General Hospital Spoilers reveal some soap stars just can’t get enough of Port Charles. What’s an actor to do when they’re killed off the show? It’s hard moving on from Port Charles; other towns just aren’t the same. Sometimes, certain actors will make their way back to town in another role, and the fans are here for it!
Carly, Claudia, and Kim — Oh My!
In 1996, the role of Caroline Benson was created by Sarah Joy Brown. She’d fled her home in Jacksonville, Florida in search of her birth mother, Bobbie Spencer (Jaclyn Zeman). Caroline would introduce herself in Port Charles as Carly Roberts — a woman we know today as Carly Corinthos (Laura Wright).
We had five solid years with Brown before she left to pursue other interests. GH fans everywhere felt the loss and were filled with joy when it was announced Brown was coming back to Port Charles in 2008 — this time as bad girl Claudia Zacchara, who would of course have a love affair with Sonny. All good things do come to an end, and so did Sarah Joy Brown’s time on GH, but we’re still holding out hope she may return in a third role someday. Down the line, Carly would be played by Tamara Braun, who would also later return to GH as Dr. Kim Nero.
GH Spoilers — Family Ties
Jon Lindstrom is known to most GH fans as Dr. Kevin Collins, but his time on the hit soap actually began as a different character, although not that different. Kevin’s identical twin brother, Ryan Chamberlain, was on the show first. Dr. Collins only arrived the following year in 1993 to start studying his psychopathic serial killer brother. The rest, as they say, is history. Lindstrom has continued to carry the roles of both characters off and on ever since, but he’s not the only actor with an evil twin in town.
Finola Hughes also plays dual roles and has for decades. While most GH fans recognize Finola as Anna Devane, she also plays Anna’s identical but sinister twin sister, Alex Devane — a role that originated in Pine Valley on All My Children in 1999. In 2013, Anna also briefly played a character within a character as she portrayed Liesl Obrecht as she was pretending to be Anna. Alex “died” a couple of years ago on GH, but Anna’s storyline is as alive as ever, and we won’t be surprised if we see her twin again someday.
Anthony Geary is no longer on GH, but fans love to reminisce about his fantastic portrayal of Luke Spencer off and on since 1978. Being a major player in GH storylines over the years meant roles for playing anyone but Luke wasn’t likely, but the writers made it happen for us. Luke had many aliases over the years — remember Roger Thornhill and Thor
Svensson? After several years on hiatus, Geary returned to GH, not as Luke but as his cousin, Bill Eckert. Eventually, Bill was shot by one of Frank Smith’s (Joe Cortese) enforcers while hunting for Luke.
General Hospital Spoilers — ABC Soaps, at War
Many GH fans longingly remember the three-hour block of bliss they enjoyed every weekday with All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital airing back-to-back. Sadly, both were canceled, with OLTL airing its final episode on ABC in January 2012, and AMC closing out in September 2013. But diehard soap fans remember the start of several key characters on OLTL that later made their way to Port Charles from Llanview.
Roger Howarth first graced the GH set as Todd Manning, and fans everywhere rejoiced that the character would live on. In a surprise turn of events, production company Prospect Park bought the rights to All My Children and One Life to Live. With GH carrying on the storyline of three characters, OLTL sought to retain ownership of the show’s original characters. A lawsuit manifested and Prospect Park won. GH had to give up the characters. This put Roger on the outs, but only temporarily until GH brought him back as a replacement for James Franco’s character of Franco. While Franco may have died in March of 2021, no one was ready to give up on Roger. He was back just two months later as the current Dr. Austin Gatlin-Holt.
We first met Michael Easton as Caleb Morley on the GH spin-off, Port Charles. Crossover fans were delighted to see him in the role of Detective John McBain on OLTL — a character that later found himself on GH. Alas, when it was ruled GH did not retain the rights to those characters, the role of John McBain got sidelined. Fortunately, the clever writers at GH sought to bring Easton back as McBain’s brother, Dr. Silas Clay, who exited in the summer of 2016 just before Easton’s return to Port Charles as Hamilton Finn.
Kristen Alderson’s OLTL character, Starr Manning, was also a casualty of the OLTL-GH feud. While she spent some time on GH as Starr — a love interest for Michael Cassadine (Chad Duell) fans were really enjoying, she too was recast as Kiki Jerome and played the role well until January of 2015 when she handed over the reins to Hayley Erin.
GH Spoilers — Award-Winning Stars Fans Will Never Forget
Last but not least, there are a couple of honorable mentions who portrayed more than one character on GH. Chloe Lanier, whom most of us know as Nelle Benson-Jerome, originally aired on GH in 2015 as a young Patricia Spencer, but it would be her later portrayal of Nelle that won Chloe the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Daytime Series in 2018.
Right up there with her, musician Rick Springfield was once just Dr. Noah Drake to all of us here pretending we live in Port Charles. He also played the role of Eli Love — Noah’s rockstar lookalike — and appeared as himself to sing his hit single, “Jessie’s Girl.”
Port Charles wouldn’t be the same without all of these people. The fans wouldn’t be the same without all of these people. Who might show up next to reprise a role or create a new one that we’ve seen before? Which actor would you love to see again — in an old character’s place or otherwise? Let us know!
As always, stay tuned right here for more GH news, updates, and spoilers headed your way.
View Comments (0)