Much
to Stella's dismay, that wasn't true. Soon after, Marlena entered
Roger into a clinic to detox, all the while he was staying in a
hotel. He needed to be away from Stella and Jesse during the process.
After a couple of weeks, with Marlena's devotion, Roger actually
stopped having the urge to drink. He even began painting again,
starting with a great portrait of Marlena. He told her that he owed
it all to her. Unfortunately, Roger told Stella the same thing, and
Stella began to unhinge. It certainly didn't help matters that Roger
began to develop a crush on Marlena. He began thinking about her,
painting her, sketching her...he eventually kissed Marlena while she
sat for her portrait. However, Roger realized his mistake and
apologized -- he thought that Marlena felt the same way about him.
Marlena didn't think any of it and told him to forget about it. Soon
after, Stella came to the hospital making a ruckus. She screamed at
Marlena, accusing her of having an affair with Roger and calling her
a slut. Although Marlena tried to tell Stella that she was wrong,
Stella was just too insane to listen. Stella gave Marlena an
ultimatum: "Stay away from Roger, or I'll kill you."
This
certainly shook up poor Marlena. So she called Roger and warned him
that Stella needed psychiatric help. Later that night, Roger left
Stella. That was the last straw for Stella. While Marlena was leaving
for a trip out of town, Stella kidnapped her at gunpoint. She took
her to a condemned warehouse and threw her inside a pit. Marlena was
stuck inside the pit for weeks. She went a little crazy every day she
spent in that hole, seeing visions of her family. She even saw her
sister Samantha. Meanwhile, no one in Salem had a clue to where she
was, and Stella certainly didn't tell. She was waiting for the
warehouse to be destroyed with Marlena in it. Finally, John stumbled
upon Marlena; he tried to get her out, but he just fell in with her
thanks to Stella. After a while, they thought they were going to die
as preparations were being made to destroy the warehouse.
With their impeding doom, Marlena and John finally gave in to their feelings. Although he had just lost Isabella, who had loved enormously, John and Marlena had also been dodging their past together ever since they'd all returned from Mexico. He'd been trying to move on with Isabella, and she with Roman. Now, they finally confronted their unresolved feelings. They almost gave in completely, but they were rescued by Roman. It appeared that Stella had called the police and told them what she'd done as a result of guilt -- she died soon after making that call, being killed by an out-of-control truck. Marlena and John came out of the ordeal okay, save for her occasional bouts of post-traumatic stress disorder. Now their feelings were more unresolved than ever. John and Marlena went on the Jennifer Deveraux show to talk about their ordeal in the pit, and their feelings were all over the screen. Good thing that Roman didn't watch the show. Meanwhile, Roger and Jesse Lombard apologized to Marlena for what Stella had put her through and left Salem to rebuild their lives elsewhere.
John
kept trying to talk to Marlena about the way that he felt about her,
but she dodged the issue. She knew very well that she could
reciprocate those feelings. But Marlena loved Roman too much and
desired to keep her marriage together. Especially now more than ever,
since her daughter Sami had just returned home from Colorado. Still,
John persisted. At a charity benefit at which people were auctioned
off, John shocked the crowd by bidding $100,000 for a dance with
Marlena. Though this only meant that John was generous to everyone
else, Marlena knew exactly what John meant. After Marlena tried to
push John away several times, he finally got the message. He decided
to leave for Italy with Brady to avoid breaking up Marlena's marriage
to Roman. However, this was not what Marlena wanted. She didn't want
him to leave Salem. The night that he was to depart -- Marlena and
Roman's anniversary -- Marlena went to the airport to keep John from
leaving Salem. While on the Alamain jet, Marlena and John at last
couldn't hold it any longer and made love. Apparently, this was all
the convincing John needed because he decided to stay. However, the
saintly Marlena was now confronted with confounding moral problems.
After her rendezvous with John, Marlena arrived home to find that
Roman had organized an anniversary party in their honor. And that
night, she and Roman had their own private celebration and made love.
Poor Roman!
Marlena
felt extremely guilty about what she'd done with John. She refused to
let it happen again. She tried to convince herself that it'd been a
mistake. Both John and Marlena tried to move on with their lives. But
it was just too hard to do so when they both lived in the same town
and were connected with the same family. One evening, a party was
held at Titan Publishing in honor of the company's relocation into
The Tower, the tallest building in Salem, and also the presentation
of the Face of the 90's award from Bella Magazine. Marlena was forced
to attend the party because she was now working for Titan, writing an
advice column for Bella Magazine. What a nice coincidence that John
was on the board of directors of Titan, thus also present at the
party. Throughout the evening, Marlena was nervous around John. After
she and John were mistaken to be Carrie's (who'd won the Face of the
90's contest) parents, Marlena left the party. She retreated to the
floor below, to the conference room. John followed her, and they gave
into each other once again. This time, they made love on the
conference table, unaware that they were being watched by Sami! After
this last session, Marlena decides that she truly wants to remain
faithful to Roman. Later that night, Marlena is informed that Carrie
was splashed in the face with acid; Marlena felt guilty for having
been with John rather than with Carrie.
While trying to avoid John (for in addition to feeling guilty about their affair, Roman had decided that John should be out of their lives because he intervened too often) Marlena also began treating Kim. While Marlena had been in Stella's pit, Kim had developed Multiple-personality Disorder (MPD) as a result of being hit by Roger Lombard's car. However, her problem stemmed from the sexual abuse that she'd suffered as a child at the hands of her uncle Eric Brady. Marlena tried to help Kim integrate her personalities through hypnosis. After many months it finally worked. Along the way, Marlena and Kim discussed her affair with John; Kim may have had a fragmented personality, but she wasn't stupid. She'd known that something had been going on ever since John's $100,000 bid for a dance.
Marlena also found an unlikely friend at Titan. When Victor introduced her to the new editor of Bella Magazine, Marlena never imagined it would be Kate Roberts. Kate had been one of Marlena's very first patients in Salem, who she had treated after Kate had been found pregnant and beaten in a road ditch. Kate, however, begged Marlena to keep the fact that they'd known each other in the past a secret. There was something that Kate desperately wanted to hide, but Marlena didn't know what or why.
A few weeks after Marlena's little romp with John in the conference room, Victor and Kate announced that the board of directors would be going to the mountain retreat of Summit Lake for the weekend. Roman and Marlena went together, while John took his less-than-likeable girlfriend Rebecca Morrison. One night, Marlena heard John and Rebecca getting cozy in their room. While Roman slept, Marlena went to the lake and bathed in the moonlight. John saw her and met up with her. They almost had a third tryst right there in the water; John managed to get a hold of himself this time, however. They vowed never to do this again. It seemed like their secret would stay buried and in the past. But a few weeks later, Marlena discovered that she was pregnant! Marlena and John anguished for weeks about the child, not knowing who was the father. Finally, Marlena decided to have blood tests performed on the baby. John and Marlena let out a sigh of relief when they discovered the baby was Roman's. What they didn't know was that Sami had tampered the baby's blood tests -- the child was really John's.
And speaking of Sami, she became more insubordinate towards Marlena with each passing day. Marlena let it go at first, figuring that Sami was having small problems with her "boyfriend", Lucas Roberts. However, she began to notice an odd behavior in Sami. After some months, Sami's best friend, Jamie Caldwell, informed Marlena that Sami was suffering from bulimia. Of course Marlena was devastated by this and forced Sami to admit her problem. Sami almost spilled her guts about the baby but decided against it. She admitted that she was bulimic and agreed to attend therapy sessions at the hospital with Marlena's colleague, Dr. Matt Dorman.
Just
as things were looking up, Marlena received the fright of her life.
While at the hospital one day, she saw Stefano DiMera himself wheeled
out to the nurses' station. The mere sight of this man, who she
thought had died in that horrible fire in Mexico, sent Marlena to
tears. John was there to comfort her, however. It turned out that
Stefano hadn't died in Mexico and was now dying from a brain
tumor...again. Stefano supposedly wanted nothing to do with Marlena,
Roman, or John, but we all knew better, and so did
Marlena.
Right around this time (the very same day, in fact), Tom Horton informed Marlena that it would be wise to schedule blood tests for her baby soon after it was born. She decided to oblige. In the meantime, she decided to get away for a bit. Seeing Stefano had shaken her up so much that she needed to get away. Alice suggested to Marlena that she go up to her cabin on Smith Island for the weekend. Marlena figured this was a good idea and went to the island. Soon after getting there, Marlena was joined by Kristen Blake, Stefano's adoptive daughter. Marlena had nothing against Kristen, but constantly warned her that Stefano was not the good man she thought he was. While arguing about Stefano, Marlena's water broke and she informed Kristen that she'd have to deliver the baby; there was no phone to call for help with, and the ferry back to Salem was not running. Fortunately, John had caught the last ferry and arrived at the cabin (he'd followed Kristen to the island to talk to her about Stefano.) Together, John and Kristen delivered the baby and Marlena gave life to a little girl. The baby stopped breathing soon after birth, but John was able to resuscitate her. Marlena named the child Isabella, in honor of John's late wife.
Marlena
was soon taken to the hospital and she & Isabella, or Belle as
she would be called for short, checked out just fine. Although, the
doctors advised Marlena to have more blood tests done on Belle.
Marlena made an appointment and didn't worry about it. Roman and
Marlena returned to a blissful marriage with their supposed baby
girl. Unfortunately, their happiness was shattered rather quickly.
One night, Roman and Marlena returned home from an evening on the
town to find Belle's crib empty. The window into the nursery was
open, and a ladder propped against the ledge -- Belle had been
kidnapped. Roman moved heaven and earth to try to locate Belle but
came up with empty leads. Everyone who knew Roman and Marlena were
worried sick about Belle. Roman and John finally put two and two
together and figured that whoever had stolen Belle might want to sell
her into the black baby market. Kristen worked with Karen, an teenage
mother staying at the Horton Center, and asked her about Salem's
black baby market. Karen told her about Steven Miller, a corrupt
lawyer who was involved in such illicit dealings. So, Kristen and
John posed as a married couple & prospective clients of Steven
Miller's, Mr. and Mrs. Hooper, in order to find Belle. At Miller's
office, John and Kristen got the fright of their lives when they
found Sami trying to sell Belle! She'd kidnapped Belle herself.
Meanwhile, Marlena prayed at a Christmas Eve service to receive her
baby back. And her prayers were answered, as John walked into the
church with Belle in his arms. Roman made sure that Sami was not
charged with kidnapping, on the condition that she attend therapy
sessions at the hospital and continue to volunteer there.
Sami never did explain to Roman the real reason for kidnapping Belle. But she did tell Marlena that she knew about the affair, but promised to keep it secret in order to spare Roman the pain of knowing. Marlena's conscience began to be plagued by this fact, however. But it wasn't her conscience she needed to fear. One day at the restaurant Chez Vous, Stefano let Marlena know that he knew about the affair, and who "little Isabella's" father was. Marlena begged him to keep quiet, but during their argument, Stefano implied that he would do anything to hurt Roman, including harming Belle. This devastated Marlena so much that she followed Stefano to his table, where he was seated with Kristen, Tony, and Peter, and dropped to her knees in tears, begging Stefano to leave her children alone.
The moment of truth finally arrived toward the end of January 1994, the day of Belle's christening. Irony being the ever-present uninvited guest, John was to be Belle's godfather. As Father Kyle began the ceremony, Stefano calmly and quietly arrived at the church. From the front of the church, Marlena saw Stefano and feared the worst: that he would reveal her affair with John. Rather than give Stefano the pleasure of destroying her marriage, Marlena did it herself. She stopped the ceremony and tearfully confessed to having an affair with John in front of the entire church. Roman exploded, turning to John and punching him. Fortunately, Shawn broke up the fight, but the damage had already been done. And Stefano, his job done, turned and left the church as slyly as he'd entered it.
At home, Marlena faced the music. When Roman asked her what had happened, she explained to him the circumstances surrounding her affair with John. Roman reacted horribly to her explanation for the conference room encounter. But he exploded when she told him about the first time she had sex with John, on the plane. He fully remembered that the night John was to leave Salem was the night of their anniversary party. And upon realizing that Marlena had gone from John's bed to his, Roman called Marlena a slut and kicked her out of the house. Things only got worse when Sami revealed, to everyone's shock, that Belle was actually John's daughter. That's why she'd kidnapped her! The entire Brady family had turned against Marlena; the only place she had to go was the Horton Center. She could've gone to John's, but things were bad enough as they were. Still, John went ahead and bought Marlena a penthouse apartment, complete with a state-of-the-art security system and a live-in nanny for Belle. For weeks, Marlena tried reconciling with Roman, but he wouldn't have any of it. Finally, he informed her that he was filing for divorce.
Though Caroline and Shawn, and even Carrie, forgave Marlena for betraying Roman, Roman himself couldn't do so. Despite his lingering love for Marlena, he proceeded with the divorce until it was complete. And with it, he gave up any rights as father of Belle. In the meantime, Marlena sought comfort from John. For some time, he'd been searching for clues to his past once again. Stefano's arrival in Salem had given John many opportunities to find out more about his past, since Stefano consistently taunted him with a mesmerizing piece of piano music by Chopin that put him in a trance. And though Stefano had died in a car explosion by this time, John couldn't help but think that the man was still alive. One night, John and Marlena sat in his loft talking when the answering machine played a message -- the piano music. In the background, they could hear the sounds of the docks. When they arrived at the fog-shrouded dock, all they heard was Stefano's laugh far away. He was still alive. In the upcoming month, John received puzzle pieces in the mail, which together formed a picture of a window & a column of a house. Marlena tried to hypnotize John so that he could remember something in connection with the house in the puzzle, which was obviously a Southern plantation, but nothing came out of it. But Roman, who was willing to help out, informed John & Marlena that he remembered having briefly been kept prisoner in a large plantation house; he had escaped at one point and seen a sign that read "Tolly Import-Export Industries." John & Marlena researched this and discovered that this company was based in New Orleans, near a plantation called Maison Blanche. John decided to investigate.
Several days went by without any word from John. One night, Marlena received a call from John asking her to come join him in New Orleans because he'd found something worth looking into. Before leaving Salem, Marlena called Carrie to let her know where she was going. When she arrived at her hotel in New Orleans, Marlena received a visit from Celeste, a woman claiming to know John. Celeste told Marlena that John had been in a car accident. As Marlena went to the phone to call home and let someone know what had happened, Celeste snuck up behind her and covered her nose & mouth with a rag doused in chloroform. When Marlena woke up, she was in the middle of a great living room, tied to a chair. She was in Maison Blanche as Stefano's prisoner. The call she'd received from John had been a trap set by Stefano; Celeste was his henchwoman.
Stefano
allowed Marlena to stay in an upstairs bedroom, but informed her that
John was being kept prisoner in the basement. He planned to brainwash
him once again. One night, Stefano treated John and Marlena to an
exquisite soup dinner in the living room. While Stefano left the
table to take care of some noises that were coming from upstairs,
Marlena came up with an undesirable plan to escape. John had been
starving himself this whole time because he knew that Stefano would
drug his food in order to brainwash him. But Marlena was so upset
with John's ill state that she begged him to eat the "poisoned soup."
She'd take care of Stefano. Marlena had noticed that Stefano was
mildly interested in her and planned to drug his wine with some
sedatives he'd provided for her, steal his keys, and free John. After
dinner was over and John was taken back to the basement, Marlena sat
around talking with Stefano, waiting for the sedative to take effect.
It took a terribly long time, and finally Marlena decided to seduce
Stefano. She stripped naked and kissed Stefano. Thankfully, he soon
fell asleep. Marlena seized the opportunity to take his keys and free
John. But as they tried to leave the basement, Stefano encountered
them brandishing a gun. It had all been a ruse -- the sedatives had
been placebos, since Stefano had anticipated this. Now, Stefano
forced Marlena to stay in the basement with John.
Stefano
continued to mentally torture the two in the basement, beginning with
a simple phone call. He forced Marlena to call the Bradys and let
them know that she was perfectly safe in New Orleans. Stefano knew
that Roman would think she and John were having a sexual tryst. Also,
Stefano burned a book containing John's entire past right in front of
him. Marlena tried to bribe Celeste into letting them go, or even
seeking help, by giving up her wedding band. Celeste only took it and
did nothing to help them. As the days passed, John and Marlena
believed there was no hope for them. However, something soon seemed
to change. There seemed to be more activity on the estate. But this
small glimmer of hope was destroyed when John and Marlena noticed
that their cell was beginning to fill with gas. Knowing that they
were going to die, John and Marlena proclaimed that they loved each
other and waited to die in each other's arms. While they were
unconscious and barely alive, Roman, who had come to Maison Blanche
to arrest Peter Blake on drug charges, burst into the basement and
saved them. Marlena remained unconscious for some time in the hallway
outside the cell, while Roman and John left the basement to seek
help. In their absence, a vengeful Celeste, jealous of Stefano's
attraction to Marlena, set a fire around Marlena. Fortunately, Roman
saved her. As it turned out, Kristen and a host of others had come to
Maison Blanche for a charity cotillion, unaware that Stefano was
alive or that he was keeping John & Marlena prisoner in the
basement. In the hospital, Marlena attempted one last try at
reconciliation with Roman. It was obvious they still loved each
other. However, Roman had seen a bond between John & Marlena when
he rescued them; he realized the reason for their affair; and upon
that realization, he knew that there was a part of Marlena's heart
that always belong to John. And because of that, he said, it was
impossible for him to be with Marlena. Soon after returning to Salem,
Roman finalized their divorce and quit the Salem Police Department.
He decided to return to the ISA and left for Washington D.C. to await
his orders. Similarly, Marlena decided to go away for some time and
left for Boulder, Colorado to visit her parents and her son,
Eric.
When she returned in late August, Marlena found a rather ghastly surprise. Carrie and Sami had been kidnapped by a boy named Alan Harris, a boy both girls had dated. Worse was the fact that Alan had been the one who had attempted to rape Carrie earlier that year; he raped Sami while they were dating. Sami and Carrie were rescued, and the event actually brought Sami and Marlena closer for a brief moment. Brief because Marlena encouraged Sami to press rape charges against Alan, which were eventually dropped and made Sami the laughingstock of Salem.
Meanwhile, Marlena began to be plagued by noisy neighbors. Someone who had purchased the penthouse next to hers had decided to do some renovations. After some time, the noise stopped and the minor nuisance went away. But something far worse than noisy neighbors began to affect Marlena. She began having very strange dreams, in which a masked stranger wearing a tuxedo walked into her bedroom through her armoire and took her to a glorious world of pomp and extravagance. Marlena and the masked man ended up in a ballroom and danced all night long. Marlena was quite shaken up by these dreams because they were so lifelike; her feet even hurt when she woke up in her bed in the morning. The second night, she dreamt that she'd gone to the opera with this man, who gave her a jeweled crown and proclaimed her the "Queen of the Night", and confetti had been thrown at her. The next morning, Marlena awoke to find confetti on the floor by her bedside. The third night, the man brought Marlena through the armoire and arrived at some sort of Turkish bath house, where Marlena was bathed by servants. Finally, the man took off his mask: it was Stefano. Although Marlena didn't seem too upset (she hardly recognized him), she was rather uneasy when she woke up. As the weeks passed, Marlena began to feel weaker and weaker. Little did she know that these dreams were not dreams at all.
Constantly feeling tired, Marlena began to think she was ill, so she took off an extended vacation from work to rest up. However, Marlena began doing silly things in her sleep, such as levitating over her bed and developing greenish-yellow eyes. She also began seeing a sinister figure with glowing red eyes, first in her bedroom, and then outside the Brady Pub.
It
was during this time that an odd criminal surfaced in Salem, a
criminal who vandalized religious symbols. The Desecrator, as the
criminal came to be called, began his evil spree by knocking the head
off of a saint statue at St. Luke's Catholic Church using a
sledgehammer. He went on to set fire to the Christmas tree at Salem
Place, and burn the Christmas gifts the Horton Center had been
planning to give to needy children. The only clue the Salem Police
had to follow was a Brady Fish Market matchbook. And no one in Salem
suspected that the evil Desecrator was none other than Marlena
herself, the former paragon of perfection.
Marlena
had become under the influence of an evil force. The ordeals she had
suffered that year compounded by Stefano's surreal nightly visits had
left her soul weak and susceptible to evil. Unconsciously, Marlena
followed the diabolical orders of the "Evil One." On New Year's Eve,
MarDevil (Marlena under the influence of the devil) prepared for one
of her most shocking acts yet. Disguised all in black, she loosened
the screws that held a very large chandelier suspended over the
altar. She planned for it to that evening, during Bo and Billie's
wedding. And indeed, the chandelier fell, barely missing wedding
party. However, the wedding did not go off without a hitch, as Alice
Horton stopped it (no, she was not under the Devil's
influence!)
Author's Note: from this point on, the term "MarDevil" will be used to describe the demonic entity that used Marlena's body to carry out its evil deeds.
Marlena continued to feel weak during the daytime, having no recollection of the things she did while the Evil One possessed her. Things like trying smother Father Francis, a priest who was recovering from a stroke in the hospital. She didn't even know that there *was* an Evil One. As far as she and everyone else knew, she only had a rather odd case of anemia. Several times, Marlena was checked into the hospital, where Mike gave her the news that she had absolutely no red blood cells...only to find that her red blood cell count was normal the following day. Although there were incidents when she couldn't account for lost time, Marlena didn't tell anyone about her blackouts. This continued for quite some time. In the meantime, weird things continued to happen in Salem. For example, Marlena found herself one evening at St. Luke's Church, not remembering why she was there, and entered. There, she found John helping Kristen with a bit of a dilemma; Kristen had been chloroformed, stripped naked, handcuffed to the altar, with red pentagrams painted on her. John and Marlena promised Kristen they wouldn't tell anyone about this incident.
Meanwhile,
Marlena's evil guest began doing quite ghastly things. When the Devil
took over her body, things in Salem went bonkers. MarDevil's main
goal was to take possession of John Black's soul; he was now a priest
and servant of God, and MarDevil wished for him to fall. And so,
knowing that John still loved Mrs. Kristen DiMera, MarDevil did what
any self-respecting demon would do: she morphed. In other words, she
changed her shape to look like Kristen. As Kristen, MarDevil went to
John's loft wearing a pink negligée and tried to seduce him.
While trying to get John to make love to her, Tony DiMera showed up
and assumed the very worst (MarDevil had left a message on his
machine saying, "If you want to know what your wife is doing, go to
the loft.") MarDevil quickly got dressed and left the loft while John
and Tony viciously argued. MarDevil changed back into Marlena once
she arrived at her penthouse, and waited for the fireworks. Although
her plan had been slightly altered, the effect was still quite
satisfying for her. MarDevil was happiest when anyone else was
miserable, and there was going to be plenty of misery to
relish.
The Devil's power over Marlena grew stronger with each passing day. One night, while Marlena slept, Stefano invaded her bedroom through her armoire once again. He was planning to kidnap Marlena. But when he got close to her, she opened her eyes and began to strangle him. She would've killed him, but Celeste saw what was going on and cried God's name. Marlena instantly let go of Stefano and fainted. Marlena was soon stricken by her worst bout with anemia to date and was hospitalized. But thanks to Shawn and Caroline Brady's ardent bedside prayers, the Devil vacated Marlena's body and Marlena successfully overcame her anemia. The Devil vowed to get Marlena once again.
Go to Part 3
of Marlena's history
The character of Dr. Marlena Evans
has been played by Deidre Hall from 1976-1987, and again from
1991-present
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to Beth's Days of Our Lives Page