For nearly four decades Luke Spencer was a General Hospital character who was a major contradiction in terms — one of the biggest heroes in soap opera history but he was also one of daytime’s biggest rogues.
Luke was a lousy husband, a good father, and a terrible grandfather. For years he was viewed as a comedic character but underneath the humor lurked a violent streak a mile wide.
From his debut in 1978 to his final guest appearance in 2017, actor Tony Geary alternately delighted and disappointed, thrilled and terrified his GH audience. But through it all, there was one certainty: Geary and Luke, the character he so perfectly embodied, were truly one of a kind.
Backstory
Luke – born Lucas Lorenzo – and his two sisters, Patricia and Barbara “Bobbie” Jean, were Port Charles natives who were forced to relocate (Luke and Bobbie to Florida and Patricia to parts unknown) after two separate instances of violence resulted in the deaths of their parents Tim and Lena.
It would take four decades and a hard-fought battle with a sinister alternate personality for Luke to recall that he was the person responsible for his parents’ passing. While trying to protect Patricia from the wrath of their abusive father, Luke accidentally struck Lena with a baseball bat and she had died from the resulting head trauma. Later, Luke responded to Tim’s tauntings by bludgeoning him to death with the same bat.
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Introduction
Luke relocated back to Port Charles at the bequest of his younger sister on November 20, 1978. Bobbie was besotted with law student Scotty Baldwin but her attempts at seduction had been continually thwarted by his devotion to the young and sweet (well, sweeter than Bobbie) Laura Webber. With her brother back, Bobbie was sure she could win Scotty’s affection so the Spencers cooked up an audacious scheme.
Knowing that probationer Laura was on a strict curfew, Luke sabotaged the carburetor in Scotty’s car, leaving the teens stranded in a restaurant parking lot 40 miles outside of Port Charles. Their only recourse was to take shelter in the fancy restaurant adjoining a hotel and the incident nearly got Laura shipped off to reform school.
Think Of Laura
When Luke finally laid eyes on Laura in March of 1979, he told Bobbie he was through helping her make the young girl’s life a living hell. From that one glance, Luke had fallen madly in love with Laura, and it didn’t help matters when Laura joined the staff of the Campus Disco – a mob-fronted club that Luke was managing.
After a violent sexual …continue reading on the next page —>
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