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Guest Character Profiles > Montana Marcel Tammin Sursok

Montana Marcel 2022
Occupation: Fashion Mogul

As they attempted to persuade Montana Marcel to host her latest fashion show at Lassiters Hotel, Terese Willis and Chloe Brennan were alarmed when troublesome former hotel employee Mick Allsop turned up, explaining that he was her personal assistant. After realising that he had the upper hand, Mick request drinks and a massage before finally agreeing to bring Montana to Lassiters to see the venue for herself. When the aloof Montana arrived, she wanted to hear about the recent storm that had destroyed the hotel's Flamingo Bar as well as a baby being stolen during a short film festival held the previous year, but Terese and Chloe were confident that Mick's advice on Montana's favourite things - including tiki torches, an ice sculpture and gladioli - would impress their visitor. Montana's mood seemed to improve when she was taken to Leo Tanaka's vineyard, where Lassiters planned to hold part of the fashion show, and she was quickly taken with Leo. She did, however, point out that her wedding in Hawaii, where her bouquet contained gladioli, had been a disaster when the groom left her for her cousin and they moved to Reykjavik, and she wondered why they were torturing her with these painful reminders of her past. Realising that they'd been conned by Mick, Terese and Chloe hoped that Leo might be their secret weapon. It was arranged for Leo to give Montana a tour of the vineyard and, although Montana declared that it was the most relaxed she'd been in a while, she announced that she wasn't impressed with Lassiters and wouldn't be collaborating with them.

Desperate to prove that she could land a big deal for Lassiters without the help of her ex-husband, and Leo's father, Paul, Terese wasn't ready to give up on Montana, deciding that they could use her attraction to Leo to their advantage. After claiming that Montana had left her bag at the vineyard, Leo managed to get her address from the limo company and turned up on her doorstep, asking her to give Lassiters another chance and presenting her with a gift basket of wines. Montana wasn't impressed, but Leo was honest, telling her that the Fashion Week event would be good for his business, so she let him stay and share some wine with her. As he went on to explain that the Lassiters pitch had been sabotaged and that he saw her business as a luxury brand and he hoped that his vineyard could become one too, she started to soften to him, until Mick turned up. Mick quickly tried to talk Montana out of doing business with Leo, but she warned him that she'd worked out that he was responsible for the terrible pitch at the hotel and to get out of her sight before she fired him. After another bottle of wine, Montana told Leo that she would do the deal with Lassiters, if he joined her in the bedroom, something a conflicted Leo told her he would have to think about.

Although Leo then did go through with it, sleeping with Montana to get the deal, he told Terese and Chloe that he hadn't, claiming that he'd simply managed to sweet talk her. Leo continued to be useful to Lassiters, persuading Montana to listen to Chloe's idea that they could get a council grant if they used some local crew and designers for the event. Though Montana was reluctant, Leo made her see that a bigger budget would translate to a bigger event and she could uncover the next big design star. As Leo and Montana continued to see each other in secret, Terese and Chloe asked him to use the influence he clearly had over Montana to persuade her to listen to some of their ideas for Fashion Week. Unfortunately, Montana quickly worked out what he was up to, warning him that he needed to work much harder to win her over, and to tell Terese the same thing. When Paul then returned to town after a few weeks away, he was immediately interested in the deal with Montana, arranging to take her to lunch at the vineyard, leaving Leo and Terese confused by his behaviour. As Paul was still part owner of the hotel, they knew that he wasn't about to sabotage the deal and, while he insisted that it was simply a networking opportunity for him, everyone was still suspicious.

After seeing Montana with Paul, Leo started to back off from her a little bit, and when he stopped answering her texts, she tracked him down, pointing out that she hadn't signed the contracts for Fashion Week yet. Leo quickly backed down and later, when Montana was waiting for him at the penthouse he shared with Paul, she found herself drawn into a chess game that Paul was playing, by text message, with his grandson Jimmy in New York. Impressed as Paul described his ruthless tactics - in both business and chess - Montana arranged another mysterious meeting with him. Meanwhile, Leo was starting to feel uncomfortable with their arrangement and tried to back out, but Montana insisted that he needed to relax as it was just a bit of mutually beneficial fun. Aware that he could jeopardise business for both the hotel and the vineyard if he stopped seeing Montana, he agreed to continue with their secret liaisons. However, after learning that Montana had already signed the contracts, he told her that he'd had enough of her games and demands and wanted to end things. Montana warned him that he'd regret it, but when they later met up at the vineyard, Leo saw that Montana was genuinely upset about him ending things between them. He told her that he wanted to continue seeing her, but he had to be allowed to have some say in when and where, and not just feel like he was responding to her every whim. As they sealed their new relationship with a kiss, it was witnessed by Paul, who was horrified. Convinced that Terese had been using Leo to get the Fashion Week deal, Paul contacted his sister, and Head of Lassiters Worldwide, Lucy, who agreed that it was unacceptable and gave the go ahead for the whole deal to be cancelled.

As Terese insisted that she had no idea that Leo and Montana were sleeping together, Montana threatened to sue the hotel if they broke the contract, but Paul pointed out that it had been voided due to her unethical conduct. However, after finally speaking to Leo and learning that the relationship was consensual, Paul realised that he'd overreacted and, after he and Leo both explained things to Lucy, the Fashion Week deal was back on. Montana then declared that she needed to get things back on track with a huge pre-launch party, organised and paid for by Lassiters. With Terese and Chloe trying to organise everything at last minute, Montana set about trying to find investors for her new make-up range, Glamm. Having already managed to hire some of the locals for Fashion Week - Ned Willis as part of the staging crew, Amy Greenwood as a designer and Mackenzie Hargreaves as a model - Montana's make-up pitch caught the interest of another local, Karl Kennedy. Convinced that the investment could see him and wife Susan go up in the world and afford a better lifestyle, Karl was eager to go ahead, despite Susan's misgivings about the whole thing. Paul, meanwhile, was also being targeted by Montana as an investor, but having been convinced since she arrived that something wasn't quite right, he decided to do some more digging on her before agreeing to anything. Worried that both his son and his money were at risk, Paul found out that Montana was in serious financial trouble, but unfortunately it was too late for Karl, who had already handed her a cheque for $200,000.

With Montana admitting that she was under investigation by the tax office due to her former accountant cutting corners, and would likely be arrested any day now, she was surprised when Paul didn't immediately warn Terese about all of the bad publicity that was coming her way. Instead, he told her that he'd keep her secret, but she needed to spend as much of Lassiters' money as possible on her final big hurrah, and she also needed to end things with Leo, as Paul didn't want his son to be dragged down with her. Aware that she was being used as a pawn in Paul and Terese's divorce, Montana nevertheless did as she was asked, making demands for bigger and better events and locations for Fashion Week, leaving Terese worried about the spiralling budget.

Matters only worsened for Montana when Susan found out about Karl's $200,000 investment and demanded that he arrange a meeting with Montana to ask for their money back. Unable to do anything to help them, and having heard that the investigation into her taxes had been concluded and she was going to be arrested for fraud any day, Montana went to Paul, begging him to cancel Fashion Week. Paul ignored her pleas and, a few days later, Fashion Week began with Montana desperately trying to keep everyone happy, aware of how much devastation was coming. With the events taking place at Leo's vineyard a huge success, he and Montana almost kissed, but were interrupted by Paul, who had just found out that the Kennedys had invested in the cosmetics line. He demanded that Montana give them back their money, but she told him that the money was gone and she couldn't do anything about it. Unfortunately, things quickly started to go downhill when the show featuring Amy's designs was sabotaged, with the projector showing Amy's boyfriend Ned cheating on her with Harlow Robinson. As Montana told Amy to keep professional and act like nothing was wrong, the police arrived and she begged the officers to be discreet, but was warned that the fashion events all needed to be cancelled as she couldn't create any more expenses that she couldn't pay for. As Montana was very publicly arrested for conspiracy to commit fraud and tax evasion, Mick, Terese and the Kennedys were horrified, with Terese and the Kennedys quickly realising that Paul had known for a while. As she was taken away by the police, Montana made an ill-advised attempt to escape in Melanie Pearson's Drinks Divas van, before realising the futility of it. After admitting to Leo that he was about the only thing in her life recently that hadn't been a mistake, she was handcuffed and taken away, leaving various residents to pick up the pieces.

Episodes Featured
8810, 8811, 8812, 8814, 8815, 8816, 8819, 8820, 8821, 8824, 8825, 8826, 8830, 8831, 8832, 8836, 8837, 8838

Biography by Steve

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