Anthony Geary has died. Best known for playing the infamous Luke Spencer, one half of the General Hospital supercouple, Luke and Laura, Geary died Sunday from complications from a surgery he underwent days prior, TV Insider reports. He was 78.
“Tony was a brilliant actor and set the bar that we continue to strive for,” said General Hospital executive producer Frank Valentini in a statement. “His legacy, and that of Luke Spencer’s, will live on through the generations of GH cast members who have followed in his footsteps. We send our sincerest sympathies to his husband, Claudio, family, and friends. May he rest in peace.”
Born in Coalville, Utah, in 1947, he left Utah for Hollywood after landing a role in the touring company of The Subject Was Roses. In 1970, He made his television debut on James L. Brooks’ high school dramedy Room 222 and followed that breakthrough with a role on All In The Family, playing a gay man who challenged Archie Bunker’s homophobia. Geary plugged right into the TV landscape of the time, appearing on Mod Squad, The Partridge Family, and Mannix, as well as making his first run on daytime TV on Bright Promise and The Young And The Restless.
In 1978, he landed the role that made him famous: General Hospital’s Luke Spencer. While he eventually grew into an anti-hero, Spencer was “a complete bastard” early on, Geary told People in 1980. “He was a cheap little punk who managed a disco and was a dope runner for the Mafia.” To wit, the soap opera supercouple, Luke and Laura, one of television’s most infamous pairings, began with Luke raping Laura. The relationship would come to define the soap opera “supercouple,” garnering controversy over the couple’s violent beginnings and drawing millions of viewers, which made General Hospital the most popular soap of the era. More than 30 million people watched the couple’s November 1981 wedding, still the highest-rated soap opera episode in history. The wedding guests included Elizabeth Taylor, who cameoed in the episode, and Princess Diana sent champagne.
“We came under a lot of fire from feminist groups and rightfully so from victim groups,” Geary said of the storyline in 2015. “If you look at the way it started, it was sort of fated to end badly. They had two children that they adore, but they grew apart. In a soap, you can’t just have them go off into the sunset together unless you’re going to have the characters leave the show. So, to stay on the show, there has to be conflict.”
After leaving General Hospital in 1984, Geary focused on film and theater. One of his most memorable roles was playing the in-house mad scientist, Philo, in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s UHF. He also starred in Disorderlies opposite the Fat Boys, a 1987 Perry Mason case, and reprised the role of Luke Spencer in a 1994 episode of Rosanne.
As Luke Spencer, Geary won a record-breaking eight Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama. Before leaving the show in 1984, he had been nominated three times and won once. He returned to the series in 1991 as the Luke Spencer look-alike Bill Eckert, who would be killed off the following year, giving Spencer a chance to return. Geary continued to receive Daytime Emmy nominations throughout the rest of his tenure. In 1999, he won his second Emmy and would go on to win six more times. He retired from acting in 2015.
Geary is survived by his husband Claudio Gama, whom he married in 2019.
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