Marlena Evans
| Marlena Evans Black | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Days of our Lives character | |||||||||||||||||||
| File:Mevans.jpg Deidre Hall as Marlena Evans | |||||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Deidre Hall (1976-1987, 1991-present) | ||||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | June 21, 1976 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Created by | Pat Falken Smith | ||||||||||||||||||
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Dr. Marlena Evans Black (formerly Craig, and Brady) is a fictional character on the television drama Days of our Lives. Deidre Hall has played Marlena from 1976 to 1987, and again since 1991. She has the distinction of being the only actress to play this role in the character's 30 year history.
Through the course of her existence on the program she has experienced what some consider to be the most outrageous circumstances of any character in soap opera history. These include possession by the devil, a plummet from a thirtieth-story-window (which she survived), being used as a surrogate for genetically engineered babies Rex and Cassie during a four year coma, being mind controlled to believe she was a serial killer, and falling down the stairs in turn losing her baby with Roman which caused her to have hysterical amnesia. She has been kidnapped numerous times over the past 30 years. By the same token, for the past 20 years she has also been one half of one of the most popular supercouples in daytime history, John and Marlena. She is a doctor, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother.
Fictional character history
Dr. Marlena Evans made her debut as one of Mickey's psychiatrists at Bayview Sanitarium. Her jealous twin sister, Samantha, impersonated her and had Marlena institutionalized before Samantha's plot was uncovered. Later, Marlena married lawyer Don Craig in 1979, but after losing their child to SIDS the following year, they divorced.
While being stalked by the Salem Strangler, Marlena met Detective Roman Brady, who became her bodyguard and then her beau. They married, but shortly after she delivered their twins, Sami and Eric, Roman was shot and presumed deceased by Stefano DiMera. Marlena, who once thought that she had fatally shot Stefano, was kidnapped several times over the years.
In the summer of 1991 she awoke in a hospital on an island, eventually making her way back to Salem. She and Roman were reunited for the first time in years, but she also had memories of Roman being with her on the island. It was revealed that the man everyone believed was Roman, was in fact a brainwashed victim of Stefano. The real Roman had been held captive in a jungle prison, but he made his way back to Salem and Marlena. She was conflicted about her feelings for Roman and his substitute, who adopted the name John Black. She and Roman remarried, while John went on to marry Isabella Tuscano.
In 1992 a jealous, crazed Stella Lombard, who was convinced that Marlena wanted to steal her husband, Roger, held her captive in the boiler pit of an abandoned warehouse. John saved Marlena's life before the warehouse was demolished. After his wife died, John decided to leave Salem. Before he left, he and Marlena gave into their love and had a one-night tryst that produced baby Belle. When Belle's paternity became known, Roman divorced Marlena and left town. By then, however, John was involved with Kristen Blake.
At that time, Stefano came back into Marlena's life. He began to drug her and take her for nightly excursions, and the mental, emotional and spiritual disruption left her open to demonic possession. She caused havoc for many friends and family in Salem before John, who discovered he had been ordained a priest, performed an exorcism and saved her. John sought and earned release from his priestly vows, but became embroiled in a jealous fight between Kristen and her husband, Tony DiMera. Knowing that he was dying, Tony staged his own death, making sure John would be arrested for murder.
While John was on death row, awaiting sentence for the murder that was really a suicide, he wrote Marlena a love letter. Before she could read the letter, however, Stefano kidnapped her yet again. This time, he kept her in a gilded cage in a strange mini-kingdom below the streets of Paris. After being exonerated for Tony's murder, John rescued her again, but now believed that she no longer loved him as she had not responded to his letter.
Kristen told John that she was pregnant with their child, and Marlena decided to keep secret her knowledge of Kristen's involvement with Stefano, for fear that Kristen might miscarry. It took months for Marlena to discover that Kristen had miscarried and was using a pregnant look-alike named Susan Banks to deceive everyone. The baby that Kristen and John were supposed to raise, was really Little Elvis, Susan's child by Stefano DiMera.
Before Marlena could reveal the truth, she was locked in a secret room by Kristin, who in turn found herself locked in there by Susan. This time, Marlena's good friend, Laura Horton, came to her aid, and rescued them both. The truth was revealed, and Marlena and John got engaged. Before they married, Kristen returned to Salem with Roman Brady, who had supposedly died.
Marlena learned that Roman was dying, and that Kristen had told him Marlena was no longer involved with John. Once cured, Roman discovered the truth, and despite his efforts, Marlena and John reunited. After dealing with Kristen's apparent murder and Sami being on death row, the couple married and left for a romantic honeymoon in Hawaii. After appearing to drown, John was brainwashed and had sex with Hope, who was brainwashed into believing she was Princess Gina.
After recovering John, Marlena went to Africa and John's son Brady moved in and caused problems for the couple. Marlena took a job as a radio talk show host and hired Nancy Wesley as her assistant, though she had bad ratings. When she couldn't go on the air one day, Nancy took over for her and had excellent ratings. John revealed that he had fathered Hope's baby, though it turned out that Bo was in fact the baby's father.
Tony returned from the grave, and the Gemini Twins, Rex and Cassie, seemingly fell from the sky. Marlena counseled Tony, as she attempted to unravel the truth about the twins origin. She came to believe that she and Tony were their parents, though it turned out she was only their surrogate mother, as Kate and Roman were their biological parents.
In 2003, the Salem Stalker began killing several people close to Marlena. After Tony was mauled by a tiger the Stalker set loose, it was revealed that Marlena was the person behind the murders. She continued to kill her friends, until her final victim Alice Horton called John and told him the truth. At the penthouse, John confronted Marlena, and she admitted the truth. After fighting over his gun, Marlena fell off of her balcony. When she awoke, she was given sodium pentathol, and again admitted to the murders. She was sent to jail, where she was shot and appeared to die.
Marlena wasn't really dead, and she awoke in her coffin calling for help, but Sami was the only one who heard her. After being buried alive, she found herself walking through a strangely deserted Salem Place, where she ran into Alice Horton. To her shock, she was living on an island version of Salem with all of her supposed victims. Eventually, other Salemites arrived on the island, trying to find their "dead" loved ones. Tony was revealed as the mastermind behind the attacks, having drugged Marlena and faked everyone's deaths in order to destroy all of Salem's great love stories.
As the captives attempted to escape, Tony caused a volcanic eruption, which in turn caused a tsunami. After John apparently killed Tony, everyone gathered on makeshift rafts to get off the island, which were capsized by the wave. The Coast Guard arrived and managed to rescue some of them, Marlena, Roman, Caroline Brady, Victor Kiriakis, Cassie Brady, Jack Deveraux, and Colin Murphy were all captured by Tony and presumed dead.
Tony tormented Roman and Marlena with video of John and Kate growing closer back in Salem. Believing their spouses had made love, Roman and Marlena, needing comfort, made love, as well. Jack managed to escape his room, and freed the other captives. They escaped the castle, and Tony was arrested by the ISA. When they arrived back they were shocked to learn that John and Kate had fallen in love and were engaged to be married, and Roman and Marlena decided not to tell the truth about their affair.
Soon after they were back Marlena discovered that she was pregnant and that Roman had to be the father, but when the truth came out John wasn't too forgiving. During a fight between Roman and John, Marlena tumbled down the stairs causing a miscarriage. When she was told, she had a seizure and woke with amnesia. A specialist named Alex North was brought in to care for Marlena, and she appeared to fall in love with him. When John confronted Alex, Alex revealed that he and Marlena had once been married, but he had been presumed dead in Vietnam. Marlena had fallen victim to selective amnesia upon learning the news, causing Alex to specialize in the field. As their marriage had never been dissolved, Marlena's previous marriages to Don, Roman, and John were all invalid.
Lois Banks, an acquaintance from medical school, came to town and told John that Alex was an abusive husband. John became suspicious of Lois, and uncovered a plot between she and Alex to kill Marlena. Alex managed to murder Lois and renew his wedding vows with Marlena. Alex tried to kill John in a cabin explosion, but Marlena was injured and briefly regained her memory before Alex drugged her to erase it. Alex took Marlena to Morgan Island but John soon found them and, after a shootout and scuffle, Alex went over a cliff and has been presumed dead.
Marlena told John that she needed a short separation so that she could get her life back on track. A person who was only seen as a gloved hand began playing cruel games with the entire Brady family, and Marlena received a mysterious job offer to lead a women's empowerment program in New Jersey. Soon after arriving Marlena mysteriously disappeared and blood was found in her hotel room. John went to search for her and soon found her bound and tied up in a crate in a storage room. When Steve and Kayla were poisoned, Marlena and John flew to Canada to get a drug that might help them. When their plane began to lose altitude Marlena agreed to jump from the plane, and was rescued by Smokey Robinson, who helped she and John reconnect.
After saving Steve and Kayla, Marlena and John revealed that Elvis Jr, now going by the name EJ Wells, was the person behind the glove. The couple went to Italy to investigate the DiMera family after hearing that Stefano might be alive. After renewing their wedding vows, they found Stefano, who appeared to be dying. When he gave John the Death tarot card, Marlena made him promise to not get involved with the DiMera troubles again. John, however, decided to help Roman stake-out on EJ, who put John into a coma after shooting him.
Marlena joined the hunt for the reasons behind the Brady/DiMera feud, as she kept John on life support. John recently came out of his coma, and is currently helping Marlena and the others in their quest. John was hit by a car and died October 17, 2007. As is often the case in Salem, characters rarely die. On January 8, 2008, EJ discovered John in the basement at the DiMera mansion. Stefano is programming him to become a super soldier.
Other relationships
- Kellam Chandler (raped her)
- André DiMera (forced kiss)