Anthony Geary Talks Coming Back To ‘General Hospital’ And Losing His Luke Spencer Persona In Holland


It was just yesterday when Anthony Geary said goodbye to Port Charles. His long-running character of Luke Spencer on ABC’s General Hospital left town to go “find himself” and decide what he really wants to do when he grows up. The future of both the character and the actor remains unclear. However, this may not be a final farewell for either of them, after all.

While both fans and Geary’s co-stars are mourning the loss of a mega soap star, he told EW in an exclusive interview that he would not be against the idea of coming back to reprise his role of Luke Spencer on a short-term basis. However, he has one condition. The one thing that has to happen is that the storyline has to be good enough for him to come back from his second home in Amsterdam and back into the spotlight again.

“If the story is interesting to me and it works out, I may come back to the show for six weeks or so.”

Everyone at General Hospital would love that. Even Executive Producer Frank Valentini is open to that possibility of a return for Anthony. The 68-year-old star basically left his role as the adventure-seeking Spencer to pursue other opportunities.

His interest in musical theater, and the fact that he is only known as Anthony Geary, not Luke Spencer, took him to Holland years ago. Daytime dramas are not on the TV lineup for the Dutch. Geary says that they have no interest in soaps like Americans do. In fact, he seems to lose his “celebrity status” over there and that is okay with him. He explained his logic behind his move to the place where no one knows who Luke Spencer is.

“I came back to the show in 1991 after seven years. That’s when I realized that returning to this character was going to become my career. I learned that after all the attention I got playing the role, there weren’t going to be a lot of offers coming in. I was so associated with this guy. So I made the conscious decision to find another place in the world where I could spend time with people who didn’t know me. In Holland, the show has never ran. The Dutch have no interest in celebrity. I just love it there.”

Now that General Hospital has fired former head writer Ron Carlivati, as previously reported by the Inquisitr, various story lines may change. The new writing team of Shelly Altman and Jean Passanante may just come up with an interesting story for Anthony Geary to come back to in the future.

What could lure him back to reprise his role? Geary says that there are many more interesting things that Luke Spencer could be a part of, and if the show does it right, he would definitely make a return.

“It depends on the writers and how far they want to look. We had just been repeating ourselves for a while. I had become a dad, a grandfather. There was no way I was going to stick around to become just another guy. If they come up with something, a twist, I would come for it.”

The weeks leading up to the actor’s farewell from the show has been full of memories and tears for many fans who have watched Anthony from his first air date back in 1978 until now. His famous wedding to Laura Spencer (Genie Francis) made soap history. Later on, his relationship with son Lucky (Jonathan Jackson) made Luke Spencer even more human. There was no one on screen that he didn’t have some sort of chemistry with.

Would you want Anthony Geary to come out of retirement to return to General Hospital, especially after such a huge farewell?

[Photo by Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images]

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