General Hospital star Genie Francis is celebrating her 45th anniversary with the ABC daytime serial. The actress was cast in the role back in the mid-1970s, and she made her debut as Dr. Lesley Williams’s (Webber) long-lost daughter on February 8, 1977.
Genie Francis Has Played GH’s Laura for 45 Years
Alas, General Hospital was facing ratings trouble when Francis was first on the show. The program’s creative regime, executive producer Gloria Monty and head writer Douglas Marland, thrust Francis’s Laura onto the front-burner, giving her dramatic storylines. As a result, the ratings started going up!
“Doug Marland was a class act and the likes of which we’ll never see again,” Francis told Soap Hub last year. “He was so kind and loving. He loved actors and loved telling stories. He was an elegant man.”
As Laura sought to seek her independence from Lesley (Denise Alexander) and her adoptive father Rick Webber (Chris Robinson), she fell for law student Scotty Baldwin (Kin Shriner). David Hamilton (Jerry Ayres), a “friend” of Rick’s, seduced Laura in order to settle an old score with Rick. He taunted Laura, ripping up her love letters to him and throwing them in her face. Laura struck back, accidentally killing David. She lost her memory of the incident, and later, she ran away to New York, where a pimp named Fish (Robert Davi) tried to entice Laura into prostitution.
Taking GH to Number 1
Saved by her loved ones, Laura returned to Port Charles and was put on probation for her role in David’s death. She and Scotty’s happiness was thwarted by his former squeeze Bobbie Spencer (Jacklyn Zeman). Laura and Scotty eventually wed in the summer of 1979, but it was hardly happily ever after. Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary), Bobbie’s brother, fell for Laura, and after he believed he was going to be killed by the mob, he raped her. Later, Luke and Laura, having fallen in love, went on the run and eventually brought down mobster Frank Smith.
After a subsequent escapade with the Cassadines and marrying Luke (the 1981 nuptials brought in 30 million viewers, and Elizabeth Taylor popped on briefly as Helena Cassadine), Laura was presumed dead in early 1982 after disappearing one foggy night. Laura was believed to have drowned. Meanwhile, Francis moved on to other shows, and soon primetime viewers were able to see the actress shine in the mini-series (and short-lived TV series) Bare Essence, in which Francis played the indomitable Patricia “Tyger” Hayes.
Genie Francis Award-Winning Cover Girl
In the early 1980s, Francis’s popularity as Laura Webber landed her on the covers of TV Guide, Newsweek magazine, and People. The actress has earned both the undying support of legions of GH fans as well as many accolades. Francis was the inaugural recipient of Soap Hub’s Editors Award in 2020.
Much to the delight of GH viewers, Francis returned to the show in late 1983 as viewers learned that Laura hadn’t died but instead had been kidnapped by the Cassadine clan and kept captive on their island. Finally, Laura escaped and reunited with Luke, her parents Rick and Lesley, her pals Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) and Tiffany Hill (Sharon Wyatt), and many other family members and friends. Then, she and Luke left Port Charles to travel the world. Francis, however, wasn’t done with soaps. She had runs as strong-willed Diana Colville on Days of our Lives and on All My Children and sister soap Loving as survivor Ceara Connor. She appeared in the North & South mini-series trilogy in 1985, 1986, and 1994 as Brett Hazard.
Return to Port Charles
In 1993, Francis made her triumphant return to General Hospital. Soon, viewers learned that not only was Lesley alive, but they discovered the existence of Laura’s firstborn son – Nikolas Cassadine (Tyler Christopher; now, Marcus Coloma) – whom she’d given birth to while she was a prisoner of the Cassadines. Next, she welcomed daughter Lesley Lu “Lulu” (Emme Rylan). In 1997, Francis earned a well-deserved (and long overdue) Daytime Emmy nomination for a storyline in which Laura was torn between her son Lucky and her firstborn Nikolas.
Alas, Francis bid GH adieu again in the early 2000s. The show’s writers gave Laura a breakdown to get her off the canvas. She returned in 2006 as Laura regained her faculties, long enough to re-marry Luke, which timed with the 25-year anniversary of the duo’s original wedding.
Francis returned again in 2013, the show’s anniversary year (following a stint on The Young and the Restless as Genevieve Atkinson) and again in 2018. In recent years, her Port Charles persona married good guy Kevin Collins (Jon Lindstrom), having ended things with Luke years earlier. When it was revealed that Kevin’s evil twin Ryan had changed places with his brother, fans wondered if this meant Laura was legally wed to Kevin or not – fortunately, the swap took place well after the nuptials so Laura is indeed Laura Collins. Whether she is keeping things running smoothly in Port Charles as the town’s mayor or trading barbs with her evil half-brother Cyrus Renault (Jeff Kober), bonding with her other half-brother Martin Grey (Michael E. Knight), warmly officiating the vow renewals of Ned Quartermaine (Wally Kurth) and Olivia Falconeri (Lisa LoCicero), or protectively watching over her grandson Spencer Cassadine (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), Francis continues to entertain soap viewers as she has for four and half decades.
Genie Francis – The Best Is Yet To Come
Last year, she received another Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. “I was so lucky,” Francis told Soap Hub about the material related to Laura’s past that the show gave her, which helped her win the nomination. “The fact that they were willing to go so far back to the heart of what makes Laura who she is. They’d never explored her biological father (Gordon Grey). She never knew who he was.”
It’s the viewers who are also lucky that after 45 years, Francis and Laura still come into our living rooms (or onto the screens of our mobile devices). Soap Hub sends a heartfelt congratulations to Genie Francis as she celebrates her 45th anniversary in Port Charles.
General Hospital (GH) airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Port Charles, check out all the latest that’s been posted on GH spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.
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