| Barbra Landau | |
|---|---|
 Barbra Landau - after and before | |
| Vital Statistics | |
| AKA | Odette Morton (assume identity) |
| Gender | Female |
| Status | Deceased |
| Character Information | |
| Appearances | "A Dance With Death" |
| Portrayed by | Marisha Shine (Uncredited) |
Barbra Landau, although it's not known at the time, is the body in the dressing room which sets the ball rolling in "A Dance With Death".
What is known about Barbra is that she went through a series of foster homes and dreamed of being a Broadway dancer since she was a child. By adulthood, she got work as a stripper at a club in Midtown, Manhattan.
Barbra eventually made contact with rich socialite Odette Morton, who noticed the near-striking resemblance between them when she walked into the club where Barbra worked. Odette went so far as to pay for plastic surgery to alter a few details of Barbra's appearance, such as adjusting her nose, to make that resemblance perfect. As a result, "Faux-dette" (Barbra) could do all the things, like boring lunches and community service for crimes, that Odette felt were beneath her.
Barbra "took over" as Odette when they were both in a serious rail accident and Odette was killed. Barbra pretended to be Odette and left the real Odette to be buried under Barbra's name. She already knew practically everything about Odette's life from the coaching Odette had given her to play her, but there was a vital discrepancy - Barbra was diabetic.
After she became Odette, Barbra had to hide her insulin and injections as they were not consistent with Odette's medical history, and anyone who discovered her with the needles and illegally-obtained insulin assumed she was taking drugs. She stopped going to Odette's doctor for the same reason. Nonetheless, Barbra portrayed Odette as the heiress who desired to redeem herself after a near-death accident and got to live her dream of being a dancer by competing on the reality show, A Night of Dance.
Sadly for her, Odette's comprehensive training program had not contained the essential nugget that she (Odette) and her business manager, Samuel Lynchberg, had murdered Odette's grandfather, Graham Morton, to ease her cash flow. When Lynchberg caught onto Barbra's lavish spending spree, he confronted her and indirectly mentioned the murder; Barbra's blank response told him she wasn't Odette.
Barbra assumed that the two of them knowing each other's secret would ensure Lynchberg's silence, but she became afraid that he would murder her too, for a being a "dirty stripper" impersonating the woman he loved. Barbra sought out information on Graham's death to strengthen her blackmail, finding evidence from the coroner that indicated the old man had been murdered and attempted to make contact with Mr. Morton's butler, Charles Carson, to learn the exact details of his death. She also made contact with her ex-boyfriend, Jason Bagwell, and revealed her duplicity and her plans to safeguard herself.
Sadly, the same day Carson attended the A Night of Dance show, in which Barbra was a finalist, Mr. Lynchberg then had to dispose of "Faux-dette", which he did by shooting her in her dressing room as she prepared for her dance show. Her body was found by an assistant producer when she didn't show up on stage.