General Hospital star Daniel Goddard has something to celebrate

It's been a good year for Daniel Goddard as he made his soap opera comeback as Professor Henry Dalton on General Hospital. Now, the former Young and the Restless star has something else to celebrate — his birthday.

Daniel Goddard's real-life milestone

Goddard with General Hospital's Eden McCoy as Josslyn | Image: ABC

Goddard was born on August 28, 1971, in Sydney, Australia. Although he originally pursued a career in finance, he enrolled at Australia's Ensemble Actors' Studio before he completed his degree. Before long, Goddard landed a role on his very first soap opera, the Australian soap Home and Away.

The actor eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he began modeling, but a role on the series BeastMaster took him back to his native Australia from 1999 to 2002. Goddard returned to the U.S. after BeastMaster ended, landing episodic roles on a variety of television shows, including Monk and Wild Card.

In 2007, Goddard took on the role of Cane Ashby on The Young and the Restless, a character he played until 2019. As Cane, Goddard was teamed with Christel Khalil's Lily Winters, and the two became one of the soap's most popular pairings.

Daniel Goddard finds a new soap life on General Hospital

After several years away from the daytime TV scene, Goddard reappeared this year as GH's Henry Dalton, a college professor involved in an animal testing scandal that the WSB has taken a keen interest in. It's clear that Dalton's research is related to whatever Britt Westbourne (Kelly Thiebaud) is doing in Croatia.

Dalton has also shown himself to be a bit of a womanizer, as he has flirted with Anna (Finola Hughes), as well as her granddaughter, college student Emma (Braedyn Bruener).

The actor expressed gratitude for the warm welcome General Hospital fans have shown him in the Instagram video below.

Goddard originally auditioned to play recast Jack Brennan. After Chris McKenna landed the part, Goddard's agent called to tell him that GH had just created a new character and the show wanted him for the role.

"A few weeks later, [my agent] Michael called me and he said, 'General Hospital called, and they’ve got this character, and they’re writing it, and they want you to do it,'" Goddard told TV Insider. "I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' I was just gobsmacked by it. It wasn’t a recast. It was a new character, and I was so blown away. I really felt like the timing was right, and I felt like it was meant to be."