Five Things That Happened On February 1 In Soap History

In 1983, Judith Light aired for the final time as One Life to Live's Karen Wolek, a role she had assumed in 1979. For her work on the show, Light took home Daytime Emmys as Outstanding Lead Actress in 1980 and 1981. In a 2017 essay about her experience on the show that she penned for the New York Times, Light reflected on Karen's landmark storyline, in which her double life as a sex worker was exposed on the witness stand during one of daytime's most infamous courtroom scenes. "Day after day there were emotional scenes filled with tension and terror as my character tried to escape her double life, navigate a web of lies, and deal with brutal johns,” Light wrote. "The storyline went on for a year and a half, culminating in a powerful scene on the witness stand that led to my first Emmy.”

In 1999, Port Charles said good-bye to Ruby Anderson at her memorial service on General Hospital. Bobbie (Jacklyn Zeman) and Luke's (Anthony Geary) beloved aunt and the proprietor of Kelly's (which has since been renamed Bobbie's), Ruby was played by Norma Connolly from 1979 until her death in 1998. In 2023, prior to her own death, Zeman told Soap Opera Digest, "I was there when Norma tested for the role. There were maybe 10 actresses, and when she opened her mouth, it was maybe the fifth line of the scene where I went, ‘This is Ruby. She’s the one.’ We were in the middle of the scene; I was thinking, ‘They don’t even need to see the rest of this, she’s getting this part!’ That’s how incredible she was."

In 2010, Chandler Massey (pictured with on-screen mother Alison Sweneey, Sami) debuted as Will Horton on Days of Our Lives. The actor would go on to win three Daytime Emmys for the role in the category of Outstanding Younger Actor. He exited DAYS in 2014 and Will was recast with Guy Wilson. Massey went on to return to the show in 2017, telling Soap Opera Digest of his decision to leave three years prior, "I'm the kind of person that needs something to challenge me or I’ll go crazy... I was 19 when I started on DAYS." Of ushering Will through his landmark coming-out storyline, Massey said, "I’ve heard from a lot of people who said how much it meant to them and I’m proud that I was a part of it. I still have a box of letters that I keep at my desk.”

In 2018, after Cesar Faison (Anders Hove, r.) died at the hands of his secret son, Peter August (Wes Ramsey), aka Henrik Faison (with an assist from Jason Morgan, who had shot him), news of the supervillain's death made its way across Port Charles. After Kevin Collins obtained Faison's brain to be psychologically studied, Anna gained entry into the morgue and gloated to Faison's corpse that he had died not knowing her secret. "There is a child out there," she confessed. "Our child." That child was ultimately revealed to be Peter.

In 2021, General Hospital's Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros) was floored to learn that Jasper "Jax" Jacks, who was her lover at the time, and his ex, Carly Corinthos, had covered up evidence that Nina's long-missing daughter was none other than the late Nelle Benson. Carly had wanted to continue lying to Nina by claiming that she had only just discovered this shocking news, but Jax decided that Nina deserved to know the whole truth and told her that Nelle was her daughter, and Jax had known for months. This betrayal wound up being the nail in the coffin of Jax and Nina's relationship.