Dorian Returns To Llanview

SOAP DISH
By CAROLYN HINSEY
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
February 14, 2003

Lord-ie! Dorian's Coming Back To 'One Life To Live'

She's b-a-a-a-ck.

After months of rumors, "One Life to Live" has signed Robin Strasser to reprise the role of bitchy-but-entertaining Dorian Lord.

"It happened so fast," Strasser said this week from Los Angeles, where she has been based since leaving the soap in 2000. "I tape my first show on Feb. 20 and then I air March 28." Actually, we will only hear Dorian's voice that day; we'll see her March 31.

Story line details are sketchy, but Strasser offered a few hints.

"I think everybody knows who the old man in the wheelchair is," she hedged.

Yes, it's Victor Lord, who was thought to have been killed once by his wife, Dorian, and another time by his daughter Viki.

"Now, neither Viki nor Dorian was the last one in that room, and I think that gives a lot of breathing space to both women," Strasser said.

"And what about Mitch Lawrence?" she added, referring to another presumed-dead "OLTL" villain. "Believe it or not, I am having to check who I was married to and who I killed. I have to ask, 'Did I marry you? Or kill you? Or both?'"

Dorian actually went to Death Row for "killing" Mitch. "With Mitch," Strasser recalled, "Dorian thought her daughter, Cassie, had done it, but then it turned out to be a crazy cult follower."

Whether Dorian returns as a heroine or a villainess, however (our money's on the latter), Strasser is glad to be home.

"I have had this incredible longing to be in New York again," she said, "and I am so not a cold-weather person. Post-9/11 I felt stranded away from my family, meaning my family in New York. I felt powerless to express what I would like to in action because I was not there."

Fans may remember that Dorian had an ill-fated affair with Viki's young son Joey in the '90s. Joey is now played by Bruce Michael Hall, with whom Strasser worked last year on the L.A.-based "Passions." (He played Reese; she played Hecuba.) Joey is also now a member of the clergy.

"Yes, I observed the young man with great appreciation," she said. "Whether or not it's in the dialogue, there will be long, longing glances his way. A little white-lace linen handkerchief might even have to come out as I dab my forehead and neck. And he is religiously inclined now. Oh, yum." Oh, Lord, is more like it.