Jencon in exchange for a
light sentence. On Halloween, Nick was murdered.
At this time, Jack returned to Salem
(Steve was his brother.) Coincidentally, a kind elderly woman visited
the embassy looking for Katerina. The woman claimed to be Cecily
Smythe, Katerina's childhood governess. Lawrence was fully aware that
the woman was yet another impostor; she was Jennifer's grandmother,
Alice
Horton. Shortly after this,
"Katerina" asked Lawrence to let her go to Salem with "Cecily" to
visit a "sick friend." Lawrence kindly agreed and made all travel
arrangements...to his home country. The unsuspecting Jennifer and
Alice were shocked beyond belief when they boarded the plane and were
told that they were being taken to Lawrence's country. Once home at
his villa, Lawrence kept Jennifer and Alice under close watch, making
sure that they didn't cross paths with his father, Leopold. However,
Alice proved to be too smart for her own good. She managed to meet
Leopold and sweet-talk him into driving her to the airport nearby.
Before they could make it there, Lawrence reached them. Knowing that
Alice was a danger, Lawrence had her locked up in the basement...next
to François Von Leuschner.
It
was now painfully clear to Jennifer that Lawrence had been setting
her up all along, so she went to him, confessed that she was not
Katerina Von Leuschner, and asked to be released from the engagement.
But Lawrence refused. He told her that he had known all along that
she wasn't Katerina; he had known for a long time that the girl he
met in Switzerland all those years ago was not Katerina. In fact, he
knew that her name was Jennifer Rose Horton, he knew that Cecily
Smythe was her grandmother Alice, and pretty much everything about
them. However, he couldn't call off the wedding because it would
hinder all of the plans for the Von Leuschner-Alamain union. Besides,
he had numerous fake documents proving that Jennifer was Katerina. To
ensure that Jennifer wouldn't spoil his plans and reveal her
identity, he took her to the basement and showed her to
François' cell. François was Jennifer's former
boyfriend, Frankie Brady. Lawrence threatened to harm him if she
didn't go through with the wedding. And so, Jennifer continued to
play the role of Katerina and married Lawrence. All throughout the
wedding, however, Lawrence fantasized about marrying the real
Katerina Von Leuschner. Obviously, he and Carly shared an intimate
history that no one was aware of. Later that evening, Lawrence
unexpectedly found Jennifer in his bedroom. Unbeknownst to him, she
was waiting for Jack, who had infiltrated the villa. Jennifer tried
to stall Lawrence by pretending to be there for him but the plan
backfired. In a psychotic daze, Lawrence thought that Jennifer was
Katerina. He then recalled a violent argument he and Katerina had had
years ago. Angered by this memory, Lawrence began to make advances
toward Jennifer. Despite her pleas to stop, he continued to force
himself on her and raped her.
The following morning, Lawrence
denied doing anything out of the ordinary and continued to keep
Jennifer a virtual hostage. Meanwhile, Gregory, his right-hand man,
informed him that Jack Deveraux had been captured. They were keeping
him in the basement along with Frankie. Unfortunately, Jack and
Frankie escaped that very same day. Lawrence's men managed to get
Frankie back, but Jack was gone. Or was he? That evening, Lawrence
received a slew of guests from Salem who had supposedly come to
attend Leopold's upcoming birthday gala. These guests were Shane
Donovan, Julie
Williams, Kayla
Johnson, and...Jack Deveraux.
Lawrence was gracious enough to his "guests" but let them know that
he had the upper hand by orchestrating an earthquake. Since the
Alamains were big movie buffs, the entire Alamain villa was rigged
with strange special effects devices.
By spying on Jennifer and overhearing
her conversations, Lawrence discovered that his new guests were
working with the ISA to bring him down as the leader of Jencon and
the one responsible for Steve Johnson's death. Soon after, Lawrence
received two more guests, the ones that Lawrence had most eagerly
waited for: Carly and Bo Brady. Meeting secretly with Carly, their
past relationship was finally revealed. Years before, Katerina had
gone into hiding to avoid being married to Lawrence. To win her love,
he tracked her down to Paris and met her under the assumed name of
James. Since Katerina had never met Lawrence Alamain, she had not
known that James was Lawrence. As James, Lawrence romanced Katerina
and soon they planned to be wed. One evening at a café,
Katerina accidentally discovered the truth about "James". A terrible
argument followed in which Katerina tried to leave but Lawrence
stopped her. Suddenly, an American merchant marine came to Katerina's
defense and fought with Lawrence, allowing Katerina to get away and
go into hiding, forever shattering Lawrence's dreams of marrying her.
That merchant marine had been Bo Brady, and Lawrence still wanted
revenge on him. This had been the reason for everything Lawrence had
done. He had kidnapped François and would only exchange him
for Bo.
Meanwhile, Lawrence continued to spy
on Jennifer's meetings with Jack. He warned her to never stop
pretending that she was his happy wife. But during one such meeting,
Jack stole a kiss from Jennifer, who relented to his advances.
Angered by Jennifer's actions, Lawrence vowed to make Jack pay. At
Leopold's birthday party, Lawrence challenged Jack to a duel using
real swords. Lawrence tried to seriously injure Jack several times,
but Jack unexpectedly fought back and defeated Lawrence. Suddenly, Bo
stepped out of the crowd that had gathered, pulled out a gun, and
threatened to shoot Carly. Bo remembered Lawrence from the
café all those years ago and knew that Carly was working with
him to free her brother. However, Lawrence didn't move a muscle to
save Carly. Instead, he let his guests argue among themselves until
they discovered everything about each other. Just as Lawrence was
ready to leave with Jennifer, though, Jack convinced her to free
herself from him. Knowing that he'd lost his hold on Jennifer,
Lawrence escaped through a trap door in the floor. Making his way out
to a helicopter, he set a final plan into motion to seek revenge
against everyone inside his house. At that moment, a fake earthquake,
much stronger than the previous one, rocked the entire house. As a
result, the people inside became trapped inside underground tunnels
that would eventually collapse, burying them alive. In the meantime,
Lawrence and Gregory were planning to escape the country with Leopold
when they noticed that Leopold was missing. Fearing for his father's
life, Lawrence returned to the villa only to find his father
unconscious; he had helped the Salem crew escape from the tunnels but
was caught in a landslide. Lawrence arrived in time to dig his father
out, but he was unconscious. He later died in the hospital. After
briefly grieving his father's passing, Lawrence gave the ISA the slip
but vowed revenge.
Not long after, Lawrence reappeared
in Salem, to everyone's shock. In spite of everything he had done, no
charges could be brought against him because there was no evidence.
Jencon ceased all operations in Salem and the movie production was
officially terminated. What Lawrence did do was make a healthy
contribution to University Hospital in order to gain social
acceptance. Next on his agenda was getting the Von Leuschner
inheritance. Since Jennifer had been revealed to be a fake, the Von
Leuschner fortune still sat in the hands of Carly and Frankie.
Lawrence refused to grant Jennifer a divorce unless she could
convince them to give him their inheritance. Meanwhile, Lawrence
decided to host a "Murder Mystery" party at his house (which had
served as the horror film's set.) The point of this party was to
figure out who had murdered Nick Corelli. Why? Because Nick had
received a crucial letter with information about Lawrence the night
he was murdered, and whomever had killed Nick probably had it. While
everyone was distracted with the party, Lawrence sent men to the
houses of every murder suspect to look for the letter. However, the
letter was not to be found. The only thing that came from that night
was yet another murder. At the stroke of midnight, the body of Emilio
Ramírez was found in the garden; he had been pushed from an
upstairs window.
Dodging any connection to either
murder, Lawrence continued his relentless pursuit of the Von
Leuschner inheritance. Knowing that Jennifer and Jack were engaged,
and that she hadn't told him about the rape, Lawrence threatened to
destroy their relationship by telling Jack that they'd "made love" on
their wedding night. Desperate to keep Lawrence from doing such a
thing, Jennifer got Frankie and Carly to give up their fortunes.
After the inheritance was signed over to Lawrence, he agreed to a
divorce from Jennifer. However, Lawrence still wanted revenge on Jack
so he made a bid to take over Jack's newspaper, The Spectator. He
knew that Jack would never be able to come up with the money to buy
the other half of the newspaper, which belonged to Diana Colville.
But miraculously, Jack did come up with the money and retained the
newspaper.
During this time, Lawrence also
calculated his revenge against Shane Donovan by obtaining information
from his ex-wife, Kimberly
Brady. Lawrence traveled to
Los Angeles and orchestrated a chance meeting with her at an abuse
clinic. Lawrence and Kimberly really hit it off and became fast
friends. But when she discovered who he was, she told him to stay
away. Nevertheless, they continued to cross paths once she moved back
to Salem. Despite the Bradys' warnings, Kimberly befriended Lawrence.
Their friendship grew as Lawrence began to open up about his
childhood. With Kimberly, Lawrence felt so comfortable that he
confessed to her that events from his childhood traumatized him.
Because Kimberly's specialty was child abuse, she felt compelled to
help him. Working with Kimberly, Lawrence remembered his mother
taking care of him. Something about a "forest" seemed to haunt his
memory. While working on the subject of his childhood, Lawrence and
Kimberly grew very close. Even though Lawrence's pursuit of Kimberly
had begun with an underhanded objective, Kimberly, as he once put it,
intrigued him. He soon invited her to go on a trip with him back to
his homeland. There at his villa, they almost made love. However, he
knew that she still had doubts about him because of her family's
warnings. But when the attacks on Lawrence became too harsh, Kimberly
said good-bye to her family and moved in with Lawrence.
Meanwhile,
a deadly synthetic virus was killing off ISA agents. Lawrence was the
source of this virus. Along with Victor Kiriakis, Lawrence had
secretly commissioned Dr. Jordan Barr to manufacture and propagate
the virus in order to destroy the organization. The virus seemed to
be working brilliantly and Lawrence hoped that Shane would soon be
infected. Little did he know that Kimberly was secretly working with
the ISA to nail him as the virus' creator. Gregory warned Lawrence
that Kimberly was snoopy, but Lawrence refused to listen. In fact, he
vehemently protected Kimberly against Gregory's accusations. So
much so that he even threatened to fire Gregory. That night, Gregory
tried to infect Kimberly with the virus while she slept, not knowing
that Shane was watching his every move. When Shane confronted him,
Gregory took a gun out and threatened to shoot him. At that moment,
Lawrence walked in, and Kimberly leapt out of bed toting a gun and
took Lawrence hostage. Either Gregory let Shane go or Lawrence was
history. Lawrence could not believe Kimberly's betrayal and was truly
hurt as he was led away in handcuffs. However, Lawrence knew that
Kimberly did care about him. This belief was strengthened when she
came to see him in jail, anguished over what she'd done to him. But
Lawrence's stay in jail was brief; he managed to pin the entire virus
plot on Gregory and got off scot-free.
Once
out of jail, Lawrence faced another problem: Jennifer was
pressing rape charges against him. Fortunately for Lawrence, there
was no evidence of rape to be found anywhere (unless someone knew
where to look, that is.) Since the rape charge was a long shot, Jack
and Jennifer tried to figure out who Nick's killer was. They were
sure Lawrence was the culprit. His New Year's break-ins at the
suspects' homes had been discovered and made him a very likely
suspect. Nevertheless, Lawrence wasn't worried because he didn't kill
Nick. As far as the letter Nick had had in his possession, Lawrence
was convinced it was gone and didn't worry about it. What he did
worry about was gaining Kimberly's trust once again. To redeem
himself in the public's eye, Lawrence helped Melissa
Anderson be cleared of the
murder of Emilio Ramírez. She had accidentally pushed him out
of the window to his death, and Lawrence's security camera had
captured it all on tape. This magnanimous gesture brought Kimberly
back to Lawrence. In a heartfelt conversation, they both admitted to
having entered their relationship with underhanded motives; and they
both admitted to having feelings for each other. As a result, they
decided to wipe the slate clean and start over. Kimberly moved back
into the mansion, to her family's chagrin, and continued to help
Lawrence recall the traumatic childhood event that so deeply bothered
him. Lawrence claimed that he'd had blackouts since childhood, and
that he couldn't recall raping Jennifer. In living at the mansion,
Kimberly took notice of some pills that Lawrence swallowed
frequently. Lawrence said that they were medication his mother had
told him he must always take for his blood pressure. But Kimberly was
sure that they were connected to his childhood trauma so she told
Lawrence to stop taking them. Little by little, Lawrence remembered
his trauma. When he was young, Lawrence and his younger brother,
Forrest, had been riding their tricycles around the Alamain pool.
Forrest had fallen in, and Lawrence had done nothing to help him,
letting him drown. The pills his mother had prescribed him blocked
out the memory; the pills actually caused someone to forget any evil
deed they'd done. This was the information that was on the letter
Nick had received, which is what Lawrence needed to protect himself
from future criminal charges. All of this caused Kimberly to believe
Lawrence was innocent of any wrongdoing. Soon, she and Lawrence
became lovers.
Meanwhile, Jack and Jennifer had
found the letter and were angered by the fact that it actually helped
Lawrence. Convinced that there was proof that Lawrence raped her,
Jack and Jennifer returned to the Alamain homeland and infiltrated
Lawrence's villa. Knowing their every move, Lawrence surprised Jack
while he searched his bedroom at the villa. There, Lawrence
challenged him to yet another duel. This time, Lawrence drew blood by
slicing Jack's hand, and won the battle, with his sword pointed at
Jack's throat. If Jennifer hadn't arrived at that moment, Lawrence
might very well have killed Jack. In an effort to save face (and
feign innocence), Lawrence graciously allowed Jack and Jennifer to
leave the villa freely. Unbeknownst to him, they had taken with them
Lyla, one of the maids who had heard Jennifer's screams the night
Lawrence raped her. When Lawrence returned to Salem, he brought with
him a box full of video tapes. As it turned out, the security system
at the Alamain villa had captured the rape on tape. When Lawrence
realized that the ISA was aware of this fact, he decided to get rid
of it. Without this crucial evidence, Jennifer's case against
Lawrence was shot. Lyla's testimony wasn't enough for a conviction.
However, on the final day of the trial, the ISA surprised Lawrence
with a tape. It contained a conversation between Lawrence and Gregory
in which he confessed to the rape. Furthermore, Gregory was ready to
testify against him. Although the tape was legally inadmissible in
court, nothing could stop the ISA from leaking it to the media,
causing a detrimental scandal. Grudgingly, Lawrence pleaded guilty to
the spousal rape charges. The only person to stand by him through
this was Kimberly. However, it was Kimberly who had actually obtained
that incriminating tape; she was still working for the
ISA.
The ISA was interested in the
rape charges against Lawrence because it made it easier for them to
find a cure for the deadly virus, which was still killing off agents
left and right. And Kimberly was to continue her charade in order to
learn the location of the virus' cure. However, Lawrence continued to
deny having the cure. In time, Kimberly became fed up with Lawrence
and broke her relationship with him. Wanting Kimberly back, Lawrence
decided to have Bo, who had contracted the virus, injected with
the cure. That plan failed miserably, angering Kimberly even more.
Seeing that Kimberly would never be his again, Lawrence quit his
pursuit of her acceptance. Meanwhile, he secretly worked out a
bargain with Victor Kiriakis from prison. Since Bo was his son,
Victor wanted the cure. Lawrence decided to give Victor the cure in
exchange for a mysterious "John Black" file that was in Victor's
possession. Victor agreed to the trade and gave Lawrence the file.
However, Lawrence double-crossed Victor. He ordered a hitman to
destroy the vial containing the cure as it was being handed to
Victor. Nevertheless, Carly managed to get salvage enough of the
formula to devise a new cure. Though Bo Brady lived, Lawrence
relished at the fact that he now had the valuable John Black file.
With his attorney's help, Lawrence was able to get out of prison
after serving less than three months of his sentence. As soon as he
got out, Kimberly told Lawrence what a slime he was, returned his
house key, and said good-bye forever. Lawrence didn't really seem to
care; he already knew that Kimberly had worked against him all along.
Right now, the mystery surrounding the John Black file was much more
important.
John
Black happened to be the alias that Roman Brady had adopted when he
had first returned to Salem in 1986. Whatever Lawrence had up his
sleeve involved him...and astronomy. As soon as Lawrence was
able to, he went to Miami to search for an assistant with an
extensive knowledge of astronomy. The perfect person for the job
showed up unexpectedly in the form of the beautiful Gretchen
Lindquist. Lawrence and Gretchen became lovers almost immediately and
returned to Salem together to get started on his mystery project.
Whatever it was, it would yield an enormous amount wealth. While in
Salem, Lawrence noticed that Gretchen changed her looks and purposely
avoided being seen by the real Roman Brady, who had returned to Salem
following 7 years of imprisonment overseas (the other Roman went back
to using the name John Black.) Knowing that Gretchen knew more than
she was letting on, Lawrence forced her to talk. It turned out that
she had worked for whomever had kept the real Roman captive. She had
imprisoned Roman in the island of San Cristobal shortly before his
return to Salem. Gretchen explained that because of Roman's escape
she had been fired by her employer, who had always remained
anonymous. Deciding that Gretchen was much too valuable to his
project to distrust, Lawrence continued to work with her. Eventually,
they went to Cancun, Mexico for the last phase of the project. They
knew that Roman and John would follow them. The plan was to let them
find the treasure -- valuable ancient Mayan codices -- and then take
it from them. However, Lawrence revealed that he didn't plan to make
money off of them. He was actually planning to turn the codices over
to the Mexican government! One can only guess it was to regain
some sort of public dignity. Regardless of his reasons, Lawrence and
Gretchen followed Roman and John into the main Castillo at the ruins
of Chichen Itzá. There, at noon on November 2, 1991, the light
of the sun would shine directly into a temple chamber, revealing the
location of the hidden codices. As John and Roman looked for the
codices, Lawrence and Gretchen surprised them and held them at
gunpoint in order to get the codices. But just as they found the
artifacts, Bo Brady came running in. He had discovered that someone
was manipulating all of them. At that moment, Stefano
DiMera appeared in the
chamber. Holding everyone at gunpoint, Stefano took the codices for
himself. A gun battle ensued, Stefano was killed, and John recovered
the codices. Following this, Lawrence returned to Salem empty-handed,
somewhat of a hero for altruism, and completely Gretchen-less (she
was revealed to be an ISA agent.)
More information to
follow!
The character of Lawrence Alamain was
played by Michael Sabatino from 1990-1993
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