Stefano DiMera

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Stefano DiMera alias the Phoenix is a villain on the soap opera Days of our Lives. He has faked his death at least ten times during the series' history. Although he is currently believed dead, his most recent demise has been confirmed fake.

[edit] History

Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) appeared on the scene in the fictional midwestern town of Salem in the early 1980s when he relocated his family and the center of its business operations from Rome, Italy. Except for being vaguely Mediterranean, Stefano's specific European nationality was never really confirmed, although in more recent years it has been mentioned that he spent much of his youth in both Italy and Ireland, where his family had various unspecified business interests. The patriarch of the seemingly aristocratic DiMera family appeared to be dashing, wealthy, and charming, but in reality he headed a mysterious and powerful criminal organization. The DiMera organization, which at times seemed to have grown to Bond-villain proportions, has dabbled in such various enterprises as drug trafficking, art theft, forgery, political corruption, assassinations, kidnapping and false imprisonment, faking various people's deaths, brainwashing and mind control, infiltrating legitimate businesses and government agencies, building elaborate compounds on various uncharted Caribbean islands, raising private mercenary armies, and orchestrating guerilla wars in Third World countries. Stefano's son Tony has stated that his own personal goal for the DiMera family was total global domination, but the statement was made while he was busy trying to take over territories in Iraq, during a time when his own sanity was very much in question.

The DiMera family has engaged in both alliances and battles with various factions over the years, including rival criminal organizations such as that of Victor Kiriakis, and a fictional government agency called the ISA (International Security Alliance). Although not completely central to the show's storyline, there have also been hints of Stefano's involvement with political terrorism in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. But his most hated enemies, and the constant targets of his wrath, have been the blue-collar Brady family of Salem.

Stefano's hatred for the Bradys has evolved (and been retconned) over the years. Originally it could be easily explained in that the DiMeras were a crime family and the Bradys were a family of cops who were constantly meddling in (and thwarting) DiMera schemes. More recently, it has been alleged that the feud between the two families actually precedes family patriarchs Stefano DiMera and Shawn Brady, and has its origins in the Bradys' ancestral home outside of Dublin, Ireland. It's also been hinted that Shawn Brady not only knows the true history of the feud, but that the Bradys may not necessarily have been the "innocents" in its beginnings.

Stefano's character has also evolved over the years, from a mysterious charmer to a deadly and elusive terrorist to an omnipotent (and somewhat Gothic) supervillain. During different script-writing regimes, he has even been portrayed as a caricature of himself, and even went through a couple of incarnations where it appeared that Stefano may actually renounce his evil ways and become more of a legit character (much like his sometime-ally, sometime-rival counterpart Victor Kiriakis). But in the end, Stefano always returned to his villanous nature, manipulating the denizens of Salem for his own nefarious ends.

Stefano DiMera has a number of children, some illegitimate and some dead, including Megan Hathaway, Benji Hawk, Renee DuMonde, Elvis Banks, Lexie Carver, and the current head of the DiMera family, Count Antony 'Tony' DiMera (the title is one Stefano purchased as a gift for his son). Tony's paternity is another retcon on the show; in the mid-1980s it was revealed that he was the illegitimate son of Stefano's common-law wife Daphne and their Greek gardener, "Enrico". However, by the mid-1990s, it was retconned that this information was the "rambling of a mad woman" and that Tony was in fact Stefano's biological son (meaning he slept with his half-sister, Renee).

Stefano also fostered two children, Peter and Kristen Blake DiMera, who were the children of a woman with whom Stefano was obsessed, and whose father he murdered in a fit of jealousy. Although he fostered them, he never legally adopted the two, which paved the way to Kristen and Tony marrying later in life.

Stefano is famous for having faked his death several times, and always "returning" from the dead as the "Phoenix" he so often revered and adopted as his personal symbol (and later, family crest). He is currently believed to be dead, at the hands of his son Tony, who killed him in jealousy over Stefano's higher regard for his "Pawn", John Black (Tony's illegitimate half-brother by his mother Daphne DiMera), and to use his blood to help cure Tony's mysterious blood disorder. Tony subsequently took over the family business, and used his new position for two distinct transactions--winning the infamous local Salem "gentlemen's club" Echelon (the site of various dubious goings-on in the early 2000s) from Victor Kiriakis over a game of billiards, and more profound, orchestrating the Salem Serial Killer caper and placing the "victims" in a replica of Salem on an uncharted Caribbean island. Tony was later captured after attempting to capitalize on the Iraq War by aligning with one of the terrorist factions there, and holding U.S. Marine Philip Kiriakis (Victor's son) as a POW.

[edit] Stefano's "Deaths"

This list includes both times Stefano faked his death and times he should have died, but didn't.

1983- stroke

1984- car plunged into the icy waters of Salem harbor during a police chase

1985- shot by Marlena and fell from catwalk as a fire broke out (He also had a brain tumor)

1991- fire and cave collapse. When he returned in 1993, he initially couldn't walk or talk due to a stroke. He was later told he had another brain tumor, but it seems to have disappeared.

1994- car exploded into fireball after being shot by John

1994- drowned near Maison Blanche

1995- flung out window during Marlena's exorcism

1995- struck by lightning

1996- plane explosion

1996- blown up and buried under collapsing tunnel during confrontation with Rachel Blake

1999- set on fire by Princess Gina

2000- falls ill (and suffers some smoke inhalation) in chateau where he and Hope are imprisoned. He nearly died there and in the hospital.

2002- killed by Tony. Tony had claimed that Stefano had died as the result of a car crash in Monte Carlo, but in reality he had murdered Stefano himself (This was confirmed by Dustin of Dustin's Days of Our Lives Page, a web site devoted to Days and its history).

Sources for Stefano's deaths: Days of Our Lives: The Complete Family Album and Days of Our Lives ~ A Tour Through Salem by Lorraine Zenka, back issues of Soap Opera Digest, SoapCentral.com, Dustin's Days of Our Lives page (http://www.soapoperafan.com/days), and the Days of Our Lives messageboard at http://www.tv.com.