1 hour ago, Khan said:

I'm absolutely devastated by this news...but I also have mixed feelings about it, too.

On the one hand, there's no denying the impact Luke and Laura have had - not just on GH, but on the industry as well. But, on the other hand, it's because of Luke and Laura, and the other shows' obsessive need to copycat that success, that the industry eventually collapsed under the weight of its' own '80's excesses; de-emphasizing and tossing out much of what made soaps so special to so many people - believable storylines, multigenerational casts, etc. - in order to capture a different kind of audience that was ever younger and ultimately proved to be so damn fickle.

in total agreement! over the years, i’ve written thousands of words going into all the gory details — particularly regarding ‘as the world turns.’

always wished i could have asked him about the ‘i hate soap opera’ comments. was he being funny, sarcastic, ironic? would have loved to heard the specifics of what he — and gloria monty — hated. and what did he think about the impact on the soap genre.

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by wonderwoman1951

9 minutes ago, wonderwoman1951 said:

always wished i could have asked him about the ‘i hate soap opera’ comments. was he being funny, sarcastic, ironic? would have loved to heard the specifics of what he — and gloria monty — hated.

Obviously, we'll never know exactly what Geary meant, but I think what Gloria Monty hated was the fact that most soaps at that time seem confined to "talking heads" regurgitating the same exposition over coffee inside various living rooms and kitchens. Monty wanted soaps to be more active, arguing that housewives and other viewers would be forced to put down their laundry or whatever and actually pay attention.

52 minutes ago, Liberty City said:

Her statement did not disappoint. They both spoke about that deep connection, that they didn’t share with anybody else. Even when Tony was fully committed to not ever playing Luke & Laura again, he still spoke about that connection as performers with some reverence.

I am not shocked they didn’t speak because that was their way even before his final exit. When they met to discuss returning in 1993 they had only seen each other a couple of times since their earlier run. That return was one of the handful of soap icon returns after being gone for a long time that fully worked. I have said this before but Monty, Marland, and PFS, with Geary and Francis of course, made such grounded characters with real internal lives that they could go and save the world, and also still fit in closer to reality in grittier material later under Labine, Guza, and Riche.

We saw Luke slowly morphed into a bitter and cynical man who eschewed connection with others. I had no problem with what Geary did with Luke’s characterization. Luke after Laura probably would self destruct. What I had issue with was Geary’s insistence that this was always the Luke he played. It very much was not, we saw it as it aired, the good and the bad before his revisionist history.

Almost every soap I watched had an iconoclastic character who challenged the other people in their communities. Soaps are so bland now and don’t really do these types of characters anymore.

Thanks everybody who has been posting tributes, I don’t use Twitter anymore so this is the only place I will see them!

5 minutes ago, Khan said:

Obviously, we'll never know exactly what Geary meant, but I think what Gloria Monty hated was the fact that most soaps at that time seem confined to "talking heads" regurgitating the same exposition over coffee inside various living rooms and kitchens. Monty wanted soaps to be more active, arguing that housewives and other viewers would be forced to put down their laundry or whatever and actually pay attention.

I agree with this. You can see it in her shows, there is always movement. Those talking head scenes were walking around the nurses station, stopping at the counter at Kelly’s, etc. Scenes in the Webber home often begin or end with someone coming down the stairs, or headed to the door. I am sure Geary had run into plenty of issues where staging in a more traditional way hindered what he wanted to do and could seem stifling. Monty allowed improvisation, and spontaneity to be encouraged in rehearsals.

As a kid I always noticed that the ABC soaps of that era just felt more modern. When I watch old episodes now, the ABC shows still stand out that way. They took risks. Now I am not saying I think everything they did was fantastic- they had plenty of flops and bad ideas.

Awful news. I've certainly said my fair share about Luke and the Eckerts on here over the years, but when he was on and committed, there was never anybody better. He was a huge part of growing up watching GH in the 90s and 2000s.

His relationships with Laura, Bobbie, Robert, and Lucky will get most of the attention, but I want to mention how good he was with a lot of the rest of the cast in that era. His relationships with Tony, Lucy, Felicia, Tiffany, Sonny, Carly, Nikolas, Alexis, Tracy- all so different, unique, and you really felt the connections.

Monica, Luke, Robert, Rick, and Lesley in one year is so much loss. Add in Bobbie, Alan, Nikolas, Sean, and Epiphany in the past couple of years and it's almost unfathomable.

4 minutes ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

Monica, Luke, Robert, Rick, and Lesley in one year is so much loss. Add in Bobbie, Alan, Nikolas, Sean, and Epiphany in the past couple of years and it's almost unfathomable.

And Johnny Wactor and Billy Miller (along with Tyler Christopher) dying so young and tragically. It’s devastating.

And Nneka Garland behind the scenes…

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by Faulkner

It's sad. I never liked the ending they gave the character in 2015 and then 2022. I still don't understand them jumping the gun and killing off Luke in 2022. What was that all about?

IMHO, the character should have been kept alive off screen, and officially said to pass when the actor did, especially for a character that was the superstar lead on the show for so long. There's very little way to pay tribute to him on screen now.

Given the news with Rob Reiner today I certainly did not expect to hear Tony Gerry passing away. This shortly after the anniversary of Luke and Laura's wedding too! Anthony was perhaps the biggest actor in all of soaps, and he was a part of the most famous pairing in soaps.

I grew up on JFP era GH, and only knew Luke as the comically cynical gambler and drunk. Laura was the woman in the rocking chair. I had no idea until I watched the 50th anniversary marathon that Luke was a leading man back in the day, then a well balanced family man/shaky business in the 90s. A certain light disappeared from the character after Laura went into catatonia. The character was further degraded when they claimed he ran over Jake.

In my mind, the last scene of GH would've been Luke and Laura getting remarried after they did all the healing work from their traumatic years together. Sadly, that will not happen. But at least the character of Bobbie was still alive to mourn Luke when he was killed off.

What I will always wonder is why the actor resented the pairing and the version of the role that made him a household name. RIP.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Planet Soap

Although Luke was never my reason to watch GH, there was no denying that Anthony Geary was a legend in his own time.

I hope he is at peace and that Jackie Zeman was there to help him transition. I liked Luke best when the show played the brother/sister beat with Bobbie.

May his memory be a blessing.

3 hours ago, BoldRestless said:

Story wise I'd like it if we learned Luke really died saving women from being trafficked after faking his death on the train in 2022, taking over Bobbie's work. a sort of redemption for what Luke was.

I would incorporate that as well. We would learn he faked his death in the ignoble ski lift, etc. and then went on, and it would unfold future story for his surviving loved ones.

I've outlined my woulda-been plans for Luke's final story to friends like titan or DRW before but in some ways this sad news makes a revision simpler, more elegiac. I won't go into them in a thread like this, friends can ask me in DMs if they wish but I'll just say again, I think the focus has always needed to be heavy on Laura re: Luke passing away. Her grief in 2022, like the entire event, was very perfunctory and rushed. Largely because I strongly suspect FV had gambled on getting Tony back for the 60th or a future time (as he'd gambled with Steve Burton in 2012, and Trevor St. John at OLTL in 2011), and revealing that offscreen 'death' to be a hoax or scheme. (Even Bobbie suggested this in 2023, which went nowhere.) Who knows, maybe GH did have an arrangement and then Tony's health grew worse. But they should never have let that weak stuff go to air unless they were certain.

Just speaking as a general audience member, Laura should never have believed Luke was dead. The Cassadines faked her death and the death of her mother and son. People saw fake bodies. Even if remains are presented Laura shouldn't believe it. All this time I have to believe her somewhat muted reaction and the scant writing is because Laura has quietly, consciously or unconsciously, been waiting for Luke to come back. And when she realizes he isn't coming back that should break her life as she begins to fully reconcile her heart re: her life with him. Something we could learn Luke had finally begun to do himself before his own death.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Vee

3 hours ago, Khan said:

I'm absolutely devastated by this news...but I also have mixed feelings about it, too.

On the one hand, there's no denying the impact Luke and Laura have had - not just on GH, but on the industry as well. But, on the other hand, it's because of Luke and Laura, and the other shows' obsessive need to copycat that success, that the industry eventually collapsed under the weight of its' own '80's excesses; de-emphasizing and tossing out much of what made soaps so special to so many people - believable storylines, multigenerational casts, etc. - in order to capture a different kind of audience that was ever younger and ultimately proved to be so damn fickle.

Moreover, to say that TG and the majority of GH fans (along with Claire Labine and Wendy Riche) never exactly saw eye-to-eye on who and what Luke Spencer was would be an understatement, because the sociopath that was Luke in his final years in Port Charles...? That's not the Luke we fell in love with back in '79. Not by a longshot. And it's TG and his need to not feel bored or that he wasted his career and talents on a lowly soap opera that were responsible for turning Luke into a creature that hardly anyone recognized anymore and whom I, for one, was not sorry to see gone.

Regardless, though, my heart does go out to TG's former colleagues and loved ones. RIP.

This sums it up for me.

I'd be a hypocrite to act like Luke or Geary meant anything to me as a soap fan. "My" soaps were CBS, and by the time I started watching GH in the mid '90s, I felt no connection to Luke. That only hardened as time passed and Geary's clear disdain for the character and the character's foundations also hardened.

I don't blame Monty for everything soaps became, any more than I blame JER, but there's such a dividing line, made worse because the better soap years are almost entirely lost to us.

That Geary himself seemed to have such disgust for the L&L years informed much of his later work. I think his deconstruction of Luke, and the Luke mythos, would be much more compelling to read about in a paper than what we got onscreen, but that's true of Tony in general. He seemed to have a fascinating life, and even though I disliked Luke and what Luke ultimately did to those around him, I can appreciate his passion for reinvention and wanting to take Luke on his own journey. He never stopped wanting something more, rather than just cashing checks.

1 hour ago, Jdee43 said:

I still don't understand them jumping the gun and killing off Luke in 2022. What was that all about?

Personal matters, but the show was already aware that Geary would not be returning.

2 minutes ago, Errol said:

the show was already aware that Geary would not be returning.

Then they should have done much more than they did.