John Aniston: Before he was just Jennifer Aniston’s dad

Long before he was known as Jennifer Aniston's dad,

John Aniston played villain Victor Kiriakis

for 37 years on "Days Of Our Lives".

Source: https://insidepulse.com/2022/12/19

(May be subject to copyright)

When he appeared on “Days Of Our Lives” for the first time, he seemed brooding and mysterious. Was wealthy businessman Victor Kiriakis a villain or misunderstood? Was he Bo Brady’s actual father or not? He really couldn’t be all bad. He he had been in love with Caroline Brady back in the day, when they were young and he was a Greek sailor.

Whatever the case may be, Victor Kiriakis was played splendidly by John Aniston.

So, in 1994 when “Friends” became a hit, with Jennifer Aniston playing Rachel Green, one of the lead characters, I had to ask, “Is that John’s daughter?”

When John Aniston died late last year, the question had flipped – did Jennifer Aniston’s dad die?

Back in the 1980s, Jennifer Aniston hadn’t even got started but her dad John was someone I watched virtually every day.

Binge watching
“Days Of Our Lives” was a show I got into every summer from about the time I was 11 or 12 years old. The problem was, I would just be getting into it when I had to go back to school in September. I would peak in on school holidays, and Christmas and Easter breaks, but not seriously or consistently until the next summer.

That all changed on Christmas of 1985. My Mom and Dad bought me a VCR, and a couple blank tapes. I was in heaven. I could record anything I wanted – and I did.

Soon, I started taping “Days Of Our Lives”. Initially, I would watch the episodes that same night. However, life got busier and busier as I got deeper into high school and my friends.

So, I started watching all five for the week on the following Sunday afternoon. What was cool was my Mom got into it too, and we started watching them together.

In fact, she would pretty much watch “Days Of Our Lives” until she died.

What we did was prehistoric binge watching. It was binge viewing before it was even called that.

These are the days of our lives
John Aniston joined “Days Of Our Lives” in July of 1985 as Victor Kiriakis, and I was there to meet him. He was this mysterious character who had a dark side, and was definitely up to something. I wasn’t completely sure, then…

I had to go back to school.

When I picked up his trail, it was on the recordings of my new VCR.

Back then, one of the rock-solid relationships on “Days Of Our Lives” was Sean and Caroline Brady. However, it is a soap opera, so is anything really rock solid? Even people married a long time with grown children and grandchildren can have a past.

So, it was with Caroline Brady. It turns out when she was younger, she indeed had a past – with Victor Kiriakis. It was something Sean did not know about. Worse, Victor started appearing more and more often in Caroline’s life.

Things got really interesting when it became known that Victor may be the father of Caroline’s youngest son Bo Brady. The idea made Bo sick. He was trying to expose Victor for the criminal he was, and put a stop to him. Then he came upon the idea of accepting Victor as his father and moving in with him.

All it was really, was Bo going deep undercover in plain sight. It did not sit well with Bo’s wife Hope, who was having troubles of her own.

And it went on from there.

I could go on and on, because John Aniston played Victor Kiriakis for 37 years.

He won Soap Opera Digest Awards in 1986 for Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role on a Daytime Serial and Outstanding Villain on a Daytime Serial.

In 2017 he was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series and was awarded a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022.

John Aniston died on November 11, 2022.

He was 89.

Parting thoughts
“Days Of Our Lives” was always plagued by this cartoon villain named Stefano Dimera, who died, came back to life, disappeared, reappeared and was like a bad penny. He just kept coming back.

It became a joke and kind of an albatross around the neck of the show.

While that would go on for year after year, decade after decade, Victor Kiriakis came along and provided a much more, well, believable bad guy.

However, unlike the cartoon evil of Stefano, Victor was more nuanced. He did terrible and unspeakable things, but also did help people out and sometime came to the aid of the good guys.

Oh, he always had his own agenda, but he was more real. He brought this suave, debonair persona which always had this cold-blooded, heartless persona underneath.

It was a brilliant character, and could only have been played by John Aniston.

He really did deserve that Daytime Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, because he gave fans, like me, a lifetime of memories.