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Erica Kane and Dimitri Marick are fictional characters and a supercouple from the ABC daytime drama All My Children. Erica is portrayed by Susan Lucci, and Dimitri was portrayed by Michael Nader. Sometimes referred to as a "stormy duo" these two carried out a tumultuous relationship spanning the nineties. While they had their share of antagonists speckled throughout their romance, the main roadblock always keeping them apart were their own equally stubborn and fierce personalities. The couple is regarded as one of the greatest in soap opera history by Entertainment Weekly. Though Erica has been married many times and has had several men over the years, her relationship with Dimitri is considered one of her most memorable and one of All My Children's most successful. Background Writing and portrayals Erica and Dimitri were not originally scripted into a romantic pairing with each other. Erica Kane was created in the 1960s as one of the original characters in Agnes Nixon's story bible for All My Children. Since the shows inception on January 5, 1970, Erica has had several love interests. It was not until twenty-one years after the soap opera began airing that she met Dimitri. The Dimitri Marick character was created in 1991 as a love interest for Natalie Marlowe. Even while he was engaged in a love triangle with Natalie and Trevor Dillon, there was speculation about a possible romance between Erica and Dimitri. These rumors were neither confirmed nor denied by Nixon. She did, however, confirm that Dimitri's story would eventually include Erica. At first the involvement was limited to each character's story being effected by the same catalysts and Erica commenting on Dimitri's relationship with Natalie. Nixon later told Soap Opera Digest that she always planned on pairing Dimitri with Erica, but held off to see if they worked well together. "Long before their relationship started, viewers were saying that Erica and Dimitri belong together," she said. "They have great chemistry and are very alike, kindred spirits." Nixon wrote the beginning of the couple's story as a love-hate relationship where they both disliked each other. The dislike became an attraction that resulted in a "tug-of-war" type of story. "We can't even define it as a romance," Nader said. "It has to be defined as a positioning of players. Dimitri is very well aware that he has to dance a little dance with her." Nixon made the relationship different from Erica's other ones. In previous romances, she acted as the aggressor. In this one, Nixon positioned Dimitri as the one who pursued Erica and made the first sexual overtures. She also used the Erica and Dimitri relationship as a way of developing a new, more sexual side of Dimitri. Nader said, "There was a part of Dimitri that he never explored before because he married so young. A part of him shut down. But now, there is a whole other aspect of his sexual nature that has been awakened and Erica is about that. [He feels] a lot more fire with her." Erica and Dimitri's relationship was scripted as passionate with a cycle of break ups and reconciliations. The tumultuous nature of their relationship drew comparisons between them and the real life supercouple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Erica and Dimitri were also written as soulmates and the loves of each other's lives. Within the series, the writers played upon the theme of these characters being soulmates and in effect one being. Location shoot For a plot point in Dimitri and Erica's relationship, All My Children went on location in Budapest, Hungary. The show advertised the story in a campaign called "Destiny on the Danube". This campaign involved full page ads in magazines. Plans for the shoot began in January 1992 and the desired location was Russia. Former executive producer Felicia Minei Behr said, she "sent a crew in to Russia to see what kind of problems there would be. When it became apparent that it was not going to be able to be done because of a lot of recent problems getting shoots done in Russia, we started to look around for different locales. We had this grand story that Megan (McTavish, head writer) and Agnes (Nixon, executive head writer) had written, and we wanted to do it justice." Nixon suggested Budapest as the new location after hearing good things about the city from George Lang, the owner of Café des Artistes, who just opened a restaurant there. The remote taped from September 17 to 21, 1992. The members of the cast who traveled to Budapest for the shoot included Lucci, Nader, John Callahan (Edmund), and Susan Willis (Helga). Behr put together an international crew for the shoot involving members from Germany, Canada, Tunisia, France, and Hungary. During the five days of filming, the show taped over an hour's worth of material. "The people in the motion picture industry over there could not believe the amount of work we got done in the amount of time," Behr said. One of the locations used on the shoot was Nagyteteny, a chateau located forty-five minutes outside Budapest. Nagyteteny provided the location for the Marick's ancestral home, Vadzel. Storyline Erica Kane and Dimitri Marick fall in love while he is attempting a hostile takeover of her cosmetics company, Enchantment. They appear in a face-to-face meeting on TV's Market Street Week to debate. Afterwards, they meet privately and argue, at which point their animosity turns to passion and he pulls her into a kiss that she responds to. Their relationship cannot go further than that because he is married to Angelique Voynitzeva and she is in a loveless marriage to Adam Chandler. Dimitri pursues her despite these roadblocks. Erica turns down his advances, refusing to be anyone's mistress. Eventually he wears down her resistance and they begin an affair. He promises to divorce Angelique, but has a hard time doing so because she is not in the best of health. Once free of their spouses, Erica and Dimitri travel to Budapest in his native country, Hungary. While in Budapest, Erica is kidnapped twice. Once by Dimitri's estranged half brother, Edmund Grey, who wants to be acknowledged as a Marick. Then she is kidnapped by Helga, Angelique's mother, who wants to keep her daughter and Dimitri together. She locks Erica in Hugo Marick's crypt. Working together with Edmund, Dimitri rescues Erica and Helga falls to her death. Erica goes into a catatonic state requiring she be placed in Oak Haven, a mental institution in Pine Valley. Once Erica recovers, she and Dimitri plan to marry. Soon before saying their "I do's" Erica finds out she has a daughter she conceived from rape at the age of fourteen, Kendall Hart. Erica tells Dimitri what happened all those years ago. This is the first time she told anyone besides Eric Kane and she is grateful he does not say she deserved it like her father did when she told him. They bring Kendall into their home as a part of their family. Despite this, Kendall hates her mother for putting her up fo.... Discover the Tamar Myers popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Tamar Myers books.