Marah Lewis is a fictional character on the CBS daytime soap opera, Guiding Light. The character is the daughter of the popular supercouple, Josh Lewis and Reva Shayne. Marah was born on-screen in June 1987, but this was subsequently revised to 1985 and 1983 when she turned three years old in 1988 and sixteen years old in 1999 respectively.
Six actresses have regularly portrayed the character, the most recent being Lindsey McKeon, who garnered two nominations for Outstanding Younger Actress at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003. Ashley Peldon and Kimberly J. Brown each also garnered a nomination in the same category in 1991 and 1996 respectively. The latter reprised the role briefly in 2006. Days of Our Lives actor Martha Madison auditioned twice for the role—once in 2001 and again in 2009. Speaking on her latter audition, she revealed: "The second time, it seemed like I was probably going to get it, and then they canceled the show the next week."
Marah currently resides in Paris, France, working as a fashion designer. Marah has four brothers, Dylan Lewis, Shayne Lewis, Jonathan Randall, and Colin O'Neill. The character's last regular appearance on the show was in April 2004.
Storyline
Marah Lewis's life was surrounded by controversy from the day she was born in 1987. Since tests, forged by Will Jeffries, made it seem as if she was the absent Kyle Sampson's daughter, she was raised alone by her mother, Reva Shayne. It wasn't until 1989 that the truth came out that Joshua Lewis was her biological father.
Soon after this revelation, young Marah was kidnapped by Will and placed in the care of Will's mother, Mrs. Anita Ebarra. Luckily, Marah was soon found by Josh's ex-wife, Sonni, Soon after, Marah was on hand to watch as her parents finally married.
Unfortunately, in June 1990, months after the birth of Marah's brother, Shayne Lewis, Reva, suffering from a severe case of postpartum depression, drove her car off a bridge during a family vacation in Florida and was assumed dead. Devastated by her mother's apparent death, Marah, who had just started kindergarten, bonded with her nanny, Harley Cooper.
In January 1991, when Josh moved to Italy to search for Reva (who was suspected to be alive and living there), Marah soon followed him, along with Shayne and their grandmother, Sarah.
In late 1993, Marah returned to Springfield with Josh and Shayne. In 1995, Marah was delighted to have a new mother in Josh's fiancée, Annie Dutton. That same year, Marah had an appendectomy and saw a vision of Reva. Later, after Josh's and Annie's wedding, Marah was shocked to come face to face with the real Reva.
Apparently, Reva had been suffering from amnesia for the past five years. Leery of getting hurt, Marah chose Annie over her own mother. When Shayne followed Marah's example, Reva promised to stay out of Marah's life and married Buzz Cooper in March 1996.
In September 1997, Marah was devastated by the death of her beloved grandfather, HB, and gave the eulogy at his funeral. By this time, Marah had lowered her defenses and let Reva, into her life again and watched happily as her parents remarried in 1999. For once, Marah finally had what she always wanted: a complete family.
However, her world was shattered when she learned that Reva had another child, Jonathan, in San Cristobel while living there with amnesia. Resentful of her mother's "other family", Marah again distanced herself from Reva. Marah and Shayne went to Paris for a while and when a sixteen year old Marah returned, she came to terms with the situation. Unfortunately, Josh and Reva soon separated and, though not willing to accept her parents' separation at first, in time Marah learned to deal with it.
Meanwhile, when Marah was attacked by an aggressive boy, Olivia Spencer rescued her and Marah began to confide in her. However all that changed when Olivia became the new woman in Josh's life in 2000. A resentful Marah refused to accept the situation and made no secret of her dislike of Olivia, yet all of her protests fell on deaf ears when she tried to reunite her parents.
Meanwhile, a rebellious Marah was chafing under her mother's rules and started to create bootleg CD's of concerts of the band New Ground with Susan Lemay and Sam Spencer, with help from mobster Tony Santos. The friends were finally arrested by the FBI and would have even been charged if the band hadn't have dropped the charges.
About this time, Marah started dating Tony, to Sam's dismay and her parents' disapproval. Defying her parents, Marah continued seeing Tony and the pair fell in love. When Josh and Olivia got engaged, Marah was horrified and Olivia blackmailed her with knowledge of her relationship with Tony.
The day of Josh's and Olivia's wedding in January 2001, Marah disappeared, hoping to stop the wedding. Unfortunately, the wedding went on without her. When Tony discovered that Marah had used him to get back at her parents, he left her and Marah t turned to Sam. When the mafia kidnapped her, Sam and Tony joined forces to rescue Marah.
Marah and Tony reunited and Tony started shedding his bad-boy image since he wanted Marah's family to approve of him. However, this "new and improved" Tony wasn't exactly who Marah wanted. When Tony refused to have sex with her, claiming that they should wait longer, she got offended and broke off the relationship. Marah then began dating Sam again and, not long after, enrolled in Springfield University where her roommate was Catalina Quesada.
Marah and Cat hated each other, mostly because Cat hated how Marah played Sam and Tony against each other. Though Marah tried to maintain a relationship with Sam, it was obvious that Tony was still under her skin. When she learned that it was Tony, and not Sam, who saved Josh from prison by revealing that the photo implicating him was a forgery, Marah realized she'd wronged him terribly.
She left Sam and confessed to Tony she loved him but, by this time, Cat was in love with Tony and did everything in her power to hold onto him, even sending Marah's essay about virginity to the entire student body who then mocked Marah and attacked her verbally.
Mortified, Marah confided in her old friend, Ben Reade, who had returned to town. Soon, the pair started dating. Unfortunately, Ben's intentions weren't pure: he was only using her to win a bet about whether he could deflower her. Though she liked Ben, Marah couldn't stop thinking about Tony.
Marah's dislike of Cat intensified, in 2000, when she learned that Cat was pregnant with Tony's baby and the couple was getting married.
Despite Ben's pleas to just forget about Tony, Marah couldn't and asked Tony if they could continue their friendship. Knowing he couldn't just be friends with Marah, Tony refused since he had a family to think about.
Later, Marah learned a startling fact: Catalina was no longer pregnant; she miscarried her baby and kept the news from everyone! Desperate to keep Tony from marrying Cat, Marah rushed to tell him the news.
Moments after the couple had said their vows, Marah burst in but before she could tell Tony the truth, Cat faked labor pains and Marah was hustled out by bodyguards. Catalina and Tony planned to go on a honeymoon to Hawaii a few days later. However, Marah refused to give up, and, one night when Tony's grandmother, Maria, had conveniently cleared the house of all guards, arrived at the mansion.
She and Catalina bitterly argued, with Marah ripping the St. Anthony's necklace off Catalina's neck because Tony had originally planned to buy it for her.
Cat ran upstairs to her room to call the police. Marah followed her, and they struggled. Cat shoved her away, then watched in disbelief as Marah hit her head on a fireplace column.
When Marah awoke, Cat was dead, and Tony was telling her that he'd take care of everything. Though her father (who believed that Tony killed Cat) warned her to stay away from Tony, she insisted that he was innocent and visited an oddly silent Tony in prison.
Though a small part of her believed that he may have killed Cat, Marah continued to support him, despite his efforts to push her away.
Tony, on the other hand, feared that the more time Marah spent with him, the more likely it would be that the police would realize she killed Catalina (which he erroneously believed). So he pushed her away, cruelly insulting her and telling her he had killed Catalina.
Around this time, Ben, in an attempt to turn over a new leaf, told Marah of the bet to take her virginity from her, and Marah threw him out of her life. Feeling disillusioned by all the men she'd let herself trust, Marah got drunk and wandered around by the docks where Tony's friend, Romeo Jones, found her.
Romeo, who was obsessed with having everything Tony had, played on Marah's vulnerabilities and brought her back to Infierno with him. The next morning, Marah dreamt she had spent the night with Tony.
Instead, the harsh light of day showed her that her lover was a mostly clothed, slumbering Romeo. Marah ran home and tried to shower away the memories of losing her much-cherished virtue in a drunken one-night stand to a man she had no feelings for.
Unfortunately for her, Romeo visited shortly after, expecting another tryst. Marah reacted angrily until she recognized the necklace he was wearing, which was the necklace she had in her hand the night of Catalina's murder! Seeing that he must be the killer, Marah began playing a dangerous game, cozying up to him, leading him on, and building up his ego.
Meanwhile, she tried to stay away from Tony, but love got the best of her, and she went into hiding with him after he escaped from jail. Romeo tracked them down at the carousel, and Marah knocked Tony out so that Romeo would take her instead.
Romeo left to see Danny and Carmen about business, and when he returned, Marah got the upper hand and tried to force the truth out of him. The situation turned ugly, with Tony arriving to stop any violence, and the police arrived and arrested both men for Catalina's murder, since both accused the other of doing it.
A few days later, Romeo mysteriously confessed to the murder (Carmen had made him), and Tony was cleared of all charges. He and Marah were free to be together. What kept Marah from fully sharing in the joy was the time bomb hanging over her head regarding her one-nighter with Romeo. Marah's life exploded, when Tony learned the truth from Romeo.
In the back office at Infierno, Marah confirmed the news. Tony, livid, almost raped her before he stopped himself. Furious, she stripped down to her underwear, screamed at him to take her, and then ran out of the room in tears.
Marah's only real source of comfort were her parents, but even this was not to last. After Richard Winslow, Marah's Aunt Cassie's husband, died, Reva later told Shayne and Marah that she pulled the plug on his life support system at his request. Though she explained that he had asked her to do this, Marah was unable to accept her mother's actions.
As Reva was arrested for murder, Marah drew away from Reva and became very close to Cassie, because she felt that Cassie needed her more than Reva.. As summer passed, Marah began to forgive Tony for what he had done to her, since she had never stopped loving him. In late August, the pair was trapped on a fishing boat but their renewed closeness was dealt a major setback when Tony thought he saw a worker manhandling her and began beating the man up.
Meanwhile, Reva pled guilty to killing Richard, in order to spare Cassie any more pain, and was sentenced to two years in prison.