Another One Bites The Dust

By Dura Cell

In addition to the recent exits announced yesterday, we have gotten word that the execs at GH have officially given Alicia Leigh Willis (Courtney) her walking papers. Negotiations between the actress and the show have gone on for months now and when they stalled, the show promptly wrote her out of a prominent love triangle storyline that was to happen between Courtney, Carly and Nikolas.

When asked for comment, the actress only had this to say. "I am grateful for the time I've spent at GH, however I believe this entire issue could have been avoided. I'm not going to go into details, but it's quite obvious that the direction of the show is shifting back to the 'golden era' and us younger actors are no longer a priority."

We called the head writer and executive producer (Ryan Chandler) for comment and boy did he. "It is usually the policy of the show not to comment on things like this, but Alicia's comments were off base. My regime values all of the actors on cast. Not one age group over the other, however, I was hired to write for the show. At the time when she was negotiating a new deal, I was told by my bosses to write Courtney out for the time being because they didn't want me to invest in a story that would be stalled due to a recast. We offered Alicia the chance to have a recurring contract on a semi-permanent basis, but she chose not to take our offer. The role of Courtney will not be recast. And I will neither confirm not deny the rumors that Courtney will be killed off."

A source close to the set said that everyone is in pins and needles. While most of the cuts have affected the actors on recurring, there is talk of the show possibly looking to trim some of the contract actors as well. We've seen contract actors like Ingo Rademacher, Alicia Leigh Willis, M'Fundo Morrison and Peyton List (who was demoted shortly after debuting with the show) bumped to recurring status.

It is rumored that Courtney will meet her demise at the beginning of the next story arc which begins in about 6 weeks. Look for Courtney to return to Port Charles in about a week to begin wrapping her story.