Jonathan Jackson and Genie Francis Getty Images (2)
The Spencer family is back!
General Hospital star Genie Francis — known by daytime soap opera fans the world over as the legendary Laura Spencer — will make her return to television next week, Entertainment Weekly reports. The Daytime Emmy winner will be reunited with her onscreen son Lucky, played by Jonathan Jackson, for the first time in nearly a decade.
After first appearing as Laura in 1977, Francis, 62, went on to appear in more than 1,700 episodes across 47 years. Her latest onscreen reunion is far from the first time she has exited the show only to return. In 2013, Francis came back to the show after acting for more than a year on the rival soap opera The Young and the Restless.
She returned again in 2018, after Francis’ contract on General Hospital was not renewed. “She did not want to leave the show as a series regular,” her agent, Arthur Tortzky, told Entertainment Weekly at the time. “It was not her choice to leave.”
It is never easy for fans to unexpectedly say goodbye to their favorite characters — and 2024 has featured an influx of shocking departures from our TV screens. In January, viewers learned that Josh Stewart would not be reprising his role as William LaMontagne Jr on Criminal Minds: Evolution. Stewart brought the role of JJ’s […]
Francis’ character Laura is best known for her on-again, off-again relationship with Luke Spencer (played by Anthony Geary). The duo ultimately split but share two onscreen children together: son Lucky (played by Jackson) and daughter Lulu (played by Emme Rylan).
(Lulu was also, and arguably most notably, played by Julie Marie Berman from 2005 to 2013.)
In June, it was announced that Jackson — who has played Laura and Luke’s son since 1993 when the actor was just 11 years old — would also return to the franchise. While Jackson hasn’t been a full-time staple on the show since 1999, he has periodically returned to General Hospital for short appearances in both 2009 and 2015.
Now, with Francis’ return, the mother-son duo will make their first joint appearance on the show since 2015, the last time Jackson played Luke on screen.
Many celebrities have soap operas to thank for launching their careers. Before becoming an Oscar winner, Julianne Moore got her start on As the World Turns in 1988. She portrayed sisters Frannie Hughes and Sabrina Hughes, which scored her a Daytime Emmy in 1988. Moore eventually exited the series to kickstart her film career. Like […]
In March 2023, executive producer and showrunner Frank Valentini gave fans some insight into what to expect as the show continues to move forward.
“We’re not focusing on the history,” Valentini, who has been with the show since 2012, told Variety. “We’re moving forward with the history. For a large part of the audience, it is an incredibly nostalgic, familiar show that they love to check in on. ”
During the same Variety interview, Francis joked that she thought the “show was going to be canceled when we started.” (For the uninitiated, Francis was just 15 years old when she joined the General Hospital cast.)
“I’m proud, very proud, to be a part of this show,” she said at the time. “And that it’s made it to 60 years — and that I’m still sitting here around the table talking about it!”
