Children: Colby Chandler (with Adam Chandler)
Father: Larry Colby (deceased)
Mother: Marian Colby Chandler
Stepfather: Stuart Chandler
Siblings: Mia Saunders (half-sister)
Stepbrother: Scott Chandler
Nephew: William (Mia's son-given up for adoption)
Significant Romantic Relationships: Tad Martin, Cliff Warner, Jonathan Kinder, Adam Chandler (1st, 2nd and 3rd husband/divorced), Jake Martin

Liza Colby debuted in November 1981 as a snobby high school teenager. In love with Greg Nelson, Liza seized every opportunity to keep him away from Jenny Gardner, and make her feel unworthy of him because Jenny wasn't rich. When Liza learned that Jenny's father, Ray Gardner, was a rapist, Liza used the information to upset Jenny, who then fled to New York and away from Greg. When Jenny's friend Jesse Hubbard confronted Liza on her actions, Liza cried rape, forcing Jesse to go on the run. Eventually Liza's schemes were revealed and she lost all hope with Greg.

Greg's nerdy roommate, Alfred Vanderpool then tried his luck on Liza, but fortunately charming Tad Martin came to her rescue. Not too long after the rescue, Liza and Tad shared a kiss and a relationship developed. As they were about to make love, Marian Colby, Liza's mother, told Liza she wanted to reconcile their strained relationship. Tad wanted to be introduced to her parents, but Liza preferred to see him on the sly. Tad took a job at the Glamorama as a shampoo boy, and sex-starved Marian became one of his clients, suggesting they meet after hours. As she was sleeping with Tad, Marian learned that Liza was also seeing Tad, and made Liza promise she wouldn't see him anymore. Liza finally realized that her mother had been sleeping with her boyfriend, and wanted to move out of her house, but Marian convinced her to stay in order not to hurt her father. Liza began a self-destructive nymphomaniacal rampage.

At the beginning of 1984, Liza mistakenly believed she was pregnant with Tad's baby and told him that she wanted to marry him. After discovering she was not pregnant, Liza went home with a stranger who beat and raped her. Later that year, Liza got a job at WRCW and went after Cliff Warner, whose suspended medical license reduced him to working as a medical consultant for the television station. Cliff wound up firing Liza from the station twice due to her meddling in his love life with Nina Cortlandt. Giving up on Cliff, Liza left town.

In 1995, Liza returned as the mysterious woman brought in by Adam Chandler to be WRCW's new station manager. Tad had been up for the manager position until much to his surprise, he was passed over for his newly returned ex-girlfriend. Tad and Liza began working closely, and their old sexual chemistry instantly returned. Tad informed Liza that he was happily married to Dixie, but that didn't stop her from tempting him with sexy lingerie or from them sharing a steamy kiss. Tad's step-son, JR told his mom that he saw Tad and Liza kiss, and Liza informed Dixie that there was more than that between her and Tad. Devastated, Dixie temporarily separated from Tad and he found comfort in Liza. They gave into temptation and made love. Liza admitted to Marian that the reason she returned to Pine Valley six months ago was to get revenge back on Tad and make him beg for mercy. Later, Tad and Dixie reconciled but their marriage collapsed when Marian broke the news to Dixie about Tad's affair with Liza.

The arrival of Dr. Jonathan Kinder in Pine Valley made Liza uncomfortable, as she had an affair with Jonathan years earlier and mistakenly believed she had accidentally killed his wife Toni. Liza had been paying off Kinder to keep things secret. When Toni showed up alive-and was revealed to be Skye Chandler-she had her father Adam fire Liza from WRCW. Liza learned from Dr. Clader that a biopsy showed she had a tumor. It turned out to be benign and was removed in a minor surgery. Liza used this to her advantage and won a lawsuit against Adam to keep her job.

Adam, who wanted to reunite with another ex-wife, Brooke English, came up with an idea. He proposed an unholy alliance with Liza - he would use her to make Brooke jealous and in turn, Liza would use Adam to make Tad jealous. Adam and Liza became engaged with the hope that either Tad or Brooke would stop the wedding. Beleaguered by wedding plans, Liza escaped to an inn where she met newly-returned Jake Martin, Tad's brother. Not knowing who the other was, Liza and Jake had a fling. Upon returning to Pine Valley, Liza married Adam. Tad and Brooke, who grew wise to Adam and Liza's scheme, attended the wedding, which went off without a hitch in December 1996.

Jake's feelings for Liza grew and he admitted that he loved her, while Liza dealt with her power-driven marriage to Adam. Adam fought for his marriage, now believing that he and Liza were really meant to be together, and Liza stayed with him, admitting the same - that they were each other's equals.

Liza soon discovered she was pregnant. A few months later, the TransGlobal flight Liza was on had turbulence and Liza delivered the baby stillborn. Unbeknownst to her at the time was that Adam owned that airplane company and had cut costs, prompting there to be a problem on their flight. When Liza found out, she blamed Adam and vowed to leave him. Adam then faked a stroke to gain sympathy and bring out Liza's true feelings. It worked for a while, but when Liza found out, she was furious. Liza filed for divorce against Adam. When Liza realized that the miscarriage was due to Fifth's disease, and not the plane crash, she cooled towards Adam, but their unstable marriage eventually caused them to divorce.

Liza and Marian grew close when Marian waxed on about the joy her daughter brought into her life, leading Liza to want a child of her own. With a new distraction from Adam, Liza focused on becoming a single mother and asked Tad to be her sperm donor. Tad kindly refused so Liza accepted Jake's offer to be the donor.

In August of 1998, Liza was inseminated with Adam's sperm, but believed it was Jake's. Liza's feelings for Adam grew once again, especially when he went on TV to appeal to the man that had kidnapped Marian. The two reconciled and agreed to marry before the baby was born so Adam could be the baby's legal father. Jake was not happy with this and told them that if his name was not on the birth certificate, he would sue Liza for custody after she gave birth. Shortly after giving birth to her baby girl Colby, Liza and Adam were married once again.

Liza and Jake agreed to talk about helping save Dimitri Marick's life by donating baby Colby's stem cells. Liza realized that Colby's cells were never taken and that Adam was behind it. As she confronted Adam to tell him she knew he blocked the donation, he misunderstood and believed that she knew about Colby's paternity and confessed. Liza was outraged and claimed it was rape.

Marian, protective of her daughter and granddaughter, locked Adam up in his own safe room to prevent him from kidnapping Colby. After Liza tried to make a deal with Adam - she would set him free from the room if he gave her full custody and kept the secret from Jake - Adam managed to lock them both up in the room for a night. Adam agreed to sign the divorce papers and never tell Jake if Liza and Colby lived with him. Liza agreed. When Jake was awarded custody, Liza, afraid Jake would take Colby away from her, blurted out that Adam was Colby's real father. Hurt Jake gave in and Liza eventually won sole custody. However, she divorced Adam.

With revenge in mind, Liza manipulated Adam into giving her power of attorney. Tad and Liza then showed a tape of Adam lunging at Tad to the board of Chandler Enterprises and convinced them that Adam was crazy. Adam was carried away by orderlies from a mental institution after Liza set him up for impersonating Stuart, which left Liza to happily take over as CEO of Chandler Enterprises. After Stuart was believed to be dead, Liza felt sorry for Adam and told the doctors the truth that he was sane.

Liza made plans for the building of Chandler Enterprises' new headquarters, Col-Mar Tower. Adam sabotaged the building by setting it on fire, but when he realized Liza was inside, he rushed in to save her. A beam fell on them as the building collapsed, and Adam's valiant effort at saving her life made Liza realize that she still had feelings for him. High on Libidozone at the Incredible Dreams party one night, Liza and Adam were able to convey their true feelings for each other. After dealing with complications caused by Adam's most recent ex-wife, Arlene, Liza and Adam were married for the third time.

Her marriage to Adam hit a huge bump when Liza discovered that Adam actually slept with a judge for the sake of JR's future (that is, as Adam saw it). Liza found comfort in Ryan Lavery, who had just lost his wife Gillian. At the same time, Liza met Mia Saunders for the first time when she spotted Mia in a warm embrace with Ryan. Marian, overhearing an argument between the two women about Ryan, blurted that Mia was Liza's half-sister via Larry Colby.

Liza learned she was pregnant with Ryan's child. In an argument at the Chandler mansion, Liza pushed Adam away and she slipped and fell as Ryan entered the parlor. The fall caused Liza to lose Ryan's baby. Adam offered to take care of her if she came back home with him.

During 2002, Jake informed them that Liza had developed a brain tumor and it needed to be removed. During her illness, Liza became forgetful, absentminded and short-tempered, to the point where she neglected Colby at times. After surgery, Liza was cured.

Liza began to embezzle money from Chandler Enterprises, and went as far as firing the CFO when he was on to her. Liza confided in Mia, with whom she had grown close, saying she had done this out of fear that a divorce would reward Adam with custody of Colby, and she wanted an escape plan. Liza overheard Adam tell Dr. Zeke McMillan he wanted Liza declared mentally incompetent, and later asked Mia for help. Adam told Liza he wanted her declared incompetent for her own good. Adam was informed of the embezzlement, and suspected Liza. He performed stunts such as dimming the lights and misplacing items around the house to make Liza believe she had developed another brain tumor, and Liza secretly worried to Mia that her tumor had indeed returned. Liza checked herself into the hospital but was released after a clean bill of health, realizing that Adam was attempting to gaslight her.

Adam then took another tack to get back at Liza by leading her to believe that he and Mia were having an affair. Liza became suspicious of Adam and enlisted Tad to help her prove that Adam was trying to make her appear crazy. Rejecting Adam's attempts at reconciliation, Liza learned that Adam had begun an affair (she believed it was with Mia, when it was actually Brooke). At Brooke's fundraiser party at the Chandler mansion, Colby found a pregnancy test in Mia's handbag and gave it to Liza, who mistakenly believed that Mia was pregnant with Adam's baby. Liza overheard Mia giggling on the phone with Jake, and misunderstanding the conversation, ran towards Mia screaming "No!" Liza tripped over her own gown and sent Mia falling through the window. Mia recovered and overheard Liza confide in Tad that her pushing Mia was more deliberate than it was an accident. Liza was arrested for the attempted murder of her sister. In jail, she and Adam re-connected and confessed their love to one another. Out on bail during the winter holidays of 2002, Colby reunited the sisters and Mia decided not to testify against Liza.

At the tail end of 2002, Greenlee Smythe, Kendall Hart, and Simone Torres pitched their idea about starting a cosmetics company and they asked Liza to back the company financially. Liza agreed and Fusion was born.

Liza convinced Adam to try marriage counseling. Examining the state of her marriage with Adam, Liza realized that she was not very happy. A kiss with Tad helped her realized that her marriage to Adam needed to end, and the two amicably divorced. Liza found her romantic feelings for Tad once again blossoming, but her own fear of compromising their friendship pushed him away. After seeing Tad's amorous interactions with Simone and Krystal Carey, Liza decided to fight for him. When Tad told the three women that he was taking a break from romance, Liza remained resolute in her determination to get Tad.