Victor
Kiriakis is the brother of Alexander Kiriakis. He is the father of Bo
Brady, Isabella Toscano, and Phillip Kiriakis. He has been married to
Carly Manning and Vivian Alamain, and illegally married to Kate
Roberts. Victor is Greek by origin, having been born on the island of
Naphleon near Athens. Although his family in Greece was prominent and
had amassed a vast fortune over the centuries with their shipping
industry, Victor often spoke of the meager childhood he had to
endure, which suggests that some ill fate fell on the Kiriakis
shipping business when he was growing up. However, Victor struggled
through his younger years to reconstruct the Kiriakis empire, and
eventually achieved wealth and power, although he paid dearly to gain
that wealth.
In
the summer of 1985, Victor Kiriakis reestablished himself in Salem.
He had lived in Salem many years ago, when he had been a young man
working in a shipping business. He seemed like a good enough man, and
shared a past with both Caroline and Shawn Brady. However, Victor was
soon revealed to have ties to illegal business in Salem, namely
Savannah Wilder's recording company. Savannah's company had already
been revealed to be a cover for a major drug ring in Salem, and
Victor turned out to be the leader of this operation. This operation,
which had moved from New York City earlier that year, had already
claimed the life of Danny Grant and almost killed Liz Curtis.
Victor's move to Salem signified the establishment of the drug ring
in that city. Yet, only Theo Carver, Bo Brady, and Shane Donovan
suspected Victor of any wrongdoing. In the meantime, Victor
preoccupied his time with helping Caroline Brady and her family. It
soon became obvious that they had been lovers at one time in the past
and he wanted to rekindle that relationship. Through Caroline, Victor
met her daughter Kimberly. Since Kimberly was blind at the time,
Victor offered to let her stay in the mansion while she recuperated.
While Victor took care of Kimberly, he continued to pursue Caroline.
As it turned out, Caroline and Victor had had an affair years ago
before he ever had any wealth. He constantly offered Caroline to take
her away from the Fish Market, and promised to give her anything and
everything in the world. Shawn began to notice Victor's interest in
Caroline and told him to stay away. One night, Victor caught Caroline
outside the Fish Market, once again promising the world to her, and
kissed her. At that moment, Shawn arrived and decked Victor, and made
Caroline choose what she wanted. Although Caroline had deep feelings
for Victor, she couldn't throw away her marriage to Shawn, whom she
obviously loved. Dissatisfied, Victor resolved to romance Caroline's
daughter, Kimberly.
In
addition to the drug industry, Victor was also in search of something
of great importance. He had a film whose photos were clues to
something he said would destroy his entire organization.
Unfortunately for him, those photos accidentally fell on the hands of
Pete Jannings and Melissa Anderson when a mix-up occurred at the
photo lab. Desperate to find those photos, Victor ordered that the
kids be killed if necessary. Pete and Melissa ran away after one of
Victor's men tried to kill them and began following the clues.
Thinking that he this could work to his advantage, Victor had
Savannah send Todd Chandler to join the kids in order to keep an eye
on their actions and eventually destroy them and get the clues.
However, Todd soon crossed teams and began helping Pete and Melissa.
So Victor sent another goon, Patch Johnson, after them. Over the
following weeks, the chase led from Salem to Los Angeles, to Chicago,
to Boston. Finally, Patch caught up with the trio before they could
discover that their "treasure hunt's" next stop would be
Miami.
Meanwhile, Shane, Theo, and Bo were close to uncovering Savannah's drug ring and Victor's involvement with it. Eventually, one of Savannah's key people, chief of police Richard Cates, was unmasked and murdered. It was only a matter of time before they could connect Victor to both Cates and Savannah. Victor was not oblivious to the fact that Shane and Bo were investigating him. Also by this time, Kimberly had begun to distrust Victor; having secretly regained her eyesight, she now saw that Victor was keeping a lot illegal secrets. However, at a party, Victor noticed Kim switching a drink that had been drugged by Emma Donovan. Wondering if Kimberly could see, Victor tested her. When knocked a glass over, she reflexed and Victor had his answer. Victor was extremely angry at her deception, and was now determined to keep her on a leash, so to speak. Knowing that Kimberly was involved with Shane, he forced her to tell Shane that she didn't love him. Not long after, he made plans for her to come to his house in Miami in hopes to romance her. Victor was traveling there under the pretext of participating in a boat race, but in reality he was going for much bigger business.
Once
arrived at his palatial Miami estate, Dolphin House, Victor was
angered to discover that Shane was there as well. Shane claimed that
he was there for the boat race as well, but both of them knew why
each other was in Miami. That's why when Shane asked Victor if he
could stay at his house, he didn't refuse; Victor vowed to get rid of
Shane once and for all right in his very own home. Among the reasons
Victor had gone to Miami was to oversee a large drug deal with one of
Miami's leading traffickers, Panama Jack. Savannah would be in charge
of that. Victor's main goal in Miami was a secret meeting with two
other parties that involved a certain Purse, Power, and a Pawn. The
two other parties involved were Petrov, Stefano DiMera's former
right-hand man, and George Nickerson, the corrupt head of the ISA.
The Purse was a treasure chest, which was at the bottom of the ocean
near Miami -- it was in reality a bomb meant to be a trap; the Power
was a book of codes important to the ISA; the Pawn, the one thing
that Victor was truly interested in, was in fact a bandaged person in
Petrov and Nickerson's possession. According to Victor, it was the
most valuable of the three things. Meanwhile, Victor discovered that
Kimberly was helping Shane spy on him and ordered her to remain a
prisoner in the mansion.
Meanwhile,
Victor constantly tried to get rid of Shane with and alligator pit, a
tarantula, and an overly aggressive boat race. But when Shane finally
got to close to his operation by finding the book of codes and
attempting to decode it, Victor had him locked in the study and
planned to kill him. Trying to save Shane's life, Kimberly distracted
Victor by making love to him. Unfortunately, after their lovemaking
was over, one of Victor's men told him that he was forced to kill
Shane. However, Shane was not dead. He had been wearing a bulletproof
vest and had escaped from the mansion. Later on, Victor was furious
to discover that the drug deal with Panama Jack, which had occurred
on his yacht, had been broken up by Bo and Hope Brady. The yacht had
exploded (someone had set off the bomb in the treasure chest.)
Furthermore, his entire drug operation had been uncovered by them.
The Miami police soon arrived at Dolphin House and arrested him.
Victor faced an incredible prison sentence for his crimes.
After
being placed in jail in Salem, Victor was visited by Kimberly and she
begged him to keep their affair in Miami a secret. To avoid hurting
Caroline, he agreed. Soon after, Victor summoned Larry Welch. Somehow
(this convenient little plot twist was never explained to the
audience), Victor had discovered that he had been responsible for
killing Megan Hathaway earlier that year. Victor threatened to expose
Larry if he didn't take the fall for him. So, Larry confessed to
heading the drug operation and went to prison, while Victor went
free. Immediately, he continued to have contact with Nickerson and
Petrov in order to finish the business that had been interrupted in
Miami. After Nickerson committed suicide, Victor had Petrov come to
Salem with the Pawn; he then had Petrov killed and took the Pawn.
However, the Pawn escaped after being mysteriously nursed back to
health by Kate Honeycutt, a former employee of Stefano DiMera's.
Victor soon put up a $1 million reward for his return. In the
meantime, Victor was delighted to see espionage charges brought
against Shane Donovan.
During
this time, Victor also decided to seek revenge against the Brady
family for causing him so many problems. By muscling Alex Marshall
into becoming his new right-hand man, Victor began buying Riverfront
properties, with the ultimate goal to buy out the Fish Market and
oust the Bradys out of their only source of income. Meanwhile,
Kimberly discovered that she was pregnant. As soon as Victor heard
the news, he summoned her to warn her that the child could be his.
Not much later, Kimberly suffered a car accident but she and the baby
turned out fine. However, Victor was furious to discover that she had
been on her way to an abortion clinic when she'd had the accident.
Victor warned her to take care of herself, or else he'd let everyone
know what had happened between them in Miami. What Victor didn't know
that Kimberly did was that one of the Brady children was actually
his. Kimberly believed that she was Victor's daughter. Meanwhile,
Victor also took an interest in Pete Jannings, manager of the
nightclub Jump!, and had him work with his organization. Jump! soon
became the cover for the importation of illegal goods through
Victor's company, Allied Cargo. Although Pete tried to get out of
Victor's business many times, Victor always found a way to muscle him
into staying. Furthermore, he ordered Pete to get a liquor license to
make even more money, despite the club's teenage orientation.
Eventually, Victor lost his control over the club after the illegal
activities were discovered.
Victor was having no luck in searching for the Pawn. Steve (formerly Patch) Johnson claimed to have had the Pawn in his possession but he had escaped. This proved to be a great problem for Victor. The Pawn had taken his bandages off...and no one knew what he looked like. At around this time, Victor needed to have a state-of-the-art security system installed in his home. A man named John Black offered his services to Victor. Unbeknownst to Victor, John Black was The Pawn.
At the same time, Victor became very concerned with the arrival of Britta Englund, a Soviet spy that figured into his plans with The Pawn. Victor, who was working with the Soviet KGB, wanted Britta out of Salem before she could reveal anything about a certain incident that had occurred in Stockholm in 1979; this incident involved the deceased Roman Brady & Shane, and dealt with the trading of information which led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. Shane, Bo, and Hope were trying to get Britta to testify what she knew, since it would help clear Bo's name (he had confessed to the crime) and incriminate Victor. Before she could do so, Victor had her shot. She was only wounded, as it was only to scare Britta. Meanwhile, Caroline sought Victor's help in clearing Bo's name. Victor offered to help Bo by concocting a story for him to tell the court, which would be backed up by Britta. Bo grudgingly did as Victor told. Bo was given a relatively light sentence, being only jailed with bail set at $3 million. Victor easily paid the exorbitant bail, and Bo set free. After Britta recovered, Victor warned her to leave Salem in order to keep her from ever revealing the truth about what had happened in Stockholm; otherwise, he'd harm Steve (whom Britta cared for) and Lars, Britta's brother. As soon as she was released from the hospital, Victor spirited her out of Salem.
Soon after this, Victor discovered a letter from Caroline. In it, she confessed to him that they shared a child! Victor was furious at the thought that she had denied him a child all of these years and vowed to get even with her. Caroline begged him to leave her family alone and keep the secret. In exchange for that, Victor asked Caroline to let him make love to her. Victor prepared a weekend for them in San Francisco. However, Caroline made it obvious that she was being forced into the situation. Unsatisfied, Victor let Caroline go. He didn't want her to do it as a sacrifice for the Brady family.
By
this time, Victor's people discovered that the Pawn was John Black.
John, who was with Marlena Evans, soon made their way East,
eventually reaching the forests of West Virginia. Victor was well
aware that John knew he was the Pawn, and that he was en route to Dr.
Peterson's (the plastic surgeon who had worked on the Pawn) summer
cabin in order to see the "Before" photos. Although the KGB was
already on site, Victor wanted to personally take care of John and
keep Shane and Bo, who were also chasing John, from getting to him.
Having tapped Kimberly's phone, Victor discovered that Kimberly would
be taking a helicopter to West Virginia. Victor boarded that
helicopter with his own pilot, and surprised Kimberly with his
presence once they reached the wilderness. Upon knowing that she had
been tricked, Kimberly (who was by now far along in her pregnancy),
panicked. The pilot soon lost control of the craft and crashed.
Victor and Kimberly were miraculously uninjured, but they were
immediately taken prisoner by KGB agents in the area. Though Victor
was working with them, they pretended to hold him hostage so that
Kimberly wouldn't know of their connection. The agents were soon
disposed of by Shane, who escaped with Kimberly, while John and
Marlena got hold of Dr. Peterson's files. Victor tried to get to them
before they opened the files, but he was too late. Marlena found they
"before" pictures; they were of Roman Brady.
With
the Pawn -- Roman Brady -- out of his grasp, a defeated Victor
returned to Salem. Hungrier than ever for revenge, he opened a large
River Market to compete with the small Brady Fish Market. In no time,
the Fish Market lost enough business to put it in a precarious
situation. Meanwhile, Kimberly had given birth in West Virginia to a
baby boy named Andrew. Victor immediately commissioned partenity
tests to be run on the boy. Victor enjoyed taunting Kimberly and
Shane with the fact that Andrew could be his. To rub his imminent
success in the Brady family's face, Victor callously attended a party
at Blondie's celebrating Bo and Hope's wedding anniversary. During
the dinner, Kimberly announced the boy's name -- Andrew Shane
Donovan; Victor privately told her that the "Donovan" part was still
uncertain, leaving Kimberly extremely shaken. Caroline noticed this
and went out to the foyer with Victor. In a heated argument, Caroline
ordered Victor to stop terrorizing her family. When Bo saw them
arguing, he exploded in a rage and tried to hit Victor. In the mess
that followed, Bo managed to knock out Victor's bodyguard and stole
his gun, aiming it at Victor. Just as Bo was about to shoot, however,
Caroline blurted out that Victor was his father. In front of everyone
present, Victor announced that this was true. Bo vowed to never be
Victor's son. Days after this, the results of Andrew's paternity test
returned. Surprisingly, they said that Andrew was indeed Victor's
son! Overjoyed, Victor began proceedings to sue Kimberly for custody
of Andrew, and threatened to expose her past as a prostitute...unless
she agreed to raise Andrew with him. All of these actions made Victor
an even more hated man than before. Upset, Caroline came to Victor
because everything he was doing was tearing her family apart. Victor
tried to comfort Caroline, and even believed that he could finally
win her heart once again so he invited her to a hotel room. Once
alone, however, Caroline revealed that her grief was false. She had
only hatred for him as a result of his actions. Pulling a gun out of
her purse, Caroline warned Victor that he'd never hurt her family
again. However, she couldn't go through with it and shot away from
him. Soon after this, Bo came to Victor with a proposal: he would be
his son if Victor left the Bradys alone. Seeing the extreme reaction
that his tactics had caused, Victor promised that he would cease all
offenses against the Brady family on one condition: that Bo live with
him and let him be his father. Bo agreed to the bargain, and thus
became Bo Kiriakis. Almost immediately, Victor's promises became
true. The River Market was closed, allowing the Brady Fish Market to
operate successfully once again. Also, Victor dropped the custody
suit against Kimberly. However, he hired Steve once again to spy on
the newly-returned Kayla Brady, so as to keep tabs on the Brady
family. The incorporation of Bo into the Kiriakis family was
immediate, beginning by making him manager of the Allied Cargo
warehouse. As Bo took on more Kiriakis matters, Victor tested his
loyalty in order to make sure that he was no longer working with the
ISA or the police.
During this time, Andrew was kidnapped for the hospital. Even though he was not suing for custody, Victor still had the best reason for being concerned for him since he was Andrew's father. Working with a reluctant Shane, Victor suspected Emma Marshall, Kimberly's sworn enemy, of having taken the boy. Even though they were able to prove that Emma had taken Andrew, the boy remained missing after being privately sold. Since Emma feigned insanity to avoid prison, she did not say a word about who had him.
Meanwhile,
Victor began to follow Roman. Roman (formerly the Pawn) still held
the key to something of incredible power. Victor needed to find a
ballet poster that Roman had hidden away seven years earlier. This
poster was connected with the Stockholm incident with Britta and the
KGB. After some time, it was revealed that this something of
incredible power was a stash of U.S. treasury bonds worth $25
billion. In 1979, Victor had worked with the KGB in order to retrieve
the bonds from their double-agent, Britta Englund. But Britta had
betrayed Victor and given the bonds to Roman Brady, who then hid
them. Since Roman still didn't remember much of his life before his
time as the Pawn, he couldn't willingly recall the location of the
bonds. But Victor knew that Roman had taken several measures to be
able to locate the bonds in case he forgot where they were hidden.
Among these measures was the ballet poster, which had numbers on it
that led to someone who had helped Roman hide the bonds. After long
and drawn-out search, Victor found out that the bonds were hidden in
Olde Towne Stockholm, the city's historic district. To find the
bonds, Victor teamed up with Orpheus, a former ISA agent and Roman's
ex-partner in the organization. Orpheus kidnapped Marlena to lure
Roman to Stockholm and thus get him to say where the bonds were. But
somewhere along the way, Orpheus turned on Victor. Not only did he
decide to get the bonds for himself, but he also wanted revenge on
Roman. Orpheus ultimately lost, and the bonds were recuperated by the
ISA. Everything that Victor had worked for in the past year had gone
down the drain. The only upside to any of this was that through their
work, Victor and Bo had forged a bond. Victor was aware that Bo still
loved his former family, and that he could still be trying to
undermine his business; but he was also aware that Bo was beginning
to care for him. For Victor, that was an outstanding
victory.
In late December of 1986, Emma made a "miraculous" recovery and was released from the Sanitarium. Instantly, Victor flew upon her to find out where Andrew was, threatening her life if she didn't talk. However, Emma kept mum. At a New Year's party at Neil Curtis' house, Emma publicly retaliated by threatening to tell the police about some of Victor's illegal activities. That night, Emma was murdered. Though Victor was immediately under suspicion, it soon became clear that he had not been responsible.
Meanwhile, Victor's nephew, Justin Kiriakis, arrived in Salem to live with him. Victor had raised Justin ever since his parents died in an automobile accident. Since Justin had always considered himself Victor's son, he felt jealous of Victor's current relationship wit his real son, Bo. In addition to Justin's jealousy, Victor continued to note Bo's yearning to be a Brady. In an unusually human moment, Victor forged documents that said he'd had a vasectomy in 1963, before Bo was born. In other words, Victor made it look like he wasn't Bo's father after all. Hiding the documents in his safe, he made sure that Justin found them and gave them Bo. Bo was thrilled with the news and immediately left the Kiriakis mansion. Not long after this, Bo and Hope had a baby boy, Shawn-Douglas Brady, and they left Salem. Caroline confronted Victor after they left. She knew that there had been no vasectomy and that Bo was a Kiriakis. However, Victor asked her to keep it a secret. She complied, and thanked Victor for finally doing something keeping Bo's best interests at heart.
Losing Bo caused Victor to want custody of Andrew even more, convinced that he was the child's father. By this time, Andrew had been found and returned to Kimberly. As soon as Kimberly was able to take Andrew home with her, Victor sued for custody, citing that Kimberly was an unfit mother. He brought to light Kimberly's past as a hooker to make this clear to the court. Although Kimberly did lose custody of Andrew briefly, Victor would not retain him. When Andrew suffered some injuries in a car accident and needed a transfusion, it was revealed that Victor couldn't possibly be the father because of the difference in blood types. Crushed at Emma's deception, Victor regretfully returned Andrew to Kimberly and his true father, Shane.
More information to
follow!
The character of Victor Kiriakis has
been played by John Aniston from 1985-1997, and again from
1999-present