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Liz Cooper (66)
Project: Nighttime soap (War of Joy)
Known as: No nicknames
Real name: Elizabeth Leigh Cooper
Group affiliation: Cooper family, Spring Toys
Physical description: Liz is in her 40ies and it is a little hard to know what she really looks like since she is always heavily “done up.” She is also usually drunk or high.
Personality: Liz has always had enough feelings for two people. Her highs are very high, and her lows are in the cellar. When she was young, she was prone to romantic flights of fancy and always felt she would end up traveling the world with the love of her life. When things didn’t work out that way, she started self-medicating.
History: Younger sister to Clive, Liz often felt invisible while growing up. This may have contributed to her making dramatic attention-seeking gestures. The Coopers became used to this but had to work hard to keep her more illegal moments from becoming an issue for the family. It turns out that the daughter of the employer of much of the town got a fair amount of latitude.
As Clive was the heir apparent, relatively little was expected of Liz. Especially after she began to have problems. Liz for her part most dreamed of escaping. Her dream was to find the love of her life and sail around the world. She had thought she may have found that love in high school – Steve Calhoun, star quarterback. A kindred spirit and thrill-seeker, he and Liz made a dangerous combo. A combo that resulted in Steve dead in a car accident and Liz pregnant with twins.
Though there was discussion of adoption, Liz very much wanted to keep her children. She replaced her dream of traveling the world with one of being a loving mother of adoring children. Unfortunately, her dedication to and focus on the children was spotty at best – it turned out raising children was a difficult job. Largely raised by a governess, Liz frequently took trips and sought other ways to try and fill her disquiet.
Finding that her quest to find happiness in others was not working out, she turned to drugs and alcohol. Ultimately, Clive hired a bodyguard (babysitter) named Frank whose primary job is to keep Liz alive and make sure she doesn’t get caught. Her children, meanwhile, view their mother as a needy challenge.
Some secrets and points of drama we may or may not encounter:
- The twins are not the biological children of Steve but his father’s (who may or may not have contributed to Steve’s death).
- Clive will try to have her committed at some point.
- The children will seek legal emancipation (only to be opposed by Clive).
- At some point Liz will get herself clean but will continue to pretend to be an addict. With Frank at her side, she’ll become a wild card in the war between Spring Toys and Dulac.
Role in the narrative: Liz is the type of character who always expected someone to give her happiness – and then was disappointed and angry when they don’t. This makes her a real challenge for the other characters. Eventually it will be that she has an untreated disorder and she’ll be able to get her life on track. However, she will hide this and be a twist in the company conflict down the road.
Abilities: Liz has some natural, unexploited intelligence. Otherwise her choices in life hasn’t granted her too many abilities (she can score drugs for you, if you ask nicely).
Inspirations: Addiction has so many elements of natural drama – in this case, I added a personality disorder. There are many addiction story lines in drama but I’m probably most directly influenced by a character in the Haunting of Hill House (which I watched recently; although he is a comparatively decent fellow).
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