Liza Colby | |||||||||||||||
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Jamie Luner as Liza Colby | |||||||||||||||
All My Children | |||||||||||||||
Portrayed by | Marcy Walker (1981–84, 1995–2005) Alice Haining (1984–85) Jamie Luner (2009–11) | ||||||||||||||
Current status | Former; Regular | ||||||||||||||
Duration | 1981–85, 1995–2005, 2009–11 | ||||||||||||||
First appearance | 1981 | ||||||||||||||
Last appearance | September 23, 2011 | ||||||||||||||
Cause/reason | Series Finale | ||||||||||||||
Created by | Agnes Nixon | ||||||||||||||
Introduced by | Agnes Nixon and Jorn Winther | ||||||||||||||
Profile | |||||||||||||||
Family | Colby Family | ||||||||||||||
Alias(es) | Ramona Beasley Linda Crane Liza Chandler | ||||||||||||||
Gender | Female | ||||||||||||||
Occupation | Interim district attorney of Pine Valley [Sep 3, 2010] Attorney Formerly owned an 800-watt radio station in unknown location Former Partner in Fusion Cosmetics Former Co-CEO of Chandler Enterprises Former Owner and Station Manager of WRCW, Located at 2 WRCW Square in Pine Valley | ||||||||||||||
Residence | 1421 Plumtree Road (aka 718 Valley Road), Pine Valley, Pennsylvania | ||||||||||||||
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Liza Colby is a fictional character from the ABC soap opera, All My Children, portrayed by actress Jamie Luner from April 2009 until September 2011. She was previously played by actress Marcy Walker from 1981–1984, and then again from 1995–2005, although the role was also briefly portrayed by Alice Haining from September 1984 to 1985. Liza is a resident of the fictional town of Pine Valley, Pennsylvania.
Storylines[]
Liza and her mother, Marian, arrived in Pine Valley in 1982. She first became obsessed with Greg Nelson and tried to ruin his relationship with Jenny Gardner. She later had an affair with Tad Martin, but ended it when she discovered that he was bedding her mother at the same time. Liza left Pine Valley to move on to bigger and better things, and returned in 1995 as WRCW's newest station manager, getting the job that Tad wanted. While consoling Tad about Laurel's death, the two gave in to passion, a mistake that cost Tad his marriage to Dixie. In 1996, Liza grappled with the fear of cancer. The lump that the gynecologist discovered turned out to be a benign polyp, but the experience caused her to reevaluate her life.
At the end of 1996, Adam and Liza developed a scheme to make the objects of their desires (Tad and Brooke) jealous. In the scheme, the two would get married and hope that either Tad or Brooke would stop the wedding. Part of the scheme saw Liza receiving ownership of half of WRCW. When she found out that Adam didn't own WRCW and that she was going to get nothing, she decided to forgo the plans to leave Adam at the altar and go through with the wedding. Liza struggled daily to consummate her marriage to Adam so she'd have claims to his fortune. When Liza and Adam finally did end up in bed, it was stunning that Liza agreed to divorce Adam without getting any cash. Her reason was that she had fallen in love with him.
Dimitri Marick managed to turn a loan to Stuart Chandler into a way to steal ownership of WRCW. He allowed Stuart to use WRCW as collateral for the loan then turned around and demanded to have Stuart repay the loan on the spot. Because Stuart didn't have the cash to pay back Dimitri, Dimitri and his bigwig lawyer coaxed Stuart into signing over ownership of WRCW to Dimitri. Liza, however, used some legal wrangling to wrestle control of the station away from Dimitri.
Liza, then-owner of WRCW and new mother to Colby, was once again married to Adam Chandler. Liza carried on for the better part of a year, thinking that Jake was the father of her child. Adam watched quietly from the background, but his unusual behavior never set off any warning signals. He vehemently objected to allowing Colby's stem cells to be used in an experimental procedure to help Dimitri Marick. He claimed that he didn't want all of her cells to be used -- but the truth was that the DNA testing would also show that Jake could not possibly be Colby's father.
To prevent Colby's true parentage from being discovered, Adam slipped into the hospital lab and switched Colby's stem cells with those of another child. Liza learned of Adam's deed when David Hayward's name popped up in Dimitri's medical file as having authorized the transfer of the stem cells. In actuality, Jake had ordered the procedure. Liza confronted Adam about the swap, but Adam mistakenly believed that she was referring to the big swap -- the sperm swap at the fertility clinic. Adam blurted out that he'd done what he'd done out of love and that Liza should be happy that they finally had a child together.
Liza tried her best to cope with the fact that Adam had misled her for months. She filed for divorce from Adam. Shortly thereafter, though, she stopped divorce proceedings and tried to make her marriage work for Colby's sake.
Liza created a bit of a stir of her own. After learning that Adam had cheated on her by sleeping with a judge to get charges against David Hayward dropped, Liza found comfort in the arms of Ryan Lavery, who was grieving the loss of his wife, Gillian. The two ended up making love -- and Liza became pregnant. Liza never got to carry the baby to term. During a scuffle with Adam, Liza fell backwards from the landing of the steps at Chandler Mansion. She lost the baby, but Ryan demanded tests to determine if he'd been the father. Tests proved that Ryan had, in fact, fathered the child, and he was furious with Adam for taking a child from him.
Liza planned to get rid of Adam once and for all by divorcing him. She had secret meetings with an attorney, but Liza later decided to back off of those plans because Adam showed true signs of change, signs that were picked up by some of his biggest critics.
In early 2002, Liza showed signs of becoming unhinged. She became overly suspicious of everyone around her. She accused J.R. of returning to drug use and dismissed a top advisor at Chandler Enterprises. At one point, she showed up at the hospital and demanded a drug test because she believed that J.R. had laced her tea with drugs.
Liza continued her bizarre behavior and remained suspicious that Adam was attempting to gaslight her. The situation reached a head when Liza took Colby to the park and had a temporary loss of memory. When she snapped out of it Colby was missing, and Liza became frantic. Colby was found safe, and Liza was forced to seek medical attention. When it was discovered that Liza had to have surgery for a brain tumor, Liza made Mia promise to look after Colby if Liza did not survive the surgery to remove the tumor. Liza also confessed to Mia that she had been embezzling funds from Chandler Enterprises.
Liza underwent surgery and her brain tumor was successfully removed, but she had amnesia. Liza slowly began to remember her life after Mia showed her a picture of Colby. When Liza overheard Adam trying to have her declared incompetent, in order to protect her from embezzlement charges, she suspected that he was trying to take Colby from her. Adam tried to make Liza believe that the brain tumor had returned. David demanded that Liza keep her end of a business deal.
Liza and Adam continued their plotting, game-playing, and deception toward one another. Liza knew Adam was having an affair, and she became certain the "other woman" was Mia. At the Venetian Ball, Colby went to retrieve a ribbon from Mia's purse and returned with the pregnancy test Mia had bought. Liza refused to listen to Mia's explanation. Liza believed Mia was carrying Adam's child; Liza was jealous. Liza followed Mia to the attic, and when she heard Mia speaking lovingly to someone on the phone, she became enraged. She reached towards Mia, and Mia fell backwards through the attic window.
Liza rushed back downstairs to the party and, as Dr. Frank Hubbard helped Mia, Liza overheard Brooke talking with Adam about their affair. Liza was filled with guilt but didn't tell anyone but her mother that she was responsible for Mia's fall. Her guilt increased when Mia asked Liza to care for her son if she didn't live. Tad became suspicious of the circumstances of the accident, and Liza finally admitted her involvement, but insisted she had tripped on her dress, causing Mia to fall. Tad convinced Liza to tell police the truth about the accident. Jake and Mia overheard Tad and Liza's conversation, and Liza was soon arrested for attempted murder.
Adam visited Liza in jail. Liza admitted to Adam that she had been jealous of Mia and that she was in love with Adam. Adam confessed his love to Liza, and the couple decided to work to save their marriage. They agreed to go to marriage counseling. Three different marriage counselors listened to Adam and Liza and told them they were beyond help. All three therapists walked out on the couple. The fourth therapist, Lysistrata Schwartz, told the couple they needed independence before they could be a couple, and insisted that Liza and Colby move out that night. Liza and Colby decided to move to the gate house. With help from Colby, Liza and Mia met, and Mia forgave Liza. Mia dropped the case against Liza.
By the end of 2002, Liza teamed up with Greenlee, Kendall, Simone, and Mia to form a cosmetics company called Fusion.
After Dixie died, Liza hoped that Tad might rekindle his former interest in her, but was dismayed to see him fall for her Fusion coworker Simone Torres, and later "white trash" named Krystal, who was the mother of J.R. Chandler's new bride, Babe. In plotting to get Babe and Krystal out of town -- and Tad's life -- Liza revealed to Adam and J.R. that Babe was still legally married to another man. This led to an ugly and sinister plan by J.R. to get rid of Babe and keep custody of their child. When Liza found out how far the plan was going, and all the lives that had been thrown in disarray, Adam forced her to stay quiet by threatening to steal custody of Colby and never let Liza see her again.
In September 2004, Adam vanished for a few weeks. Liza used that time to realize that she had no real future in Pine Valley, and that she could not allow Adam to ruin Colby the way she felt he had ruined J.R. With Tad's help, Liza obtained a new identity as Ramona Beasley, with Tad's birthday as hew new birthday, to remind her of their bond. Liza planned to run off with Colby. As she began to waver, Adam called her up, demanding he see Colby in the morning, or else.
After Adam hung up, Liza said he'd made the hardest decision of her life into "a carnival," and she no longer had any doubts about her decision. She said a tearful goodbye to Marian and Stuart, and had a final talk with Tad about the adventures they'd shared and how much she had wanted to be the one for him. After a poignant farewell to the man she had always loved, Liza hurried out of town with daughter Colby to face a new life.
In 2006, Colby returned to Pine Valley, claiming that living with her mother was a nightmare. Liza, however, remained in parts unknown and made no effort to track down her daughter... at least not immediately.
In April 2009, Liza Colby returned to town -- with a new look, a new job, and a new attitude. Liza showed up at Zach Slater's casino and won a lot of money, playing poker. Zach was called in to make sure that the mystery woman wasn't counting cards. The two exchanged innuendo over a hand of cards that soon led to a random sexual encounter on the game table. Liza never told Zach her name and prepared to leave town.
Jake Martin reached out to Liza, who had recently become a lawyer, and asked her to help him find a way to get Amanda Dillon's baby secretly adopted. Amanda didn't want David Hayward, the baby's father, to have a claim to the child. Liza concocted an idea to pretend to be pregnant and then pass Amanda's baby off as her own.
Liza reached out to Colby, but Colby was not receptive. Colby inadvertently overheard Liza talking to Jake that she wished Jake has been Colby's father as planned. The revelation rocked Colby, but it gave her a new understanding of her mother. The relationship, however, was again strained when Liza became a possible suspect in the death of Stuart Chandler
Kendall was the main suspect in Stuart's murder, and Liza claimed she had seen Kendall at the Chandler mansion around the time of the shooting. Liza hoped to direct suspicion away from herself. Liza recanted her story when Zach threatened to reveal that she was faking her pregnancy. Tad learned Liza was not pregnant when a stray dart hit her stomach and she did not react. Tad agreed to join the plan to pass off Amanda's baby as Liza's.
In the basement of Tad's house, Liza faked giving birth to a son she named Stuart. The baby drew Liza and Colby closer, and Colby moved in with Liza to help care for Stuart. Liza was relieved when Amanda held Stuart but did not recognize him. David Hayward had a strange fascination with Stuart, and Liza tried to keep David away from her son. However, Liza leaned on David when Stuart had colic. David suspected Stuart might be his child with Amanda, so he ran a DNA test. Liza was shocked when the test confirmed David was not Stuart's father. When Liza confronted Jake, he explained he had known Amanda would want to raise her son, so he had arranged for Liza to adopt a different child.
Liza represented Kendall when she was accused of Stuart's murder. The district attorney was determined to prosecute Kendall, and Liza did not want to take the case, but Zach reminded Liza that he knew she was not the biological mother of her son. Liza hired law student Marissa Tasker to assist her with Kendall's case. Liza's mother, Marian, shot Marissa when Kendall was found guilty of Stuart's murder and sentenced to life in prison. Marian was Stuart's wife. Liza arranged for her grieving mother to receive psychiatric care.
Although Kendall had been found guilty, Liza and Zach worked to find evidence to clear Kendall. Liza was romantically interested in Zach and used the time working on Kendall's case to become closer to him. Zach was Liza's dance partner at the charity dance marathon where they shared a few kisses. Liza made her interest clear, but she stopped pursuing Zach when he admitted he still loved Kendall.
A young woman named Bailey Welles arrived in Pine Valley, looking for the son she had put up for adoption. Bailey was Stuart's birth mother. Liza was forced to tell Colby the truth about the fake pregnancy. Colby was disappointed and angry at her mother for the lies, but Colby stayed with Liza to help her fight Bailey for custody of Stuart. Liza invited Bailey to stay with her so she could see the loving home Stuart was being raised in.
Damon Miller, Stuart's father, appeared in Pine Valley to see Bailey. He was unaware that he had fathered a child. Damon took Bailey out partying, and Liza warned Bailey that Damon would not be a good father to Stuart. When Liza realized Bailey wanted to raise Stuart, Liza gave Bailey space to bond with her son. Liza knew she had no legal claim to the child, but Liza helped Bailey and Damon care for Stuart. At Bailey's request, Liza represented Damon when he attacked a valet at the casino. She also helped Damon find a job so he could support Bailey and Stuart. Bailey left town with Stuart, but Damon remained in Pine Valley. It was later revealed that Damon was not Stuart's father.
Tad and Liza began dating and became lovers, while Damon became friends with Colby. Liza did not like the developing relationship between Damon and Colby. When Damon was homeless, Tad took him in, and Tad learned he was Damon's father, but did not tell Damon. Tad had been briefly married to Damon's mother, Hillary Wilson. Tad remained close to Damon and became his court-ordered guardian.
Tad knew how Liza felt about Damon, so he and Liza took a break in their relationship. Liza decided to get Damon out of Colby's life when Damon caused a car accident. He was texting while driving, and Colby was a passenger in the car. Damon and Colby were both fine, but Liza was determined to break them apart.
Liza did not believe the diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder would reform Damon. Liza discovered Colby and Damon planned to sleep together after Jake and Amanda's wedding, so Liza hired a stripper and planned for Colby to catch Damon cheating. The stripper did not show up, so Liza began to seduce Damon. She planned to accuse Damon of trying to come on to her. Tad interrupted the seduction, but before Damon ran off, he took photos of a nearly nude Liza.
Liza continued her quest to break apart Colby and Damon when Colby cancelled an internship in New York to remain in Pine Valley with Damon. With a little help from David Hayward, Liza switched Damon's ADHD medication with placebos so he would act impulsively, and it worked. Damon began to act reckless. Colby questioned if Damon was serious about her, and Liza tried to persuade Colby that Damon could be cheating on her. Tad suspected Liza was out to get Damon when she claimed Damon had kissed her, but Tad believed Damon's version. When Liza realized how much Tad cared for his son, she admitted she had switched Damon's medication. Colby refused to speak to her mother when she found out what Liza had done.
In 2010, Liza was named interim district attorney. Her first case was David Hayward's murder. David had faked his death and arranged for the mayor to appoint Liza as the district attorney. Unbeknownst to Liza, David had trusted her to follow the evidence he had created so Ryan Lavery would be found guilty of his murder. Instead, Liza found evidence that pointed to Greenlee Smythe, David's widow. When Greenlee was sentenced, David appeared in the courtroom, alive and well, until someone shot him shortly after.
While David was in a coma, Liza realized David could be a powerful ally, so when Erica was accused of the shooting, Liza filed charges against Erica on Davis's behalf. Liza also became David's legal advocate while he was in his coma. The charges against Erica were eventually dropped.
Liza slept with Damon, and Tad was disgusted with what she had done. Even though Liza's mother, Marian, had done the same thing, sleeping with her daughter's boyfriend, Tad. Tad told her she was worse because Liza had been a role model to Damon. Damon left Pine Valley to attend school in California, and Colby again vowed to be done with her mother. Liza turned to David and slept with him after Colby and the Martins wanted nothing to do with her.
Liza soon realized David was not the solution to her problems when she discovered David was still in love with Greenlee. She focused on work instead and tried to appease the mayor by looking for evidence the police chief Jesse Hubbard was corrupt but she could not force herself to dig up dirt on Jesse. Liza was fired from her job as district attorney.
Caleb Cortlandt immediately offered Liza a position working with him at Cortlandt Electronics and she accepted. One of her first tasks was to deliver some of Dixie's belongings to Tad after Dixie's father passed away. Tad held a memorial to get rid of Dixie's things and publicly come to terms with her death so he could move on. Liza attended and showed her support for Tad.
J.R. also attended the memorial Tad held and he contacted Liza afterward. He had lost custody of his son A.J. and wanted Liza to represent him in a custody case. In return for Liza's help, J.R. promised to help Liza repair her relationship with Colby. Liza agreed to help J.R. until she realized he was drinking again and walked away from their arrangement. Colby contacted her mother and begged her to take J.R.'s case. Liza decided to help J.R. but made it clear she was only doing so because it was a favor to Colby. Liza did not represent J.R. for long after he went against her legal advice and tried to bribe the judge overseeing the case. The judge did not react favorably and granted full custody to J.R.'s ex-wife instead.
Liza slowly made inroads with Colby and she was pleased when Colby accepted her offer to move in with her when the Chandler mansion, Colby's home, was being foreclosed upon due to J.R.'s mishandling of the family company and funds. Colby had reached out to her father in the midst of J.R.'s troubles but he did not immediately return to Pine Valley as Colby had hoped. Colby acknowledged that despite Liza's flaws as a mother, she was there for her.
In order to reach out to Colby, Liza allowed Colby's friend Maya Mercado to temporarily move in with them as well, along with Maya's baby. Angie and Jesse had been raising Maya's daughter Lucy as their own child and they had hired Maya to care for Lucy, unaware she was Lucy's birth mother. When Maya learned Lucy was her daughter, she moved out while she planned what to do next. Liza recognized the pain Angie and Jesse were in after her own experience losing Stuart and decided to help persuade Maya to move back in with the Hubbards. Liza set very strict rules for Maya and she quickly returned to live with Angie and Jesse.
Liza's relationship with Colby continued to slowly improve and her working relationship with Caleb was also going well. They ran in to one another at Krystal's and Caleb surprised her by flirting with her. She surprised herself and Caleb by flirting back. He asked her out on a date and she agreed. Liza said yes to spending time with Caleb, but she said no to spending time with David when he asked her to be his legal counsel. Zach and Ryan had tricked David into confessing that he had known Zach's casino partners had planned to kill him. Liza explained that David needed to learn some life lessons and she did care about him, but she could no longer be the one by his side. She assured him she would be rooting for him from the sidelines instead.
Liza showed her support for David in an unexpected way when Cara Castillo shared that she was pregnant with David's child. Cara expected Liza to encourage her to ban David from her child's life like so many others had advised. Instead, Liza shared the loneliness that goes with being a single parent and reminded Cara that David loved his children. Cara took Liza's words to heart and decided to allow David to be a part of her child's life.
Even without Liza's help, David was released from jail after his Project Orpheus was credited with saving the life of Stuart Chandler. Stuart's family, including Liza's mother Marian and Stuart's brother Adam, were thrilled. Adam hosted a party at the Chandler mansion to welcome Stuart home and Liza attended the party. She was at the party when a shot rang out.
Crimes Committed[]
- Fixed the Miss Junior Pine Valley contest so that she would win
- Slapped Jesse Hubbard [Jul 1982]
- Accused Jesse of rape, but later revealed that she had lied [Jul 1982]
- In elementary school, she stole the winner's medal from the spelling bee champion
- Adultery; slept with Tad Martin while he was married to Dixie Cooney Martin [Mar 4, 1996]
- Kept Adam locked up in his "safe room"
- Allowed Stuart to impersonate Adam and give away his money
- Lied in order to have Adam locked away in Oak Haven
- Got into a cat fight with Allie Doyle [Feb 12, 1998]
- Arrested for slapping a police officer [Mar 14, 2001]
- Adultery; slept with Ryan while married to Adam [Aug 2001]
- Slapped her sister, Mia [Nov 9, 2001]
- Stole millions from Chandler Enterprises [2002]
- Shoved Mia out a window of the Chandler Mansion [Nov 21, 2002]
- Slapped Adam [Jan 29, 2003]
- Ran away with her daughter, Colby [2004 to 2006]
- Blackmailed Jake Martin into going along with her plan to fake a pregnancy, saying she would tell David his and Amanda's plan to lie about the Amanda's baby dying during childbirth [May 22, 2009]
- Confessed to breaking into the Chandler Mansion [May 22, 2009]
- Asked Colby to give a fake alibi to the chief of police [May 22, 2009]
- Slapped Erica Kane [May 29, 2009]
- Slapped David [Aug 12, 2009]
- Allowed an underage Damon Miller to drink alcohol [Mar 2010]
- Stole Damon's ADHD medication [Jul 12, 2010]
Health and Vitals[]
- Raped by a trucker [1983]
- Slapped by Allie Doyle [Feb 12, 1998]
- Had surgery to remove a tumor from her brain [Mar/Apr 2002]
- Has a shellfish allergy [Jun 18, 2010]