Remembering General Hospital Star Anthony Geary, 1947-2025: His Life In Photos And Rare Quotes

Geary made his daytime TV debut in 1971 as David Lockhart on the NBC soap Bright Promise. He is pictured here with co-star Anne Jeffreys, who played Sylvia Bancroft and later portrayed Amanda Barrington on GH.

The actor arrived in Port Charles in 1978 as Lucas Lorenzo "Luke" Spencer, summoned to town by his scheming little sister, Bobbie (Jacklyn Zeman), for help in stealing Scotty away from Laura. The actress passed away in 2023, and Geary paid tribute to her to Digest, saying, "For 40 years, I was fortunate enough to play Jackie Zeman’s big brother on General Hospital.... She was quite simply one of the kindest, sweetest people I have ever known."

While married to Scotty Baldwin (Kin Shriner), Laura (Genie Francis) found herself drawn to the troubled Luke, who was her boss at the Campus Disco. In a notorious turn that seems almost impossible to believe by today's cultural standards, Luke raped Laura in 1979, but the show continued to nurture their relationship and they became the hottest duo in daytime. Geary recalled to Soap Opera Digest in 2023 that when he first joined the show, "She was already on and was already successful with Kin. And I had a sort of protective feeling about her for the first few years. I felt sort of responsible, in a way; that we were responsible to the partnership, that we were going to build something there."

Back in 1981, the unforgettable Ice Princess storyline saw Luke and Laura help save Port Charles — and the world — from being frozen by Mikkos Cassadine and his weather machine, and his heroics helped change public perception of Luke back in Port Charles. In 1982, the actor mused to Digest that even during Luke's most unsavory days, he didn't play him as a villain. Rather, "I played him as somebody who was amoral and who had his own sense of right and wrong."

Luke and Laura tied the knot in 1981 in a ceremony that set records by drawing 30,000,000 viewers. While it was certainly memorable to fans, Geary candidly admitted to Digest in 2001 of filming the ceremony, "Truthfully, the only thing I really remember about it is that it was interminably long and very hot. We were all dolled up and glamorized for hours and hours."

Elizabeth Taylor was such a huge fan of the Luke/Laura storyline that she signed on to create the role of Helena Cassadine, who infamously placed a curse on the newlyweds on their wedding day. The two stars were romantically linked off-camera for a few years, with the actor calling himself her "boy toy" during a 2010 appearance on The Wendy Williams Show. Geary mused to Digest in 1996, "If there was anything that put the nail in the coffin for me in terms of being a 'celebrity' as opposed to an 'actor', it was all the time I spent with Elizabeth Taylor."

Francis exited GH as Laura in 1982, and the show attempted to pair Luke up with Demi Moore's Jackie Templeton; it did not go well. Recalled Geary in 2003 that due to the popularity of Luke and Laura, "It's very hard for any other female to go very far because the audience puts on the brakes. It's always been that way. With Demi Moore when Laura left for the first time ... she was the first one they tried and the audience hated it."

The show also put Luke together with con artist Holly (Emma Samms), who married Luke's best friend, Robert Scorpio, in 1983, while pregnant with a presumed dead Luke's baby. That year, Geary reflected on his surprise sex symbol status since being cast as Luke in an interview with Digest, saying, "I came to GH to do a job, not to be a heartthrob, not to be whatever the hell happened.... I couldn't get arrested in this town because they said I was too special, too strange, not good enough looking, too good-looking, my eyebrows were too bushy, whatever."

In 1983, Luke successfully ran for mayor of Port Charles, an office Laura now holds. Geary found it jarring for Luke to undergo such a huge transformation from law-breaker to civil servant, noting to Digest, "I prefer it when he's not perfect, not saving the world or Port Charles.... It's not the Luke that I know."

On the day of Luke's inauguration, Laura — who had been presumed dead for well over a year — resurfaced on the grounds of mayor's mansion and ran into a stunned Luke's arms. "I've missed Genie," Geary told Digest. "Every day, she shows up to work ready to bleed for you.... She makes me better."

Geary exited GH alongside Francis in GH and  went on to appear in films like Disorderlies (pictured) and U.H.F. as well as episodes of prime time series like Hotel and Murder, She Wrote, but in a 2003 interview, he voiced his belief that becoming so recognizable as Luke had hurt his career outside of the show. "Nobody wants Luke Spencer in their movies and stuff like that," he shrugged. "Which is understandable, because in the 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."

The actor returned to GH in 1991 to play a new role, Bill Eckert, seen here with his mother, Angela, played by Carol Lawrence. Bill was Luke's look-alike cousin, but lightning did not strike twice, and in 1993, Geary agreed to reprise Luke and Bill died in his cousin's arms after taking a bullet meant for him. Summed up Geary to Digest in 2003. "I first of all came back because Gloria Monty [former executive producer] was coming back and because she wanted me to play a different character. Then, that didn't work, so we switched to Luke again."

When Geary reprised the role of Luke in 1993, he returned alongside Francis and the soap introduced their son Lucky (Jonathan Jackson); the following year, the trio was joined by the Spencers' beloved baby girl, Lulu. "Jonathan has a sense of truth and honesty that is really, really sophisticated," he raved to Digest of his TV son in 2023. "I learned a lot from Jonathan. I should've learned more."

During his career on GH, Geary earned 17 Daytime Emmy Award nominations. He took home his first trophy for Outstanding Lead Actor in 1982, and won again in 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006 (pictured), 2008, 2012, and 2015. "It was the first time that I realized I might stay on this show for a while because I was always looking for any way to get out of it, to go away," the actor told Digest in 2023 of his very first win, "but when those Emmys started coming in, I changed my mind."

Luke found happiness, at least for a time, with the inimitable Tracy Quartermaine (Jane Elliot), who he married in 2010. He and Elliot had first met back in 1978, when Geary auditioned to play Mitch Williams, Tracy's politician beau. In 2023, he marveled to Digest that in that audition scene, after he had improvised by making a grid for tic-tac-toe, "She came in, looked at it, took my pen and started the game. And that was amazing to me, that we had that kind of playing/working together immediately."

In 2012, Geary shared an emotional on-screen encounter with Tristan Rogers's Robert, Luke's longtime friend, who at the time was mourning the presumed death of his daughter, Robin. In 2023, Geary recalled that in their early days on the show, he and Rogers "were bad boys who did a lot of laughing."

Geary retired from GH in 2015 and relocated full-time to Amsterdam, where he lived until his death with his husband, Claudio Gama — but when Elliot retired in 2017 (she has since returned), the actor returned to the show for a brief cameo so that Luke and Tracy could reunite.

Geary's husband, Claudio Gama, shared this photo of the lovebirds on his Instagram over the recent Thanksgiving holiday. In 2023, the actor smiled to Digest that since leaving the show, "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."