Lorenzo Alcazar (Ted King)

Lorenzo Alcazar
Lorenzo Alcazar is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital, originated by actor Ted King, who previously played Lorenzo's deceased brother Luis Alcazar.

Lorenzo Alcazar was an International Arms Dealer, an intelligent and powerful man with ties to mob families and high-ranking government agencies that made him a formidable force in the town of Port Charles. Prior to joining the family business, arms-dealing, he was a History professor at Oxford University. Lorenzo originally entered Oxford as a student of law, until he became involved with an idealistic French woman named Sophie Germaine who wanted to save the world, and was tragically killed in a village by rebels while Lorenzo was helping his older brother Luis out after a deal went wrong. Lorenzo blamed himself for what transpired to Sophie, and abandoned his life in England to become part of the Alcazar family business.

Years later, Lorenzo came to Port Charles to avenge the death of his older brother, Luis Alcazar. Although he learned that Alexis Davis was the person responsible for his brother's death, he did not take revenge on her because she was a civilian. Rather, knowing that his brother's presence in Port Charles was due in part to resident mob boss Sonny Corinthos, he became a thorn in Corinthos’ side, trying to get Corinthos’ half-brother Ric Lansing to usurp the organization from his brother. Ric kidnapped Carly Corinthos before Courtney and Jason's wedding and held her in a panic room at his house. Alcazar found out about it and helped Ric conceal Carly for a while. Alcazar held her hostage himself for weeks as leverage over Sonny, whose pier he wanted to use to ship cocaine into Port Charles. While holding Carly, Lorenzo fell in love with her and began to undermine her marriage to Sonny wherever possible. Months later, Lorenzo was also in charge of raising his niece, Sage Alcazar, who came to Port Charles to avenge her father's death. She moved to Port Charles permanently, but was later murdered at the Quartermaine mansion by Mary Bishop.

Lorenzo was once married to Carly Corinthos. Their romance began after she suffered a severe brain injury. This brain injury was due to a gunshot wound to the head caused by her husband Sonny Corinthos when Lorenzo Alcazar was helping her give birth to Morgan Stone Corinthos. The gunshot wound Sonny caused a rift in her relationship with Sonny Corinthos. While Carly was in a coma, Lorenzo gave her subliminal suggestions that she should love him and not Sonny. When Carly came out of her coma, she did not care about anything or anyone except Lorenzo. When Sonny saw her kissing Lorenzo, he left her. Subsequently, Sonny would take her sons away from her while she sought solace with Lorenzo, but she would return to Sonny for the sake of her children. After her divorce from Sonny, Carly later married Lorenzo. They divorced because of her obsession with Sonny, which caused her to have a mental breakdown and be committed to a resident mental hospital. He was later involved with Lois Cerullo Ashton, but this was a brief affair.

After Sage's death in 2005, Lorenzo found out that he had a son, Diego Alcazar by former lover Maria Sanchez, who originally thought Lorenzo died protecting her from would-be assassins in a dark alley. Despite Maria keeping the truth from him after learning that he was alive, he offered Maria and Diego a home, and wanted to be a part of his son's life. Maria left amidst the murders of the Sandoval family by the Corinthos crime organization, where she witnessed Jason Morgan fleeing from the scene and Morgan discovering that she’d seen him. During this time, Lorenzo and Skye Chandler Quartermaine became involved when Lorenzo realized that his love for Carly would never be returned. After they spent one night together, she became pregnant, something she thought would never happened since she was told that she could not have children after a horrible car accident. They saw the child as a miracle.

Lorenzo tried to sway his son from a life of crime, but Diego's upbringing left him too emotionally damaged to be dissuaded away from the life his father tried to protect him from. Lorenzo had gone legit to give his family some semblance of a normal life and keep the dangerous lifestyle from everyone's life, but his son's troubles changed all that. Lorenzo went back to delivering weapon shipments to the U.S. government to protect his son from going back to prison, where he would have been killed by Manny's people. Having been parolled from a ten-year sentence after ratting out a member of the Ruiz crime family, Diego's life was in danger, especially with Manny Ruiz still loose and gunning for the people who Lorenzo loved.

The war between Lorenzo and the Corinthos crime family began when Sonny and Jason took shipments that Alcazar was delivering to his government handlers to secure his son's freedom, despite knowing that Lorenzo only entered into the life to keep his son safe from the Ruiz organization. Despite Lorenzo's attempts to protect his son, Diego was apparently killed in 2006 by Sam McCall in a shoot-out between Alcazar's men and Jason Morgan, who was on the run with Sam when Ric and Lorenzo hired Damien Spinelli to cybernetically frame Sam for a crime she didn't commit. Many fans pointed out the similarity to when Jason Morgan framed Zander Smith for a crime Courtney Matthews committed and got away with, where Morgan and Matthews were treated like heroes while Alcazar was villainized for performing the same actions (GH fan correction: this was actually Brian Beck that framed Zander for shooting him, and not Jason. Brian did it to protect Courtney who he was in love with. However, both Jason and Ric agreed to depict Detective Capelli as Zander's murderer after the Port Charles Hotel fire—since Zander was supposedly already dead, at the hands of Elizabeth Webber, then married to Ric Lansing. Jason was very reluctant to do so with Ric as the DA, but Jason agreed because his sister Emily asked him). The apparent death of his son left Lorenzo heart-broken and he realized how dangerous "the business" could be, determined to make sure Lila Rae would never suffer the same fate as Diego. He was determined to end his association in arms-dealing for the government and return to a life of normalcy. (Despite his on-screen death, in November 2006, it was revealed that Diego was still alive and terrorizing Port Charles as the Text Message Killer, but it's speculated that another villain, Ian, may have contributed to the loss of Diego's sanity after his near-death experience.)

After the loss of several shipments he was handling from the U.S. government, Lorenzo went to Sonny's office (with a gun in hand) to prevent him from seizing an important shipment that would allow him to be free of his deal with the government, but Carly walked in allowing Sonny enough of a distraction to pull out a gun and shoot. Lorenzo was shot in the head and lived, but he suffered temporary selective amnesia. He had a couple of surgeries to correct the problems. As a result of his brain injury, he acted uncharacteristically, faking his amnesia to gain an advantage over his enemies, Sonny Corinthos (who he blamed for the death of his brother Luis Ramon Alcazar and Jason Morgan (who be cast blame for his part in the death of his son Diego Alcazar.) Corinthos, aided by Skye, sent Jason Morgan to kill Alcazar and was successful. Later episodes would bring up the possibility that Morgan doubted whether Alcazar was truly dead, implying that he may have set it up to have his enemies think they killed him.

Many fans feel that the past several months showed Alcazar acting uncharacteristically, with little to no emphasis given on Alcazar's sudden change of focus (originally, he made a deal to protect his son knowing the dangers of the life of an arms-dealer, and suddenly it changed to wanting to use it to protect his family with no reason given). Like A.J. Quartermaine, Stefan Cassadine, and many other characters who preceded him, Alcazar became a victim of the plot, where his personality became a victim of retroactive continuity to allow for Corinthos and Morgan to be portrayed as heroes, followed by a storyline where the "heroic" Jason Morgan got away with the execution of Alcazar by trying to cover up his ex-wife's crimes. Jason and Ric both covered this up by saying that Capelli told Jason he had killed Zander. Courtney shot Detective Brian Beck to stop him from killing her husband Jason. Later, Brian blamed his shooting on Zander to protect Courtney because he was in love with her. Jason didn't have anything to do with Brian's coverup of his own shooting, although he did ask Courtney not to confess and got rid of the gun she used)

Lorenzo Alcazar was (apparently) assassinated on May 23, 2007 by the Corinthos enforcer Morgan, who got away with the murder because of fabricated evidence produced by the MetroCourt terrorist Jerry Jacks and Corinthos' ex-wife Carly Corinthos Jacks.

On the episode of General Hospital that aired August 9, 2007, Carly and Jerry Jacks were in Venezuela on business allegedly related to both stealing the presently-deceased Alcazar's financial assets and fabricating evidence that could help exonerate Jason Morgan of Lorenzo's murder. In a scene, with a Venezuelan banking official as well as Carly and Jerry, related to having Lorenzo's assets released, Jerry called someone that sounded identical to Lorenzo Alcazar. The person on the phone fooled the banking official and his ex-wife, Carly. Afterward, Jerry told Carly that it was not really Lorenzo on the phone, but rather it was an operative trained to impersonate others. Part of the evidence included someone who had been withdrawing money from Lorenzo's accounts. This person was revealed to be Lorenzo's son Diego, who was very much alive, in a storyline that made little sense and was ridiculed by many fans as absurd.

On August 14, 2007, it was revealed that photos of Lorenzo indicating he's still alive were, indeed, "doctored" by associates of Jerry Jacks. Notwithstanding the August 9, 2007, episode that had Carly on the phone speaking to someone that sounded exactly like Lorenzo Alcazar, Jerry has since declared the man on the phone to be an impostor and admitted to fabricating the photographic evidence presented during Jason Morgan's trial for Lorenzo's murder.

According to ABC and SoapNet, Ted King is planning on returning to the soap within this year.[1]

General Hospital's focus on Sonny Corinthos, Jason Morgan, and the mob (to the detriment of exploring other story lines) has been criticized by many fans.[2]

Further, in a Soap Dish article by Carolyn Hinsey, Ted King stated his frustration with the direction of Lorenzo Alcazar on the show, stating that "Sonny didn't kill his brother [Luis] or his son [Diego] or his niece [Sage]. He's lost three people, and Sonny didn't kill any of them. Yet he's always angry at Sonny. It doesn't make any sense to me."[3] On his

official website, TedKing.com, King said, "I think Lorenzo is a beautifully complex man with numerous flaws whose heart contains a romantic soul. I have loved playing this man over the years, but feel at this time that the role has become simply villainous. I am ready for a fresh opportunity, and long for a project that continues to challenge me the way playing a South American arms dealer who was a former professor of history at Oxford University once did."[4]
 * Lorenzo Alcazar @ Soapcentral.com