Actor James Westmoreland, who played General Hospital's Teddy Holmes under the name Rad Fulton in the mid-70s, has died. He was 80 years old.
For viewers that may not remember the Michigan native on the ABC soap opera, he summed up his time in Port Charles on his official website. The then-executive producer Jim Young hired him without an audition, but warned Westmoreland, "I run a tough ship with my show and I expect you to be prepared... You start Monday. All I ask is that you arrive on set prepared and I don't want you to be carrying a script to study while you're on my set."
After arriving on set that Monday, Westmoreland made sure Young saw him throw his script in the wastebasket and then says he was "put into a hospital bed because I was brought to the hospital ward because I had Serum Hepatitis that my character, Teddy Holmes, had picked up in Vietnam for shooting up with dirty needles."
He continues: "General Hospital was fun for me and the cast were all professionals and easy to get along with. Unfortunately after working on at least one hundred and forty shows I came down with a serious illness and I had to leave the show and the most wonderful part I had ever had came to an end."
The actor, who also briefly played the role of Decker on The Young and the Restless, will be honored via stories and remembrances posted on his official website at a date in the near future. If you would like to share a memory of the actor, send your story to Memories@JimWestmoreland.com.
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