Anthony Geary and the Ice Princess

I found out a couple of days ago that actor Anthony Geary had passed away.  His most iconic role was Luke Spencer on the soap opera General Hospital.

Yeah, back in the early 1980's, I watched General Hospital. 

What brought a lot of eyeballs to the TV sets was the whole drama surrounding the romance of Luke Spencer and Laura Collins (Genie Francis).  

What got my attention was a plot to take over the world!!

It was my freshman year of college when I returned to my dorm room one afternoon and my roommate Eric was watching TV.

And I heard dialogue that sounded something like this.

"You're not going to get away with this!"

"Oh, you are TOO late!"

"No, we're still going to stop you!"

"You fools! I have the power I need and with one pull of this lever, my machine will FREEZE the WORLD!"

"You're MAD! Completely INSANE!"

And so forth and so on.

OK, it may not have been as hokey as all that but it's pretty damn close.

I asked Eric, "What silly Z-grade 1950's science fiction movie are you watching?" (Yeah, I really talked like that.)  

Eric replied, "It's General Hospital!" 

I was incredulous. "Are you kidding me? The soap opera?"

Eric was just as surprised as I was. "It's some pretty wild stuff!"

Wild stuff indeed. What was going on was a story line known as the Ice Princess, a large uncut diamond that could be used as a power source to power a freeze ray obtained by the nefarious Cassadines to take over the world.

Luke and Laura along with international super spy Robert Scorpio were the tag team trying to keep the Ice Princess out of the hands of the Casadines and stop it from being used to freeze the world.

Seriously, this was all happening on a soap opera that was ostensibly centered around a hospital. It's right there in the title of the show: General Hospital. 

Well, this show got my attention and damn it, I had to see how this all played out. 

And yeah, I got caught up despite myself in the romantic shenanigans of Luke and Laura and stuck around a long with 30 million other viewers to watch their wedding. 

Eventually I weaned myself off the show and found other ways to pass my time.

Like a real life girl to have sex with.  

I know it's hard to believe but yeah, it happened.

Back to the impetus of this blog, the passing of Anthony Geary.

I probably should say more about the man himself but I really don't have much to give in that department. I will say that I liked that Geary broke the cookie cutter mold that most other American soap opera actors adhered to.  

Geary did not look, sound or act like anyone else on daytime TV.