General Hospital Legend Anthony Geary Remembers ‘Funny, Exciting’ Partnership With Tristan Rogers
When the late Tristan Rogers first joined General Hospital back in 1980, his alter ego, WSB Agent Robert Scorpio, forged a strong bond with antihero Luke Spencer, played by Anthony Geary. The men’s relationship wasn’t always free of friction (as when Luke returned from a presumed death to discover that his lady love, Holly, was now married to Robert!), but there was a deep love, loyalty and respect between them that carried through the decades. Now, in the wake of Rogers’s passing at the age of 79, Geary is speaking out about the death of his longtime co-star.
Mutual Admiration
Sharing his reaction to Rogers’s death with TV Insider, Geary shared, “I was depressed at the news of Tristan passing away.” The Daytime Emmy-winning actor, who is now based in Amsterdam, noted, “I have great memories of him and always will have.”
Geary described Rogers as “an enigma — comfortable enough to create a man of mystery.” He praised Rogers’s unpredictability on set and declared, “Working with him was an experience that I could always rely on to be funny, exciting, challenging, and infuriating — a perfect day’s work.”
In 2023, when Geary spoke to Soap Opera Digest on the occasion of GH’s 60th anniversary, he shared one of his favorite memories of working with Rogers. In the early 1980s, Geary admitted, “We were bad boys who did a lot of laughing. When we were told to settle down and do the scene, we would.” The actors often worked together during the show’s location shoots, which Geary said resulted in long days of filming. He recalled, “I’m drawn to the experience in San Antonio where Tristan and I got so bored waiting for them to change scenes, we walked away from the set. It was out in the desert, and we found a place to sit down and have margaritas. It had a little outdoor café/terrace. We sat and were having a drink, and we kept seeing this truck go back and forth past us. Tristan said, ‘Who is that?’ And it was one of the stage managers searching for us. That was completely childish and irresponsible and quite a good time.”
In his own interview with Digest celebrating the show’s milestone birthday, Rogers also reflected on his on-screen partnership with Geary. “I learned a lot from watching what he was doing,” Rogers said. “Probably, I learned too well. We were an absolute foil for one another, there was no question about that. He wasn’t the easiest person to work with because he was always, like, two steps ahead of you, so you had to run to keep up with him. I learned that early on and went with it and used it. The most important thing about working with Tony was to listen to what he was doing. He was on the storyline, but not always the way it was written, and I learned that from him. I thought, ‘Well, if he can do it, I can do it.’ ”
The licenses that Geary, and in turn, Rogers, took with the script ended up playing a big role in shaping each of their characters, and Rogers explained to Digest in 2020 that the two men fed off each other when it came to enhancing their dialogue. “Tony [Geary, ex-Luke] had his ideas about how the script would go, too, and we would sit down together and he’d say, ‘Well, what do you want to say here? Does this work for you?’ And I’d say, ‘Yes, I can make that work.’ I mean, I didn’t take stuff and change it unless it needed to be. If I could make it work by changing punctuation, or changing the tone, I would do that and see how it went. And if [then-Executive Producer] Gloria [Monty] didn’t like it, she’d tell you. Quickly! But for the most part, I got away with making my own changes to the dialogue, and that’s pretty much continued to this day.”
In his closing words to TV Insider, Geary said that he’ll remember Rogers as a character — and not just the one he played on GH. “Tristan himself — he was the bigger of the two characters.”
What are your favorite memories of Luke and Robert’s adventures? Let us know in the comments below.
Conversation
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