Nora Hanen Buchanan
Actor History
Hillary B. Smith (1992 to present)
Felicity LaFortune (2000; temporary recast)
Occupation
District Attorney
Lawyer
Resides At
The Buchanan Mansion
Previously her house with her son, Matthew
Marital Status
Married to Clint Buchanan [Engaged: May 13, 2009; Married: Aug 4, 2009]
Past Marriages
Hank Gannon (pre-1992; divorced)
Bo Buchanan (1995-1999; divorced)
Daniel Colson (2005; divorced)
Relatives
Lenny Hanen (father)
Selma Hanen (mother)
Susannah Hanen (sister)
Children
Rachel Gannon (daughter; with Hank)
Drew Buchanan (stepson; deceased)
Riley Colson (stepson)
Cole Thornhart (legal ward)
Matthew Buchanan (son; with Bo)
Flings & Affairs
R.J. Gannon
Sam Rappaport
Troy MacIver
Crimes Committed
Threw Todd Manning's trial when she learned he was guilty of raping Marty Saybrooke
Murdered Colin MacIver (self-defense)
Took Rachel on the run when she admitted to killing Georgie, but later brought her back.
Instructed Dorian to sign over controlling interest of Buchanan Enterprises to the Buchanans in exchange for murder charges against her being dropped [Oct 2008]
Brief Character History
Nora Hanen arrived in Llanview in 1992 as a high-powered and headstrong liberal defense attorney. Proud of her Jewish heritage, Nora grew up in an affluent Chicago suburb, the daughter of a highly influential judge.
While in college at Midwestern University she met and married Hank Gannon, a black student. For many years, Hank never knew that, while in school, Nora had had an affair with his younger brother, R.J. After Nora gave birth to a daughter, Rachel, her marriage to Hank became strained as constraints on their time and money intensified. When Rachel was five, Hank and Nora divorced. Hank was extremely bitter when Nora was granted full custody of their daughter.
Prior to coming to Llanview, Nora represented her brother-in-law R.J. Gannon against charges of aggravated assault and armed robbery. She lost the case, and a vengeful R.J. was sentenced to ten years in jail. Years later, R.J. got even with both Hank and Nora when, during Hank's wedding to Sheila Price, he blurted out their deep family secret: that he had slept with Nora behind Hank's back while they were in college.
In 1992, Nora moved to Llanview and met her future husband, Bo Buchanan, and helped him in his search to find the hit and run driver responsible for the death of his wife, Sarah. Bo was about to propose when Nora admitted that she might have killed Sarah. Her fears were laid to rest (a drunk driver was the culprit) and she soon moved in with Bo and they became engaged in 1993. Marriage was postponed when Nora underwent surgery for a brain tumor that left her temporarily blind.
In 1993, Nora defended several fraternity brothers, including Viki's son Kevin Buchanan (who was exonerated) and football hero Todd Manning against rape charges leveled by Marty Saybrooke. The trial ended in a mistrial, but Todd was eventually tricked into a confession and sentenced to jail.
Having escaped from jail, Todd stalked Nora, who was temporarily blind at the time, at her beach house. Todd threatened Nora with a knife and tried to rape her, but was momentarily thwarted when Nora hit him over he head with a lamp. Bo rescued Nora and brought her back to Llanview where she was operated on once again and regained her sight.
In 1995, Nora and Bo married in a rock and roll wedding ceremony presided over by Little Richard and they settled into their new home at 912 Greenfield Avenue in Llanview, where Nora proved to be absolutely useless in the kitchen A former tennis champ, Nora was very competitive and enjoyed dancing the jitterbug with her husband.
Then Bo's son Drew was killed, and Nora, wanting to give her husband a reason to live, lied and said that she was pregnant. Believing that Bo was unable to have anymore children, Nora slept with Sam Rappaport in order to become pregnant. However, since both Asa Buchanan and Lindsay Rappaport knew the truth, it was unlikely Nora would be able to keep her secret for long.
Bo began to worry that Nora was keeping something from him as the lies were beginning to take their toll on Nora. Early in 1999, the lies stopped when a drunken Lindsay publicly announced to the world that Nora had betrayed Bo by sleeping with Sam. Bo then realized that Nora was carrying Sam's baby, not his. Nora and Bo still had deep feelings for one another, but they couldn't put this incident behind them. Nora vowed to fight for Bo, but he moved out.
Nora gave birth to a baby boy and named the child Matthew, who almost died shortly after being born. Matthew pulled through and Nora and Sam are both devoted to their little boy. Nora, however, later learned the Lindsay had doctored Bo's fertility tests and realized he could be Matthew's father after all. Nora had Matthew's DNA tested, but Lindsay secretly paid off the lab technician to make sure that Sam stayed Matthew's father. The tests revealed that Sam was indeed Matthew's father, but Lindsay was unsure whether the technician had actually changed the tests.
With her marriage to Bo a thing of the past, Nora became involved with Sam. Nora and Sam came close to getting married on several different occasions, but never tied the knot. Nora and Sam, however, did move in together and formed a happy family with their son Matthew.
Nora was always suspicious of Lindsay and didn't trust her as far as she could throw her. One day, Nora learned the truth about Lindsay tampering with Bo's fertility test results. Nora told Sam and was shocked when he said he had already known what Lindsay had done. Sam warned Nora to let this secret stay buried, but she had other ideas. On a mission to expose the truth, Nora interrupted Bo and Lindsay's wedding and told Bo about Lindsay's duplicity. Bo called off his wedding to Lindsay and questioned Nora as to why she chose that time to tell him an unflattering truth about his supposed bride to be. Nora insisted she just wanted the truth to be told, but both Bo and Sam wondered if there was more to it. Nora did admit to having conflicting feelings about Bo, but insisted Sam was the man she wanted to be with. This event caused Sam to move out temporarily, although he and Nora soon reconciled.
In the process of discovering the truth about Lindsay's test tampering, Nora also realized that Lindsay was pregnant by Bo. Nora kept this news to herself, while urging Lindsay to tell Bo the truth on her own. Lindsay had planned on telling Bo on their wedding night, which never happened once Nora exposed her lie. When Nora threatened to tell Bo about Lindsay's pregnancy, Lindsay became agitated and subsequently suffered a miscarriage. Nora was guilt-ridden, but Sam assured her that Lindsay's miscarriage hadn't been her fault.
Nora accompanied Lindsay's son Will Rappaport on the train taking him to Statesville Prison to start serving his sentence on trumped up embezzlement charges. Nora encountered Bo on the train and asked for his forgiveness for all the misunderstanding between them. Although Bo still had deep feelings for Nora, he couldn't bring himself to forgive her. Tragedy then struck when the train derailed and Nora was presumed to have died when the wreckage was engulfed in an explosion.
Everyone thought Nora was dead, but actually she was saved from the wreckage by Dr. Colin MacIver, who it turned out was Lindsay's brother-in-law. Lindsay convinced Colin to take Nora to his house and keep her there in return for helping him save his marriage to her sister, Melanie. Nora was at Colin's house for several months, injured and unable to walk. Nora knew about Lindsay's involvement in her being held captive, so Lindsay gave her a shot of a mind-erasing drug to get rid of her memories. When Nora was rescued by Todd and eventually returned to Llanview, most of her memories were gone; the last thing she could remember was being married to Hank.
At Llanview Hospital, Dr. Larry Wolek gave Nora a drug to help her regain her memories and she recovered all but the past three years. She remembered being married to Bo, who had to break it to her that they were divorced. Nora was determined to prove that Lindsay was the one behind her kidnapping and memory loss -- so determined that she continued to spend time with Colin, who was obsessed with her and losing touch with reality more every day, to try to learn the truth.
Colin tried to rape Nora, and she pushed him down the stairs where he fell to his death. With Colin out of the way, Nora and Sam's relationship went smoothly. But the calm seas were interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Dr. Troy MacIver, Colin's identical twin brother. Sam disliked him right away, but Nora gave him the benefit of the doubt. When Matthew was diagnosed with a rare muscular disease and Troy cured him, Nora was grateful.
Troy developed feelings for Nora and decided to help her get the truth about what Lindsay did to her. He gave her a pill that restored the rest of her memories, all but what had happened with Lindsay. So Troy came up with another plot. The plan was a dirty one: Troy would seduce Lindsay to get her to confess. At first, Lindsay was very suspicious, but Troy charmed her into his arms.
Nora was hesitant to tell Sam, fearing he would object, and she was starting to have feelings for Troy. The two engaged in a passionate kiss in the cemetery, leaving her puzzled and confused. Things only got worse. When Lindsay discovered she had been tricked, she locked Troy in the funhouse until he would tell her where the tape of her confession was. Sam rescued Troy (an electrical fire had started in the funhouse) but the animosity between the two men was worse than before. Nora and Lindsay got to the tape at the same time, where they had a fight for it, but Nora won.
Afterwards, Nora attempted to cope with the reality that she and Sam were no longer together (Sam split when he found out her involvement with Troy and how she had not told him their plan) and went going to court to get Lindsay to pay for what she'd done. Not too much later, Nora was shocked when Sam was accidentally killed by Lindsay. Sam left a letter revealing that Bo was in fact Matthew's father, and that he had known all along.
While Matthew and Bo began working on their relationship, Nora began moving forward with her life, although it all could have been put on hold when Troy MacIver, desperate to get someone to believe he wasn't the Music Box Killer, kidnapped Matthew. Luckily they were able to get him back safely. Although Bo and Nora discussed reconciliation, they soon realized it wasn't in the cards, and Nora began moving on with Daniel Colson, the new district attorney in town. Despite Bo's rather vocal dislike of Colson, Nora married him, and was shocked not long after to learn he was gay, and the main suspect in the murders of both Paul Cramer and Jennifer Rappaport. Not long after, Nora had a stroke and spent months in a coma at the hospital. She opened her eyes for the first time in months in April 2006.
Feeling ready to return to work, Nora started working again as the District Attorney. She started with a strong case against Spencer Truman but eventually realized that she wasn't quite ready to be on such a big case and asked Evangeline to take over the case and become an ADA. Evangeline eventually agreed and took over and the two became a strong team.
An arsonist then began wreaking havoc in Llanview and Nora got involved in the case as a man was murdered. The arsonist struck again and this time, it was Nora's home. She was able to get out safely with Matthew with only a big of smoke inhalation but it still ruined their home. The two moved into the Buchanan Mansion temporarily and, after having difficulty with her insurance, Nora and Matthew are invited to move in indefinitely. Unfortunately, Nora again was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the arsonist hit Cristian's loft, this time using carbon monoxide, and rendering Cristian, Evangeline, Nora, and Talia unconscious. They all got help and recovered except Evangeline who was in a coma. This caused Nora to really go after the arsonist and eventually prosecute Tate Harmon for murder and arson.
Nora's next case became Miles Lawrence's case of attempted murder, kidnapping, theft, and blackmail against Marty Saybrooke. She stood by her friend, Marty, even though Marty was in jail for the murder of Spencer Truman. Nora even took in Marty's son Cole to care for him while his mother was in jail and eventually became his legal guardian when Marty was believed to have died in a van explosion in Ireland.
After Asa died, he left the mansion to Nora in his will. During their time in Texas for the will reading, Nora and Clint Buchanan begin a relationship, which soon blossomed into love.
History repeated itself when Lindsay was named Llanview's Woman of the Year and Nora was selected to present her with the award. Lindsay feared that Nora would ruin her night as she had ruined Nora's years ago, when Lindsay had drunkenly revealed Sam and Nora's one night stand and ruined Bo and Nora's marriage, but at the award ceremony Nora played nice and presented the award in a way that honored Lindsay. Sadly, as Lindsay was accepting her award, John McBain arrived and arrested Lindsay for the murder of Spencer Truman. During her arraignment, Lindsay collapsed into a catatonic state and was remanded to St. Anne's psychiatric hospital for evaluation. Lindsay later awakened from catatonia and Nora arranged to have criminal proceedings reconvened, convinced that Lindsay has been feigning mental illness to avoid prosecution. Once in court, a judge found that Lindsay was insane at the time of the murder and ruled that Bo would become her legal guardian.
In July 2008, Nora discovered a letter in her files from R.J. Gannon to Lindsay in which RG revealed that Lindsay had indeed faked a breakdown to avoid prosecution for Spencer's murder. In the middle of Lindsay and Bo's wedding, Nora brought up the letter and forced Lindsay to reveal her secret. Bo called off the wedding, and the next day Nora showed up at Lindsay's gallery with the police and had her arrested. Lindsay pled guilty to the charges and was carted off to Statesville Prison, and Nora struggled to make peace with both Bo and Clint for how the revelation came about.
In June 2008, Clint lost control of Buchanan Enterprises to Dorian in a hostile takeover that also led to the death of Clint's son-in-law Nash Brennan. His ex-girlfriend in London, Dallas Jones, then showed up in Llanview under the guise of providing Clint with emotional support. But Nora suspected that Dallas really was interested in rekindling her relationship with Clint and made it known that she wasn't going anywhere.
Nora and Clint's relationship was later tested when Clint hatched a plan to win back the company by threatening to take away Dorian's foster daughter Langston Wilde. Nora found Clint's actions reprehensible, especially since his plan relied on bringing to town Langston's uncle Ray Montez, who was in a Columbia prison serving time for murder. Clint called off the plan at the last minute, however, and Nora used her leverage as the district attorney to convince Dorian to give back the company.
Nora was speechless when she learned her dear friend Marty was actually alive and living with Todd Manning, who used her amnesia to his advantage to keep Marty from her friends and family. When Marty discovered she had slept with the man who had raped her in college, Nora consoled her and convinced her to take the "morning after" pill to ensure she didn't get pregnant. Nora then represented Marty in court in her case against Todd, but wound up losing when Todd's attorney Tea Delgado successfully argued that Todd hadn't raped Marty as Nora alleged and had even encouraged Marty to leave his house. Nora was so consumed with the case that she failed to see that Cole was turning into a drug addict to deal with the loss of his baby and the rejection of mother, who didn't remember being Cole's mother. When Nora found a joint in her son Matthew's backpack, she and Bo figured Matthew was getting high, although he only bought the joint to try to fit in with other kids in school. Cole later smoked the joint outside the Buchanan mansion, and Matthew lied to impress his schoolmates and told his parents he smoked it. Bo said he was going to send Matthew to military school, over Nora's objections, but he later reconsidered after having a heart-to-heart with Matthew. When Cole got into a car accident while under the influence, Matthew was riding shotgun and got thrown from the car. He became paralyzed from the waist down as a result, and Nora lashed out at Cole for driving while high and at Marty for failing to be a proper mother. But when Matthew asked Nora to go easy on Cole, Nora complied and dropped criminal charges against him in exchange for Cole agreeing to enter drug rehab. Nora and Bo, meanwhile, got closer as they struggled to help Matthew cope with the loss of his legs.
As Matthew returned to the Buchanan mansion for the first time following his accident, Nora was pleasantly surprised when her ex-husband Hank Gannon arrived with their daughter, Rachel, who had decided to relocate from Chicago to help her mom through this latest ordeal. Nora wasn't happy to learn that Rachel was Cole's new drug counselor and confided to Bo that she wasn't ready to forgive Cole for what he had done. While sitting in a car after dropping Matthew off at school for his first day back following the accident, Bo and Nora nearly shared a kiss before Marcie McBain interrupted. Later Nora wanted to ignore what nearly happened, but Bo forced her to own up to their feelings for each other. When Clint spotted them in an embrace and demanded to know what was going on, Bo told Clint that he nearly kissed Nora. Clint was upset at Nora for not confiding in him, and Bo blamed Clint for bringing this on himself by deciding to date his ex-wife!
That night, during Natalie's bachelorette party at UltraViolet, Clint stunned Nora by showing up and proposing marriage. Despite her misgivings about the timing of the proposal, Nora accepted Clint's proposal. Rachel accused Nora of hiding her attraction to Bo by accepting Clint's proposal, but Nora told Rachel she was wrong. While dining together at the Palace Hotel, Nora and Clint were shocked to learn that Viki and Charlie were engaged as well. When the couples realized that they had picked the same wedding date, Renee suggested a double wedding, and they hesitantly agreed. Clint surprised Nora by presenting her with an engagement ring while having breakfast with Matthew and Bo, and then by announcing that he had found a doctor who said he could help Matthew walk again. Later, Bo confided to Nora that he didn't trust Dr. Greg Evans, since he only came to town because Clint paid him, and said Clint should have come to them first. After reviewing Matthew's tests, Dr. Evans told Nora, Bo and Matthew that he could help Matthew walk again. But when Nora learned the surgery could be life threatening, she told an angry Matthew that she refused to let him have the surgery. Nora was shocked when Matthew said he would rather be dead than stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Matthew then hired Tea Delgado to represent him in a lawsuit against his parents, in which he would attempt to get permission from the court to have the surgery. Nora told Clint she wanted to postpone the wedding because of the lawsuit, but Clint said a wedding could be just the thing that was needed to bring the family back together.
On the night before the wedding, Nora and Bo shared a kiss at Asa's lodge. Matthew witnessed the kiss, and told his parents he would drop his lawsuit in exchange for not telling Clint. Nora and Bo called Matthew's bluff, and Matthew ultimately decided not to tell Clint because he didn't want to hurt his uncle. On the day of her wedding, Nora confided in Rachel that she wasn't sure what to do, but in the end she decided she wanted to be with Clint and they were married. Nora and Bo hired attorney Elijah Clark to represent them, and were devastated when the judge ruled that Matthew could have the surgery without his parents' consent.
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