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The soap opera world continues to mourn the loss of General Hospital icon Anthony Geary, an actor who helped take soap operas to a whole new level, and keep GH on the air, along with co-star Genie Francis. Now, Francis is remembering the cultural phenomenon she and Geary launched together nearly half a century ago.
Genie Francis opens up to Good Morning, America
After news of Geary's passing broke, Francis took to X (formerly Twitter) to honor her late co-star. She explained how her life had passed before her in her sleep as she feared death. After waking, she got the call from GH Executive Producer Frank Valentini that Geary had died.
The next day, Francis sat down with Good Morning, America from the nurses' hub set to talk about Geary and what the Luke and Laura cultural phenomenon meant to her.
"[Former General Hospital Executive Producer] Gloria Monty always said that we were going to change the face of daytime," Francis said. "And we were doing that. We were so excited. We didn't want to leave when we were released. We'd sometimes sit on the stage and just talk about what we had done."
Francis was only in her late teens when all of this took place. She still marvels that she got to be a part of it.
"There are all kinds of successes, but ours was different in that it was truly lightning in a bottle," she said. "It was the most unexpected place, a soap opera, which was about to be canceled, that took everyone's interest and swept the nation. It's a piece of history that I'm glad I took part in."
General Hospital's Genie Francis honors her old friend
Francis admitted in her tweet that it had been years since she had spoken to Geary, but he did watch her appearance on Maurice Benard's State of Mind in November, with his husband, Claudio Gama, capturing the moment on video.
The actress told Good Morning, America that Geary had always been protective of her when she was a teen at the start of the Luke and Laura romance.
"Tony was a very warm person, a very sensitive person, and incredibly funny," she said. "I was very, very young and Tony was very protective of me. But we knew we were doing something very edgy."
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Francis concluded: I'm just heartbroken. I'm so sad. "But again, I am so lucky that I got to have this man as my first leading man. He ruined me. He ruined me for leading men for the rest of my life, basically. Because I started with the best."
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