An original protagonist on the series, Victor is introduced in the first episode as the preeminent mass media magnate[1] of fictional Philadelphia Main Line suburb Llanview, Pennsylvania.

[3] Series creator Agnes Nixon and executive producer Doris Quinlan subsequently recast Victor to Shepperd Strudwick, who first appeared in December 1974[4] and played the role until the character's initial onscreen death in June 1976.

[5] Series creator and then-scriptwriter Agnes Nixon originally created the character of Victor Lord based on her father, Harry Eckhardt.

[1] She crafted the role in an attempt to understand the reserved, domineering Eckhardt patriarch, an entrepreneur who financially thrived during the Great Depression manufacturing funeral garments.

Victor eventually grows weary of Victoria's admiration for one of his star reporters, working class executive editor Joe Riley (Lee Patterson).

In the early years, Victor is also unhappy at the growing relationship of his younger daughter, Meredith, with upwardly-mobile doctor Larry Wolek (Paul Tulley, Jim Storm).

In November 1968, unable to reconcile her feelings for Joe and for her father, Victoria develops multiple-personality disorder, manifesting in an alter-ego, "Niki Smith," and begins dating Vinny Wolek (Antony Ponzini).

As Victoria recovers from her first bout with multiple personalities, Victor concedes to the relationships of his white collar daughters to working class gentlemen when he uncovers that he had a long-lost son.

A short time later, Joe apparently dies in a car crash while reporting in California, giving Victor the opportunity to set his widowed daughter up with a suitor more to his liking.

In 1971, Victoria (Erika Slezak onward) announces her engagement to Steve, which her father approves of; Victor is, however, unhappy when he discovers his continually frail daughter Meredith is seeking to conceive a child with Larry.

Merrie is prescribed bedrest and later gives birth to Victor's first onscreen grandchildren, twins (one which dies a childbirth and the other, a grandson named Daniel).

A distressed Victor pleads with the robbers to release Meredith during hostage negotiations with Llanview Police Department Lt. Ed Hall (Al Freeman, Jr.).

The hostage crisis of Meredith and Vinny in 1973 saw the introduction of newly minted Dr. Dorian Cramer (originally, Nancy Pinkerton), who Viki dislikes at first sight.

Recovered, Viki later uncovers in 1988 that she had a daughter, Megan Gordon (Jessica Tuck), while under the hypnosis insisted upon by Victor and delivered by her longtime friend and brother-in-law, Larry.

Viki engages in an extramarital affair in 1993 with writer Sloan Carpenter (Roy Thinnes), who authors Victor's biography, "Lord of The Banner".

When Dorian is sentenced to death by lethal injection, con man David Vickers (Tuc Watkins) arrives in town in 1994, claiming to possess the alleged diary of Viki's late friend and Tina's mother, Irene.

Soon afterward, an actual diary entry from Irene reveals she bore Victor another son, reformed rapist Todd Manning (Roger Howarth).

Because of the pain she had to endure and dark secrets that were revealed, Viki, who had once worshiped the ground her father walked on and idealized him, now has nothing but contempt, rage, and disgust at Victor's depravity and actions.

Finally in 2003, following the arrival of Viki's long-lost daughter, Natalie (Melissa Archer), an ailing Victor (William Stone Mahoney) resurfaces.

[11] During an interview with TV Guide Canada in February 2009, "Dorian Lord" actress Robin Strasser, offered a belated explanation for the recent reversal about Victor's murderer: I was so happy that [head writer Ron Carlivati] addressed that mythology [in the August 2007 9,999th and 10,000th episodes].

"[12] From the outset, the original portrayal of Victor Lord by actor Ernest Graves was received as ruthless and overbearing, playing a role introduced as the powerful center of the fictional town of Llanview, and of the lives of his daughters Victoria and Meredith.