In 1968, publishing tycoon Victor Lord—{originally played by Ernest Garves}—was a middle aged widower whose wife Eugenia Randolph Lord had died some years before, leaving him to raise their two young daughters, Victoria and Meredith, alone. In spite of Victor long regretting never having had a son to carry on his legacy, he instead opted to raise Viki, his elder daughter, as he would a son—molding her to be his heir in all areas.

Viki worshiped the ground her father walked on and would allow Victor to control her life. Fresh out of college, Victor immediately put Viki to work at his famed newspaper operation, The Banner, but was dismayed when he saw an attraction brewing between she and his star reporter, Joe Riley. Victor, although respecting Joe’s journalistic integrity, did not feel that the hard drinking and hard living Riley was good enough for his daughter and did everything in his power to separate them. The strain of being torn between her unquestioning allegiance to Victor and her growing love for Joe caused Viki’s personality to splinter into an alter ego named Niki Smith. In the meantime, Victor also meddled in the affairs of his younger daughter, Merrie. Born with a debilitating blood disorder, Merrie had always been physically frail and sickly. Unlike Viki, however, she was not afraid to stand up against Victor’s interference. At the time, Merrie was engaged to Dr. Ted Hale—a prominent doctor from a well-to-do family, whom Victor very much approved of. Not truly in love with Ted, Merrie ended their engagement after having become enchanted with a kind, young intern at Llanview Hospital named Larry Wolek. Victor was incensed by Merrie's decision to pursue a relationship with Larry who, like Joe Riley, was not from high society.

Victor would be unsuccessful in dictating his daughters personal lives, and as the 1960s drew to a close begrudgingly accepted their relationships with Joe and Larry respectively. He’d later stand by as both soon married their suitors. To his thrill, Victor would soon learn that he had indeed fathered a son from an affair some years earlier and prepared to embark on what would be a long and exhaustive search for his missing heir.

In 1970, Victor seized the opportunity to once again meddle in Viki’s life after Joe was assumed dead, following his car veering from a cliff while on assignment in California. Steve Burke was brought into replace Joe as executive editor at The Banner, and immediately Victor envisioned him to be a suitable match for his daughter. During Viki's still mourning the loss of her beloved husband, Victor slyly encouraged them each to pursue one another. Victor was delighted when Viki and Steve announced their engagement in 1971. At the same time, however, he was angered when he learned that Merrie and Larry had defied doctors warnings and conceived a child; in spite of pregnancy posing a potentially fatal risk to Merrie’s life.

For the next couple of years, Victor continued running The Banner, investigating clues leading to the whereabouts of his long lost son, and standing proud as the patriarch of Llanview's most powerful family. 1973, however, proved to be a very disheartening year for the Lord’s. First Victor was unnerved when Viki, while on assignment with a very-much-alive Joe Riley, was involved in a nasty car accident that put her in a deep coma and caused her to lose a significant portion of her memory. Viki later recovered from her ordeal, but more tragedy was on the horizon.

That summer, a pair of escaped convicts invaded Llanfair in a quest to steal Victor’s priceless art collection. During the break-in, Merrie was held hostage. As the police surrounded the premises, a frantic Victor became impatient and sought to bargain with the burglars. Calling them from outside, Victor offered to give into their demands per his being assured of Merrie’s well being. When the robbers refused to tell him anything, Merrie yelled from the background to Victor that she was fine. This annoyed one of the thieves who, with the butt of his gun, violently struck Merrie to the ground. The assailants were eventually shot to death by police, while Merrie was rushed to the hospital—where she later died of a cerebral herbage to the brain.

While still mourning the loss of his beloved younger daughter, Victor threw himself into his search for his missing son, which sent him on an expansive international trek. In late 1974, Victor—{now played by Sheppard Strudwick}—was hospitalized after having suffered a heart attack, shortly upon his returning to Llanview. It was while he recuperated that he began being treated by Dr. Dorian Cramer. Dorian had recently been ousted from Llanview Hospital, due to negligence. Thanks to a connection, however, she was able to scheme herself into becoming Victor's private physician in early 1975. Since Victor had been out of the country for much of the previous year, he was oblivious to Dorian’s growing reputation as a troublemaker around town. Subsequently, he readily allowed himself to be taken by her charms and became totally dependent on her. Viki, meanwhile, hated Dorian’s presence in her fathers life and was mortified when Victor soon announced that in addition to being his caretaker, he had also made Dorian his wife! Dorian, however, was much more in love with Victor’s wealth than Victor himself.

Newcomer Tony Harris arrived in town and struck up an immediate friendship with Victor. A fledgling business man, Victor offered funding to Tony’s operations. Dorian learned from her ex-lover Dr. Mark Toland that Tony was actually the long lost son that Victor had spent years searching for. Hating the idea of another Lord heir in town, Dorian tried to prevent father and son from finding out about one another, but couldn’t. Tony discovered a journal belonging to his mother, Dorothy Randolph, which confirmed that he was Victor’s son from a wartime affair. With this revelation, Victor and Tony shared a happy and emotional reunion.

Victor reveled in his new found son and looked forwarded to building a relationship with him. Dorian, however, saw Tony as a threat to her piece of the Lord estate and soon began scheming to drive a wedge between them. Cunningly, she fed the two men lies about one another, succeeding in creating a bitter rift between them. In the meantime, Dorian persuaded Victor to change his will to totally exclude Tony, while making her his benefactor. Tony later caught wind of Dorian's nefarious manipulations and alerted Victor, who then confronted Dorian. As they argued, Victor suffered a second, more severe heart attack. As he begged her for his medication, Dorian refused to give it to him. While in the hospital, Victor suffered a stroke and couldn’t speak. He tried desperately to tell Viki to what Dorian had done, but could not not get the words out. Under very mysterious circumstances, Victor Lord passed away in June 1976.

All of Llanview was saddened by Victor’s death, while Dorian rejoiced in how her quick maneuvering had left her a very rich and powerful widow…just as she had been strategically planning all along. Dorian’s fortune, however, did not come without a price—as for years to come rumors would run ramped around town that she had been the one to kill him. Victor Lord’s death did not end his influence. Over the next ten years, Victor’s name was savored and respected throughout Llanview. Viki, meanwhile, honored his memory to the point of reverence; going so far as to give her first born son, Kevin (born three months after Victor’s death, and on his birthday) the middle name “Lord” to honor him.

In 1985, Viki prepared for the fiftieth anniversary celebration of The Banner, in which she heralded her father as a self-made man, a brilliant journalist, aware of his own importance, and a patron of the arts. It was during this time when Viki’s goddaughter, Tina Clayton, mistakenly happened upon Victor’s ‘secret room’ at Llanfair. While inside, she discovered a letter written by Victor, addressed to Viki. In it he confessed to having had an affair with her childhood friend, and Tina's mother, Irene Clayton–subsequently fathering Tina. To further complicate the matter, it was also discovered he and Irene had been secretly married at one point. Viki did not take the news well, and once again fell into her alternate personality, Niki Smith. Tina, meanwhile, greedily reveled in the fact that she was a Lord heiress. In 1988, after attending her 25th high school reunion, Viki was shocked to learn that Victor had had her hypnotized to forget about having had a baby girl as a teenager, and subsequently gave the child to its father to raise. The child, now twenty-five years old, was newcomer Megan Gordon. In spite of how his legacy having become increasingly tarnished in recent years, Viki distressfully continued to try and uphold Victor’s memory to high regard as the 1990s emerged.

In 1993, Viki’s lover, Sloan Carpenter, penned a biography on Victor’s life and death entitled, Lord of the Banner. In it, he heavily alluded to the urban legend of Victor having died at the hands of Dorian in the mid 1970s as true. The impending publication caused Dorian to react very nervously, as she made several conspicuous attempts to prevent it. Dorian’s behavior raised Viki suspicious, so much so that she had the police investigation regarding Victor’s death reopened. When enough evidence surfaced likening her to the crime, Dorian was formally charged with murder and put on trial in 1994, some eighteen years after Victor's passing. The jury found Dorian guilty of murder and the judge sentenced her to death by lethal injection. As she languished on death row, with her execution date looming near, a mysterious man named David Vickers arrived in Llanview with a diary claiming to be the illegitimate son of Victor and the late Irene Clayton. The diary, said to belong to Irene, revealed a confession that Irene had smothered Victor to death all those years earlier. Although the journal was nothing more than a brilliant forgery (and David was not actually Victor’s heir) it looked authentic enough to get Dorian exonerated at the eleventh hour. Later, it was discovered that Victor and Irene’s real son was none other than notorious rapist and town outcast, Todd Manning.

When it was exposed that David had lied, it once again looked like Dorian had killed Victor. Viki confronted Dorian, threatening to call the police. It was during their altercation that Dorian lashed back and viciously reminded Viki of what she had long since suppressed: that Victor had sexually molested her as a child. Dorian’s words were too much for Viki to handle, causing her personality once again snap. This time, however, various different personalities that had been previously unseen emerged. It was during this time that it was discovered that “Tori,” one of Viki's "new" alternate personalities, had been the one to suffocate Victor to death. The past two years was all very shocking and traumatizing to Viki and her loved ones, but with the revelation of Tori having been the one to kill Victor seemingly came closure. As for Dorian…despite her having not been the one to actually kill Victor, she did attempt to. Since his passing, she had long believed that it was her withholding of his medication that ultimately ended his life, which was why she had always behaved so erratically whenever the subject of his death arose.

For the next eight years, the Lord family sought to put the dastard events and shocking revelations concerning Victor's life and death behind them. In 2003, however, all of Llanview (and OLTL viewers respectively) was aghast to learn that Victor Lord hadn't died after all. In a distasteful plot turn, it was discovered that he had phonied his 1976 death and spent close to thirty years living in seclusion. Now a very sick old man, Victor [now played by William Stone Mahoney] was on the verge of death; desperately needing a heart transplant to survive, but refusing to take one from anyone who was not a Lord. The nefarious Mitch Laurence, who had been on Victor’s payroll, kidnapped Viki’s daughter Natalie Buchanan with the intention of sacrificing her so that Victor could have her heart. Down to the wire, Viki and the authorities rescued Natalie before the operation could take place. Victor was later transported to Llanview Hospital, where doctors informed Viki that they didn't have a donor match for him and that he was near death. A mechanical heart was installed, buying him enough time to be confronted by both Viki and Todd. Days later, Victor died and in his will he left everything to Mitch Laurence.