General Hospital Legend Anthony Geary, Who Played Luke Spencer, Dies At 78
Anthony Geary, who rose to superstardom in the iconic role of antihero Luke Spencer on General Hospital, has died at the age of 78. The eight-time Daytime Emmy-winning star passed away on December 14 from complications following a planned surgery in Amsterdam, the city he loved and had called home full-time since retiring from acting in 2015. TV Insider was the first to report the sad news.
Remembering A Legend
Born Tony Dean Geary in the small town of Coalville, Utah on May 29, 1947 — he told Soap Opera Digest in 1996 that he changed his name to Anthony “because Tony is a nickname” — the actor was raised by Mormon parents in a household with three sisters. Drawn to performing from an early age, he won a scholarship to study theater at the University of Utah and, after beginning his career as a stage actor, settled in Los Angeles in the 1960s. While awaiting his big break, Geary worked a wide variety of odd jobs, including selling toys in a department store.
In the early 1970s, Geary began working steady on episodic TV, with appearances on shows like All in the Family, The Partridge Family, Marcus Welby, M.D. and The Mod Squad.
His daytime debut in 1971 was an inauspicious one, playing the recurring role of David Lockhart on the NBC soap Bright Promise, where he was directed by his future GH executive producer, Gloria Monty. Two years later, he was cast on The Young and the Restless as George Curtis for a six-month stint. George raped one of the show’s main heroines, Chris Brooks (Trish Stewart), in what was then a shocking storyline; according to The Soap Opera Encyclopedia, this marked daytime’s “first (non-marital) rape.”
In 1978, during Monty’s first year as EP of GH, she called Geary in to audition for the role of politician Mitch Williams, who was slated for an ill-fated romance with Tracy Quartermaine (Jane Elliot). Geary recalled to Digest in 2023, “I remember I didn’t think I was particularly right for it. He seemed awfully straight to me; very businesslike and running for senator, so I decided that it would be fun to do because it would be challenging.” Monty agreed that he was wrong for the role, but charged the show’s legendary head writer, Douglas Marland, with creating a new character for Geary to play. He made his debut as Luke Spencer on November 20, 1978.
Luke was originally only supposed to last on the canvas for 13 weeks, summoned to town by his sister, Bobbie, played by Jacklyn Zeman, to help her bust up the burgeoning romance between Scotty Baldwin, played by Kin Shriner, and Laura Webber, played by Genie Francis — but the character, and Geary’s magnetic and, at times, surprisingly tender performance — struck a chord with fans, and the actor’s stay was extended.
“I went full-out with antihero,” is how Geary described his early embodiment of Luke to Digest in 2023. “Antiheroes are people who do the wrong things for the right reasons and the right things for the wrong reasons, and antiheroes are classically romantic in that they usually have a bad side. Antiheroes in history go way back beyond Shakespeare, but it’s always been an important piece, and most shows have one, especially daytime shows. But there weren’t a lot of antiheroes who were really dangerous, and if they were, they weren’t the leads as much as they were supporting characters, so I think Gloria had this picture of a good/bad guy and gave me a great opportunity to explore that.”
Geary’s artistic partnership with Monty was, he continued, “a dream come true. It was someone who really got me, really understood me, after I had been in show business for 10 or 15 years. And I was always pretty much a hard sell, a hard guy to cast.”
In 1979, Luke drunkenly raped Laura — but the audience still rooted for the pair, and they became the signature supercouple in daytime TV, with their 1981 nuptials attracting a record number of viewers, a whopping 30 million, and featuring a cameo appearance by Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor. (“I was quite friendly with her, shall we say, during that period,” Geary winked to Digest of Taylor in 2001.)
Geary’s enormous popularity on GH was a surprise even to him. In 1982, he mused to Digest, “I didn’t set out to be a sex symbol. I’ve always been the first to say I had a receding hairline, a weak chin, a sallow complexion. But if the public finds that attractive, who am I not to be a sex symbol?”
The actor exited GH for the first time in 1983 and returned for a guest arc alongside Francis in 1984. He worked in both prime-time and in film, most notably the “Weird Al” Yankovic comedy UHF, before coming back to Port Charles in 1991 — but in a new role, that of Luke’s look-alike cousin, Bill Eckert. Then, in 1993, when Francis was lured back to the show, Bill was killed off and Geary resumed playing Luke.
Reflecting on his career after becoming so identifiable as Luke, Geary told Digest in 2003, “When I decided to come back, I decided to give up the thought that I was on my way somewhere else. This is my destination. My first time around, General Hospital was a stop on the way to some grander illusions. I didn’t come here the second time with that in mind…. I learned over the eight years away that nobody wants Luke Spencer in their movies and stuff like that. Which is understandable, because for that three minutes or 30 seconds that it takes for somebody to go, ‘Isn’t that that guy from the soap?’ they come out of. the moment.”
During his second run on the show, Geary, who had already won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor once, in 1982, added a record-setting seven additional trophies in the category to his mantel. He took home is final one in 2015, the same year he retired from GH. He also received five, fan-voted Soap Opera Digest Awards, winning Best Actor in 1980, 1981 and 1982 (at which time they were called The Soapys), and Outstanding Lead Actor in 1999 and 2000.
In 2023, in his final interview with Digest, the actor said his perspective on his career had changed in the years following his departure. “Not being on the show after having been on it for 30-plus years, practically half my life, I have a feeling of satisfaction because I did it, I showed up, I did my work, I won some trophies, I enjoyed the people I worked with for the most part and I feel I got out in time. I look back on it and it’s great and it gave me this wonderful life I have now, so I’m not going to complain. I live in the city [Amsterdam] that I’ve always wanted to live in my whole life and I have somebody who loves me and I have a life now, that I didn’t have before, no matter how many fan letters or Emmys or how many pages of dialogue to learn. I didn’t have what I have now. So, everything happened at the right time, I guess.”
Geary is survived by his loving husband, Claudio Gama.
Soap Opera Digest sends heartfelt condolences to Gama, as well as Geary’s other family, friends and loved ones.
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