Businessman Stanley Norris built his corporation at his family's expense. The father of three, Stanley left when his daughter, Holly, was still an infant in order to devote all his energies to building up his business empire. A man with a voracious sexual appetite, he had several affairs, including one, in 1969, with his secretary, the married Margie Wexler. Unfortunately for Margie, her husband, Peter, found her in bed with Stanley. Soon after, Margie found herself pregnant but lost the baby due to a car accident. Although she tried to put her marriage together, when Margie tried to quit her job, she found that she couldn't resist Stanley's charms and their affair reignited. Just as before, Peter would find them together and threw his wife out of the house. Filled with despair, Margie killed herself.

Months later, in 1970, Stanley received a shock when a now-teenaged Holly suddenly arrived at his doorstep. Though he appeared to dote on her, by showering her with gifts, in reality he didn't want to be bothered with her and paid his employee, Roger Thorpe, to date her. While Holly was unaware of her father's indifference, other members of the Norris family were wary of Stanley's influence on Holly. In addition to impressing Holly with his worldliness, Stanley also impressed Leslie Jackson Bauer, a woman young enough to be his daughter. Despite the age difference and, both her father's and ex-husband's disapproval, the pair married after a short courtship. Unfortunately for Leslie, Stanley proved to be a cold and uncaring husband. He was also a major philanderer who had several affairs during his marriage. TLeslie's father, Stephen, was angry when he learned of Stanley's affair with Leona Herbert, the nurse of Leslie's son, Freddie, and was sickened to learn that Stanley was also sleeping with Leona's daughter, Deborah Mehren! Very unhappy at the state of her marriage, Leslie left town to clear her head. When she returned, she was angry to learn that Freddie became ill when she was gone and Stanley never bothered to tell her that he was in the hospital. Unnerved at Stanley's indifference, she decided to leave him.

Stanley didn't just have enemies on the home front. Though his long-time employee, and former brother-in-law, David Vested pretended to worship Stanley, in reality he hated him for the way he treated David's emotionally disturbed sister, Kit. Knowing that Stanley was stripping some of his companies of ready cash in order to bolster the company that David ran, Liberty Airlines, David plotted to gain the controlling shares of Liberty, and at an opportune moment, force Stanley out , while also marrying Karen Martin, Stanley's former lover. However, Stanley was a shrewd man, and he knew that someone was out to destroy him. After discovering phone calls from David to Karen, Stanley realized that David was the enemy. Stanley then shamed Karen into betraying David by signing over a block of her shares. Stanley also found himself threatened by a business associate named Charles Eiler after Charles discovered that Stanley had been sleeping with his wife, Betty. Watching all of this intrigue was Stanley's secretary, Linell Conway, a lonely woman with an obsessive crush on her employer. Feeling that Leslie was too unsophisticated for Stanley, Linell declared her love for him only to have him laugh in her face.

The stage was set for tragedy. One evening, Stanley was found murdered with a gun laying nearby! Leslie was the first to find the body and picked up the gun when she was discovered by Gil Mehren. Leslie was quickly arrested for Stanley's murder and hired her former brother-in-law, Mike Bauer, to represent her. Mike found evidence linking Linell to the crime and, during the trial, Linell on the witness stand. While on the witness stand a shocking conclusion happened. Marion Conway, Linell's elderly, protective mother, confessed to killing Stanley. After admitting that she killed him because she hated how he had hurt her daughter, Marion collapsed in the courtroom and died of a heart attack.