Nora Hanen
Actor History
Hillary B. Smith (1992 to present)
Felicity LaFortune (2000; temporary recast)
Occupation
District Attorney
Lawyer
Resides At
The Buchanan Mansion (temporarily)
Previously her house with her son, Matthew
Marital Status
Divorced
Past Marriages
Hank Gannon (divorced)
Bo Buchanan (divorced)
Daniel Colson (2005; divorced)
Relatives
Lenny Hanen (Father)
Selma Hanen (Mother)
Susannah Hanen (Sister)
Children
Rachel Gannon (daughter; with Hank)
Matthew Buchanan (son; with Bo)
Flings & Affairs
R.J. Gannon
Sam Rappaport
Troy MacIver
Crimes Committed
Murdered Colin MacIver (self-defense)
She took Rachel on the run when she admitted to killing Georgie, but later brought her back.
Brief Character History
Nora Hanen Gannon Buchanan is a high-powered and headstrong liberal defense attorney. She is funny, tense, driven and proud of her Jewish heritage.
Nora grew up in an affluent Chicago suburb, the daughter of a highly influential judge. She has a sister, Susannah, a psychiatrist, who came to Llanview in 1996 to treat Viki Carpenter's multiple personality disorder.
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 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.
During her recovery, Nora, temporarily blind, was stalked in her beach house by former client and convicted rapist Todd Manning. 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, brought her back to Llanview where she was operated on once again, and her sight was restored.
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 has proven to be absolutely useless in the kitchen -- she can't cook! A former tennis champ, Nora is very competitive and dances a mean jitterbug with her husband, Bo.
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 truth about 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 never found out whether or not it was true or the result of her bribing the technician.
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 discovered one of Lindsay's biggest secrets and lies and 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 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 we later learned is 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. It worked and 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 did, except for 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 and 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 upon first sighting him, 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. Trying to go on with her life, she was shocked to discover that she was wrong all along--Bo was Matthew's father!
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 of 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.
The arsonist began his work 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 until the insurance company gave them money to buy a new home. Unfortunately, Nora was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the arsonist hit again but 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 she was in jail for the murder of Spencer Truman. Nora even took in Marty's son to care for him while his mother was in jail.
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