Dimitri Marick

Michael Nader as Dimitri Marick

**Dimitri Marick** is a fictional character from the ABC soap opera, All My Children. The role has been most notably portrayed by Michael Nader, previously famed for his role on Dynasty. Former head writers Agnes Nixon and Lorraine Broderick created the character in 1991, designing him as a brooding and mysterious character based on heroes from gothic literature, such as Maxim de Winter from Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca and Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. The character's introduction raised All My Children in the Nielsen ratings and was credited as the "saving grace" of the unpopular Natalie and Janet storyline.

Soon after his debut on the soap opera, Dimitri became a complex leading man and took part in some of the most notable plots of the 1990s. Those storylines included popular romances with Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) and Alexandra Devane (Finola Hughes), as well as a loving yet antagonistic fraternal relationship with Edmund Grey (John Callahan).

In July 1999, Nader was let go from All My Children due to budgetary considerations, however, he later returned in May 2000. The following year, the actor's arrest brought him and the character to the center of a large fan campaign organized by a group called the Loyalists, as well as a highly publicized lawsuit catching the attention of People and Entertainment Tonight, among other media outlets. As a result, Nader was let go again by the soap opera, with an official statement saying they would be prepared to consider having him return once he had addressed the lawsuit issues. The role was temporarily recast with actor Anthony Addabbo, who was negatively received by viewers, and let go shortly after his debut. Nader later stated in an interview that ABC had informed him that they had no intention of ever bringing him or the character back due to a lack of storyline. In 2004, Nader's suit was subsequently thrown out.

In May 2013, after a twelve-year absence from All My Children, Nader was announced to be reprising the role, with his return airing on June 12, 2013, on the Online Reboot of AMC. He remained on the show until its cancellation later that same year.

## Background

To further the mystery element and add an international twist to the story, Nixon scripted Dimitri as having close European roots, though he is an American. He is the son of Hungarian parents, Hugo and Anna. Originally, his wealth comes from all the land around Pine Valley and the One Life to Live city Llanview, which he inherits from his parents. That is also where his fictional estate, Wildwind, is located. Later, during Dimitri's 1992 story with Erica Kane, he is revealed to also be Hungarian nobility as Count Andrassy. He inherited his title and his Hungarian castle, Vadzel, from his father's side. Both of his parents were dead by the time Dimitri first appears on All My Children. He spends his childhood years growing up in Europe and on the Wildwind estate. He has a complicated relationship with Edmund Gresham, the son of two of his family's employees, unknown to Dimitri to be his half-brother. His childhood sweetheart was Angelique Voynitzeva, the daughter of his nanny, Helga. Helga later becomes his housekeeper. Fifteen years prior to Dimitri's appearance on-screen, he and Angelique married. Angelique becomes pregnant but suffers a miscarriage which devastates both of them. Angelique has a riding accident which leaves her in a coma. Dimitri tries to find a cure, but is unable to and sends her to a clinic in Austria. He becomes reclusive for the next decade because of the guilt he feels over her condition. Finding Natalie in 1991 brings him out into society again.

## Storylines

Dimitri Marick, a rich, mysterious, and handsome millionaire businessman, made his first appearance as the man who ultimately rescued Natalie Hunter from a well on the Wildwind estate. Dimitri and Natalie were briefly engaged, but that ended when Dimitri's first wife, the formerly comatose Angelique, was wheeled into their engagement party by Dimitri's housekeeper, who was Angelique's mother, Helga Voynitzeva.

Later, Dimitri learned that his boyhood friend and sometime enemy, Edmund Grey, was also a rightful son and heir to Hugo Marick, Dimitri's father. Helga did everything in her power to prevent the secret from being revealed, but in the end, Dimitri and Edmund learned that they were brothers. The newfound relationship reignited their childhood conflicts.

Dimitri's family tree was further rocked when he learned that he had a long-lost son, Anton Lang. A Marick maid, Corvina Lang, had seduced a young drunken Dimitri, who remembered nothing of the encounter.

Dimitri became involved with Erica Kane in an epic love affair. Their long and tempestuous relationship resulted in two marriages. In a time of great emotional distress for them both, Dimitri slept with his sister-in-law, Maria Santos Grey, and Maria subsequently found out that she was pregnant. Skye Chandler learned of Dimitri and Maria's affair and doctored paternity test results to make it look like Dimitri was the father of Maria's child. Erica learned of the affair and hit the roof. She left Dimitri and later went on a tirade that including kidnapping Maria's infant and passing it off as a baby she had adopted from Russia.

Dimitri 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 Colby checked up on Dimitri and found that too many of his investors were not born in the United States, which violated an FCC regulation, and she swindled Dimitri out of ownership of the station.

Dimitri always had his eye on Gloria Marsh. Gloria fell in love with Tad, but his insistence that she cut off her friendship with Dimitri put a rift in their relationship. Dimitri used their difference of opinion to draw Gloria closer to him. Eventually, Dimitri convinced Gloria that Tad had cheated on her with Liza, and she agreed to marry Dimitri.

After a horrible plane crash in which Maria lost her life, Dimitri sought custody of Maddie. Dimitri took Maddie to the hospital and found that she was biologically Edmund's daughter, because her blood type did not match Dimitri's. Dimitri thought that if he told anyone, he would lose both Maddie and Gloria. Instead, he took off to Vadzel. Edmund and Tad tracked them down and brought them back to the states.

After winning custody of Maddie, Edmund and Tad planned to set Dimitri up at the Crystal Ball in the crypt, by getting him so angry that he admitted to everything, which he did. What he did not know was that Tad had taken Gloria to the crypt to listen to what Dimitri had to say. Upon hearing what she had hoped was not true, she entered the room, slapped Dimitri, left him, and filed for divorce. Dimitri was so upset and enraged, he pulled a gun on Edmund and shot him.

Little did Dimitri know was that a magician had replaced the bullets in the gun with blanks after Tad had found out that Dimitri had the gun. Thinking that he had shot Edmund, a very terrified Dimitri confessed that he was very sorry for everything. When Edmund opened his eyes and let Dimitri in on the sly trick, Dimitri got even angrier.

Dimitri walked outside of the crypt and was hit by a falling tree. Stuck, he felt helpless. Edmund rescued him and rushed him to the hospital. Gloria had to restart Dimitri's heart, but she still ended their marriage. Gloria finally left town to get her life straightened out. Dimitri tried to make peace with everyone -- knowing that life was too precious to be vengeful toward anyone.

Dimitri's attempt to piece his life back together worked quite handily. It took some time, but eventually he and Edmund became close again -- and it was that closeness that allowed Dimitri to repay his brother. After it was learned that the evil Jim Thomasen was responsible for the plane crash that had claimed Maria's life, Jim lashed out at anyone who could prove that he had a hand in the disaster.

Jim chained Edmund to a metal grating inside an aqueduct. Dimitri arrived for the rescue but rather than immobilizing Jim, Dimitri raced inside the aqueduct to rescue his brother. It almost proved to be a fatal mistake. Jim recovered from the blows that Dimitri had inflicted upon him and locked Dimitri inside with Edmund. In a few hours, the tide would roll in, and both Edmund and Dimitri would be goners.

Luckily Dimitri managed to free himself and Edmund -- but Jim Thomasen was not done haunting them. Thinking that Jim had killed Edmund and Dimitri, Brooke lured Jim to Stuart Chandler's art gallery and shot him to death. Dimitri arrived on the scene and told the police that he had been the one to kill Jim. Brooke silenced him and confessed that she had been the one to do the dirty deed.

Dimitri stood by Brooke's side throughout the subsequent murder trial. After Brooke was acquitted, she and Dimitri saw a lot of each other. Brooke, though, was not ready to get involved with another man, and her budding relationship with Dimitri withered and died.

Unbeknownst to anyone, shortly after being trapped in the aqueduct, Dimitri began having dizzy spells. He flew to Europe to be checked out. He thought that he might have water trapped in his ear, but his problems were much more serious. Dimitri was referred to one of the top neurologists in the word, Dr. Alexandra Devane. Dr. Devane diagnosed Dimitri with a very rare disease that prevents the cells in the brain from rejuvenating themselves. Over time, the cells that died were not replaced by new ones, and the brain essentially died.

Alexandra developed a miracle cure that put the disease in remission. By that time, though, she and her patient had fallen in love with one another. Following their surprise marriage, Dimitri and Alexandra flew back to Pine Valley to announce that they were husband and wife. On the plane trip back, Dimitri was believed to have suffered a fatal brain aneurysm and died. It was later discovered his wife, Alex Devane, was hiding him at Seaview Hospital.

Dimitri lapsed into a coma. Edmund was suspicious of Alex and accused her of killing Dimitri. Eventually, Alex caved in and admitted that Dimitri was not dead. Alex and Edmund plotted to heal Dimitri with experimental stem cell therapy. Colby Martin was believed to be the donor of the stem cells. Adam, however, swapped the stem cells with another child's.

The stem cell therapy was successful. Dimitri was believed to have sneaked out of the hospital of his own accord and walked into the ocean, where he drowned himself. His body was never recovered.

In May of 2000, the mystery of Dimitri's death grew even more complex. A wheelchair-bound Dimitri was pushed through the corridors of a Welsh hospital, Bryn Wydd. A secret group had kidnapped Dimitri from Seaview in the United States because he had started to dig around into Alex's past. The group decided that Dimitri would not be a threat while under their watchful eyes.

Dimitri's therapy continued -- and it was quite successful, though Dimitri pretended to be catatonic so that he could do some eavesdropping. Alex and Edmund continued their search into Alex's past. Dimitri was taken to a new location, and Bryn Wydd was destroyed. It turned out that the director of the secret group was Alex's mother, and she had lots of secrets that she'd been keeping. Charlotte ordered Dimitri thrown from an aircraft. She hadn't counted on Dimitri knocking out the man she'd hired to do her dirty deed.

Dimitri washed up on a beach near Pine Valley. Dimitri remained in seclusion until he revealed himself to Edmund and asked for his brother's help in getting Charlotte out of Alex's life. Dimitri didn't want Alex to know that he was alive because the chances of him surviving the rare neurological disease that had supposedly killed him were slim to none. Charlotte was eventually turned over to the police. Dimitri, however, ended up in David's office, and David forced Dimitri into accepting medical treatment for his condition.

Dimitri reluctantly agreed to let David help him, but one of the terms of his accepting David's help was for David to tell all of his loved ones that he had died. David agreed to do as Dimitri wished, but Dimitri's veil of secrecy was compromised when Dixie, David's office assistant, walked into David's office and found Dimitri. Dixie agreed to keep Dimitri's secret, but she could keep the secret for only so long. Eventually, she sent Alex to the hunting lodge at Wildwind with Dimitri's latest dose of medication.

Dimitri and Alex had a tearful -- and romantic -- reunion. Dimitri, however, urged Alex to leave him because he still believed that he wasn't going to survive. On the morning after their "reunion," Edmund showed up at the lodge. He spotted Alex's wrinkled clothing on the floor and put two and two together. Edmund pledged to accept that Dimitri and Alex were still married, but saying the words and actually honoring them proved to be two different things.

After his reunion with Alex, Dimitri kept a low profile. He and Edmund worked together to throw Ryan Lavery and Gillian Andrassy an elaborate surprise second wedding. Dimitri was terribly shaken when Gillian was shot and killed just a few weeks later. Shortly after Gillian's death, Dimitri and Alex left Pine Valley for Europe. Publicly, their explanation was that they wanted time away and time to have a honeymoon. However, their departure was shrouded in mystery as Dimitri got a peculiar phone call just prior to his departure, claiming to have "information."

Several years later, Dimitri returned to Pine Valley upon the request of Brooke English. She was engaged to Adam Chandler and oversaw Chandler Enterprises while Adam spent the majority of his time handling business abroad. Brooke offered Dimitri a position at Chandler Enterprises as the head of the media division which included the production of the internet program "Talk Tempo." Dimitri accepted the position and moved back to Pine Valley without Alex. He revealed to Brooke that he and Alex were no longer together.

Dimitri and Brooke worked closely together while Adam remained out of town. Dimitri expressed his romantic interest in Brooke and they shared a kiss. Afterwards, Brooke explained that she could not reciprocate his feelings because she loved Adam.

## Crimes Committed

* "Abducted" Gloria to Monte Carlo
* Nearly ran down Erica and Sonya while speeding in his sports car
* Accused of raping Kendall Hart; Kendall later admitted that she lied
* Kidnapped Maddie to Vadzel after learning of the true paternity
* Switched Edmund's painkillers for amphetamines during court trial for custody of Maddie

## Health and Vitals

* Stabbed in the chest by Erica with a letter opener
* Suffered a degenerative neurological disorder

## Other Mentions

During a March 2019 episode of General Hospital the character Robert Scorpio tells Anna Devane that he has been in touch with Dimitri related to an investigation into ex-wife Alex's activities, and that Dimitri has handed over records relating to Alex for Anna to review.

In a February 2021 episode of General Hospital, Dimitri (with only his hands shown) was seen addressing an envelope to Peter August, his former stepson via Alex, containing Alex's will.