Soap Masterpieces November Throwbacks: Y&R’s Leanna Love Writes Tell-All Book ‘Ruthless: The Victor Newman Story’

November is the month of throwbacks, and today we focus on Leanna Love [Barbara Crampton] coming to Genoa City in June of 1987. It’s hard to believe that she came into town almost 30 years ago. She came into town as a fragile and bright young unstable woman, and somehow became a pillar of the community that focused on bringing Victor Newman [Eric Braeden] down. Fans loved Ms. Love because she was entertaining and extremely unpredictable.

In 1987, Leanna Love came into Genoa City to find the love of her life, Steven Lassiter [Rod Arrants]. The only problem was they didn’t have a relationship besides Leanna was an ex- mental patient of Dr. Lassiter. In Leanna’s mind, she and the handsome young psychiatrist were lovers- she was obsessed with him. Steven fell in love with Ashley Abbott [Eileen Davidson], and the two love birds married.

During the Hawaii Honeymoon, Steven and Ashley were stalked by a crazed mentally unstable Leanna Love. She made several attempts to kill Ashley, and, as a result, she spent much of her honeymoon very sick. Ashley never discovered that Leanna was obsessed with her new husband, or that she tried to kill her.

Leanna followed them back to Genoa City after the honeymoon. She dropped her obsession with the handsome young doctor to set her sights higher- on Jack Abbott [Peter Bergman]. Jack arranged for Leanna to write a tell-all book on Victor Newman titled “Ruthless: The Victor Newman story” under the name Nora Randall. She grew up thinking about money and power, so this type of book for her was a dream come true.

Without Jack’s knowledge, she added an extra chapter to the book that detailed his sister, Ashley’s affair with Victor- it included Ashley’s abortion and her later mental breakdown. She also included that while Victor was sneaking around with Ashley, his estranged wife, Nikki [Melody Thomas Scott] was pregnant and hoping for a reconciliation.

When the book was published, Victor assumed that Nikki was angry about his affair with Ashley and told Leanna about it- and gave her the go-ahead to use it. It was completely true. Victor was so angry about the public release of information, he divorced a pregnant Nikki and vowed their relationship was over. A few months later, Nicholas Christian Newman was born.

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