General Hospital fan favorite Jane Elliot retired from the ABC soap, only to return a few years later. Tracy is back and better than ever, with Elliot firing on all cylinders after a break she thought she needed.
Key Takeaways
- Jane Elliot left GH in 2017 to try her hand at retirement.
- In 2021, Elliot was back in the mix on the ABC soap.
- The actress revealed that retirement wasn’t for her.
Where She Is Meant To Be
When Tracy (Elliot) was reunited with Luke (Anthony Geary), it was the perfect way to send the legacy character off into the sunset. After five decades working as an actress in Hollywood and four decades of that on GH, Elliot opted to retire in 2017.
Two years later, though, Elliot slipped back into playing Tracy like no time had passed. Tracy returned to Port Charles for a few brief stints before Elliot decided to come back to GH full-time in 2021.
It turns out that retirement wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Elliot shed more light on why she would rather be working at GH than living the retirement life in a recent interview with Woman’s World.
“I’m a failed retiree,” she explained.
Elliot thought she needed a break from the ABC soap. She was 70 years old at the time, her children were grown, and she was financially secure, so the timing felt right.
“I thought, ‘Oh, yay. I don’t need this job anymore. I can retire,” the soap icon expressed. “It wasn’t what I thought it would be. I was like, ‘But wait, I really like that job! And whether I need the money or not, I want to keep doing it.’”
GH was thrilled to have Elliot back in the mix, but she considers herself lucky that the powers that be didn’t cast another actress in the role, as if that would ever happen. There will forever be only one Tracy Angelica Quartermaine.
Elliot knows other actresses out there could bring a new element to Tracy. She’s not wrong, but GH fans want their Tracy just as she is, especially now that she is the Quartermaine matriarch following Monica’s (Leslie Charleson) death.
The soap star’s most recent GH return has given her a chance to bond with some of the younger cast. Giovanni Mazza (Gio) recently revealed how Elliot helped him improve his performances.
At the Daytime Emmys, Elliot had a special moment on stage with Tabyana Ali (Trina), which showcased their closeness and stole the show.
The retirement experiment taught Elliot that she’s a worker bee, which means that even at 78 years old, she has no plans for another Tracy hiatus, and we are grateful for that.
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