Tony Lewis (The 10th Kingdom)
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Anthony 'Tony' Lewis is a fictional character in the Hallmark Entertainment's and NBC's 2000 Mini-series The 10th Kingdom by Simon Moore.
[edit] History
Tony was budding entrepreneur, he built his own business from the ground up, manufacturing and working with plastics and investing in ideas for toys. By the time he was twenty-one years old, Tony was earning himself around $5500 a year. By then time he moved to Manhattan he was part of the society of New York City's high flyers.
Tony Lewis's official bio states that he first met Christine Slevil, a New York Socialite, while he was on vacation, skiing up in the mountain slopes of Aspen, with his newfound fortune. Tony was smitten by Christine, whose beauty, charisma and charms had caught her the attention of many admirers. Although he had also noticed Christine was very neurotic, Tony was crazy about her, and he was on top of the world when Christine later agreed to marry him.
Although the couple were a bad match, Tony rushed into the marriage, not wanting to lose out on such a catch as Christine. A short time into their marriage, Christine discovered she was pregnant and wanted to an abortion, but Tony wore her down in the hopes that a baby would solve their marriage problems, Tony and Christine Lewis then had their first and only child, a daughter they named Virginia.
Tony Lewis's drop from high society and the loss of his self-respect began when he put all his faith and almost all of his money into a children's toy called bouncy castles, which he had become very taken with. But by now his long lucky streak was running out; his investment was lost as the bouncy castles failed to meet his expectations and did not make any money.
With almost all of his money gone, his company soon lost all of its business, and Tony took employment as a janitor, in an apartment building on the edge of Central Park, to support his wife Christine and his daughter Virginia. The job provided them with a free apartment with a view of Central Park as well as a roof over their heads.
When Virginia was about seven years old, Tony noticed that Christine's neurotic behavior was becoming worse, she was unfaithful to Tony a number of times and was never discreet about it while Tony put up with it to keep it from Virginia and to keep his family together, Tony could do nothing as his sick wife became worse and worse until the night she left and never returned, leaving Tony and Virginia. Struck hard by the events of that night, Tony could never tell anyone, not even Virginia, what had happened.
After losing his business and his wife, nearly losing Virginia, and still being trapped in his dead-end job, Tony has lost his self-respect. In the fourteen years that passed, a middle-aged Tony Lewis is still working as a janitor, having never picked himself up from his losses. He complains about it everyday to his daughter Virginia, who still lives with him, and having looked after Tony for those fourteen years and finishing school, and working as a waitress at the Grill on the Park/Grill on the Green. Still working as a janitor; Tony hates, envies, but also lives in fear of his boss, Mr. Murray - the tyrannical owner of their old apartment building:
- Tony fears Mr. Murray because he can fire Tony on a moment's notice.
- Tony hates Mr. Murray because he is always unreasonable - often overworking Tony (the wiring, the elevator, the boiler and plumbing in an old and rat-infested building) and repeating how there were other people who would love Tony's current job.
- And Tony envies Mr. Murray because he has wealth and power that Tony once had.
Tony juggles working the underpaid overtime with complaining, drinking, with schemes and dreams of regaining his lost fortunes - but so far he is still hanging on near the bottom of the social ladder - a middle-aged single father and borderline klutz and burnout, who complains to almost anyone who'll listen, but then Tony's just expected Mr. Murray to do all that work when the old building needs to be renovated.
But despite all this, Tony is too wrapped up in his own pain, depression, memories and dreams then to do more about his predicament or to notice too much of what's going around him, like details of Virginia's life or the pain she's in from the long-term effects of her mother's abandonment, father and daughter don't talk often or openly - as Tony avoids talking about Christine, and Tony hates his mother-in-law - but Tony depends on Virginia to do all the cooking and leaving him food while she's at work, cleaning up after him when he spends his night in front of the TV, washing laundry etc.
Tony's problem is that when he was young and successful, he had a lucky streak - everything was going for him (lots of money, and a beautiful wife), and he leant too much on luck, rather than honest hard work. As an old saying goes: "Our strength is often composed of the weakness we've damned if we're going to show" - Tony was too used to being his own boss and leant too much on his lucky-streak, and when it ran out, Tony fell, hard, and has been crawling for years since. Tony has yet to learn that if he wants something bad enough, then he has to work for it, and things will not always be like they were. Tony also thinks that having already lost his successful Business, his wife and his self-respect - he believes that he has lost everything; but Tony hasn't realized that he has not lost Virginia.
[edit] Story of the 10th Kingdom
At the beginning of the mini-series, the Tony is making repairs to the building's elevator, yet again, and complaining about it (among other things) to Virginia, yet again: "Look at this! This has been chewed. This is not my job! This is an electrician's job! But who gets to do it?" When his boss Mr. Murray steps into the picture and demands that Tony finish fixing the elevator and get straight to the buildings boiler, and all this time Tony is scared that any back-chatting to his boss's face will get him fired, but his quite happy to bad-mouth his boss behind his back: "Drain the system... I'd like to drain his system." Later the prince (in the dogs body) always calls Tony his "man servant" much to Tony's distaste.
