Last month, soap fans were shocked when it was announced that Alley Mills, who is best known to soap fans for her portrayal as Pam Douglas on the CBS drama The Bold and the Beautiful, had been hired to take on the iconic role of General Hospital's Heather Webber. The casting news left fans with a lot of questions. The most asked one? How did Mills get the opportunity to fill the role as Heather?
"They called me and they said they were wanting to bring back this iconic character and I started watching the tapes of Robin Mattson and I'm like 'Why isn't Robin Mattson coming back to do this?!'", Mills shared on the Dishing With Digest podcast. Turns out Mattson was not available to return to GH. Details of why the actress was not available have not been made public.
In order to prepare for the role, Mills said, "I started watching her when she was really young. [I] just crammed General Hospital...I just had to find out everything I could. [I] had to go back and look at all the crazy, insane tapes of the plots and I saw this amazing scene where Steven Lars is [engaged] to Olivia and, of course, that makes Heather insane and she decides to inject Olivia with LSD"
It's not clear if all that cramming helped Mills when she got her first script. In the few weeks since she made her GH debut, Heather has already started to cause mayhem by escaping police custody after a van crashed and scaring poor Cameron Webber (William Lipton) when she stopped by the diner for a BLT while on the run.
Mills is the fourth actress to play this part. Georgeann LaPiere originated the role in 1976, she was replaced by Mary O'Brien in 1977. Mattson played Heather from 1980-1983 and returned for several stints in 2004, 2012-2013, 2014-2015, and 2016.
For Mills, it was important to pay homage to Mattson while interpreting the character in her own way. For one thing, she wanted to make sure that she had Heather's trademark dark eyebrows and blond hair. "I've got to look like her! It's my tribute. And I try to throw in as much of her crazy as I possibly can."
Mills shared how excited she was to work with her new GH castmates. "[They are] familiar faces because I have looked at years and years and years and years of GH, and I know everybody!" When it came to working with Heather's former love interest Scotty Baldwin (Kin Shriner), Mills said, "What a great guy. He was so much fun to work with. We really got along, we have really good chemistry [and] I love the way he works. He's very loose. You never know what's going to come from Kin! I mean, minute to minute you don't. Even after you rehearse you don't! [He] is one of a kind."
Mills originated the role of Pam Douglas on The Bold and the Beautiful and play the recurring role from 2006 until 2021. Her other well-known television role was Norma Arnold on ABC's The Wonder Years. Her other credits include Hill Street Blues, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Touched by an Angel, NYPD Blue, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
It is unclear if Mills's role of GH will preclude her from playing Pam on The Bold and the Beautiful. Soap Central's requests for clarification have yet to receive a response.
What do you think of Alley Mills' portrayal of Heather Webber so far? Are you happy to see the character return to cause more havoc? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
