General Hospital

General Hospital
Created by	Frank and Doris Hursley
Written by	Ron Carlivati
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	14,000 (as of February 23, 2018)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Selig J. Seligman (1963) James Young (1963–75) Tom Donovan (1975–77) Gloria Monty (1978–87, 1991–92) H. Wesley Kenney (1987–89) Joseph Hardy (1989–91) Wendy Riche (1992–2001) Jill Farren Phelps (2001–12) Frank Valentini (2012–present)
Running time	30 minutes (1963–1976) 45 minutes (1976–1978) 60 minutes (1978–present)
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	April 1, 1963 – present
Chronology
Followed by	Port Charles
Related shows	All My Children The City Loving One Life to Live Ryan's Hope

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General Hospital (known as GH) is an American daytime television drama that is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest running drama in television currently in production, as well as the third longest running soap opera in American history, after Guiding Light. Concurrently, it is also the world's third longest-running scripted drama series currently in production after British soap operas The Archers and Coronation Street, as well as the second longest running television soap opera still in production following Coronation Street. General Hospital debuted April 1, 1963 on the ABC Television network. It currently also holds the record for most Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series, with ten wins.

Created by husband-and-wife soap writers Frank and Doris Hursley, the series was originally set in a general hospital of an unnamed community, until it was dubbed Port Charles, New York in the late 1970s. In the beginning, General Hospital starred John Beradino and Emily McLaughlin as Dr. Steve Hardy and Nurse Jessie Brewer, respectively. Both Beradino and McLaughlin would remain with the series until their deaths in the early 1990s. In 1964, they were joined by Rachel Ames as Audrey March, who remains the longest running actress on an ABC soap opera, having ended her run in 2007. General Hospital became the second soap opera to air on the ABC television network, following the short-lived Road to Reality, which only aired for several months during the 1960-61 television season. In 1964, a sister soap was created for General Hospital, intitled The Young Marrieds, which only ran for two years and was canceled due to low ratings. General Hospital has since spawned two direct spinoffs from itself: Port Charles, which aired in the ABC daytime lineup from 1997 to 2003, and General Hospital: Night Shift, which aired two twelve episode seasons on SOAPnet from 2007 to 2008.

Currently taped at The Prospect Studios, General Hospital originally aired for a half hour from the series debut until July 23, 1976, The show was then expanded to 45 minutes on July 26, 1976, and then to 60 minutes on January 16, 1978.

The wedding of highly popular "super couple" Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) still remains the most watched hour of American daytime soap in television history.

Ever since the late 1970s, most of the show's storylines have revolved around the Quartermaine, Spencer, or Scorpio families. From 1979 to 1988, General Hospital was the number one most watched daytime soap opera on television, which has now been succeeded by The Young and the Restless. The series' success during this time was largely to do with the monumentally popular "supercouple" of Luke Spencer and Laura Webber, whose 1981 wedding brought in 30 million viewers, and remains the highest-rated hour of television in American soap opera history. In 2007, Time Magazine named General Hospital one of the magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-Time". In April 2009, the series began broadcasting in High Definition.

Following the cancellation of Guiding Light on September 18, 2009, and the cancellation of As the World Turns on September 17, 2010, General Hospital now holds the destination of being the oldest American soap opera currently airing. As well, following the cancellation of All My Children on September 23, 2011, and the cancellation of One Life to Live on January 13, 2012, General Hospital is currently the last remaining soap opera on the ABC television network.

On April 11, 2012, ABC renewed General Hospital after 49 years due to high costs and high ratings, and therefore canceled instead a talk show The Revolution, which premiered January 16, 2012 and ended July 6, 2012. On September 10, 2012, and three days after both Our Screams Can Last and Good Afternoon America ended, General Hospital moved from the timeslot of 3:00PM Eastern to the new timeslot of 2:00PM Eastern, while Katie Couric's talk show Katie premiered in the 3:00PM Eastern timeslot. On December 21, 2012, both All My Secrets and General Hospital became the two oldest American soap operas on the air after Passionate Dreams aired its final episode on BGC.

General Hospital celebrated its 50th Anniversary on April 1, 2013 alongside All My Secrets and aired its 13,000th episode on February 24, 2014.

In January 2014, ABC again renewed General Hospital due to high ratings for another new season, a month after it canceled Katie due to low ratings.

General Hospital aired its 14,000th episode on February 23, 2018, and celebrated its 55th anniversary on April 1, 2018, with a 55th Anniversary episode that aired on April 2, 2018.

Series History

John Beradino and Emily McLaughlin as Dr. Steve Hardy and Nurse Jessie Brewer

Launched on April 1st, 1963, the first stories of General Hospital were largely set in an unnamed mid-sized Eastern city, and revolved around Dr. Steve Hardy (John Beradino), and his friend, Nurse Jessie Brewer (Emily McLaughlin). As Chief of Internal Medicine on the hospital's seventh floor, Steve dedicated his life to healing and caring for the sick, and was ably assisted by Nurse Jessie. Jessie's turbulent marriage to the much-younger Dr. Phil Brewer (Roy Thinnes, then Martin West) was the center of many of the series' early storylines. In 1964, the woman who would finally win Steve's heart, Audrey March, arrived in town. A former flight attendent, Audrey was the younger sister of Nurse Lucille Weeks, who was married to hospital janitor Al Weeks. However, Audrey spent time as the wife of both alcoholic Dr. Jim Hobart and Dr. Tom Baldwin, and even had Tom's son, before she finally realized that she loved Steve.

Other nurses that had an impact at General Hospital during the series' early years included Meg Bentley, who was the mother of young Scott Baldwin and stepmother to troubled teen Brooke Clinton. Meg ended up marrying Lee Baldwin, Tom Baldwin's brother, who adopted Scott. Following Meg's death, Lee met and married Caroline Chandler, who also died, before finally settling down with Gail Adamson and raising Scott. Nurse Diana Taylor was torn between two men, Dr. Peter Taylor and Dr. Phil Brewer. Sharon McGillis married shy Dr. Henry Pinkham. Jane Harland was married to businessman Howie Dawson, and the two shared a daughter, all while having Howie's mother live with them. In 1972, Howie began an affair with Brooke, and when she spurned his advances, she was found murdered.

In 1973, Augusta McLeod came to town and set in motion events that would come to impact the series for years to come. Pregnant with Peter Taylor's child, Augusta arranged for Phil Brewer to return to town, in order to break up Peter and Diana. In December 1974, Phil was murdered, and Jessie was tried for his murder after she was found with Phil's body and the murder weapon, a paper weight. Jessie was eventually acquitted, and Augusta was uncovered as the murderer and was sent to prison, where she gave birth to her son, who was given up for adoption.

During the 1980s, characters such as Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) and Holly Sutton (Emma Samms) became immensely popular through a series of action and adventure storylines.

In the 1980s, the series featured several high-profile action and adventure storylines, many of which featured location shooting at sites including Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, Niagra Falls, Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, Atlantic City, Catalina Island, California and San Antonio, Texas.

During the 1990s, General Hospital entered into a transitional phase as the action/adventure storylines of the 1980s became less popular. The show gained critical acclaim for its sensitive handling of social issues, beginning with the death of eight year old B.J. Jones, the young daughter of Dr. Tony Jones (Brad Maule) and then wife Nurse Bobbie Spencer (Jacklyn Zeman), in a bus crash. Subsequently, B.J.'s heart was donated to her dying cousin, Maxie Jones (then Robyn Richards). Shortly afterwards, Dr. Monica Quartermaine (Leslie Charleson) began a battle with breast cancer, which to her adopting Emily Bowen (then Amber Tamblyn), whose mother had died of the disease. The series also received praise for a beautiful yet tragic story of young love involving teenagers Stone Cates (Michael Sutton) and Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough). Following a struggle that lasted throughout most of the 1995 calender year, Stone died from AIDS at the age of 19 and his death prompted storylines that involved the then 17 year old Robin coping with being HIV-positive as the result of her and Stone's relationship. Sutton was nominated for a daytime emmy award for Outstanding Supporting Actor, and McCullough won an Oustanding Younger Actress award.

On December 14th, 1996, General Hospital aired one of three primetime episodes intitled General Hospital: Twist of Fate, which picked up where the preceding Friday's episode had left off, and centered around Laura Spencer's (Genie Francis) supposed death at the hands of Stefan Cassadine (Stephen Nichols).

On February 20th, 2006, General Hospital aired its 11,000th episode, and roughly four years later, on February 23rd, 2010, the series aired its 12,000th episode. On April 23rd, 2009, the series became the first ABC daytime drama to be taped and broadcast in high defintion. The move made General Hospital the second daytime soap opera to make the transition to hi-def.

Cast

The following contains information regarding the current contract and recurring cast members of General Hospital, as well as those whose entrance to or exit from the series is impending. For a list of former General Hospital cast members, please see List of Former General Hospital Cast Members.

Current Cast Members

Actor	Character	Duration
Maurice Benard	Sonny Corinthos	1993-
Steve Burton	Jason Morgan	1991-2012, 2017-
Marcus Coloma	Nikolas Cassadine	2019-
William DeVry	Julian Jerome	2013-
Chad Duell	Michael Corinthos	2010-
Michael Easton	Hamilton Finn	2016-
Genie Francis	Laura Spencer	1977-1984, 1993-2002, 2006, 2008, 2013. 2015-
Nancy Lee Grahn	Alexis Davis	1996-
Briana Nicole Henry	Jordan Ashford	2018-
Rebecca Herbst	Elizabeth Webber	1997-
Roger Howarth	Franco	2013-
Finola Hughes	Anna Devane	198-1992, 1995, 2006-2008, 2012-
William Lipton	Cameron Spencer	2018-
Katelyn MacMullen	Willow Tate	2018-
Sofia Mattsson	Sasha Gilmore	2018-
Eden McCoy	Josslyn Jacks	2015-
Sydney Mikayla	Trina Robinson	2019-
Kelly Monaco	Sam McCall	2003-
Ingo Rademacher	Jasper Jacks	1996-2013, 2016-2017, 2019-
Wes Ramsey	Peter August	2017-
Emme Rylan	Lulu Spencer	2013-
Kirsten Storms	Maxie Jones	2005-
Josh Swickard	Harrison Chase	2018-
Donnell Turner	Curtis Ashford	2015-
Cynthis Watros	Nina Reeves	2019-
Maura West	Ava Jerome	2013-
Laura Wright	Carly Corinthos	2005-
Dominic Zamprogna	Dante Falconeri	2009-

Recurring cast members

Actor	Character	Duration
Lexi Ainsworth	Kristina Davis	2009–11, 2015–
Bradford Anderson	Damian Spinelli	2006-
Real Andrews	Marcus Taggert	1996-2003, 2020-
Nicolas Bechtel	Spencer Cassadine	2013-
Tahj Bellow	TJ Ashford	2018-
Paulina Bugembe	Valerie Spencer	2019-
Dan Buran	Linc Brown	2020
Bonnie Burroughs	Gladys Corbin	2019-
Leslie Charleston	Dr. Monica Quartermaine	1977-
Derk Cheetwood	Max Giambetti	2002-
Drew Cheetwood	Milo Giambetti	2006-
Christopher Cousins	Dr. Kirk	2020-
Celesta DeAstis	Franchesca Cavallo	2018-
Kim Delaney	Jackie Templeton	2020
Risa Dorken	Amy Driscoll	2016-
Sonya Eddy	Epiphany Johnson	2006-
Jane Elliot	Tracy Quartermaine	1978-1980, 1989-1993, 1996, 2003-2017, 2019-
Kyle and Caleb Ends	James West	2019-
Porter Fasullo	Danny Morgan	2019-
Scarlett Fernandez	Charlotte Cassadine	2015-
Lilly Fisher	Georgie Spinelli	2017-
Kathleen Gati	Dr. Liesl Obrecht	2012-
Patrick J. Gibbons Jr.	Wyatt Hoover	2018-
Nigel Gibbs	Marcus Godfrey	2018-
Nathaniel Harrison	Sergeant Robinson	2006-
Gregory Harrison	Gregory Chase	2020-
Carolyn Hennesy	Diane Miller	2007-
Lynn Herring	Lucy Coe	1985-1991, 1993-1997, 2004, 2012-
Janet Hubert	Yvonne Godfrey	2018-
Emma and Ella Hullen	Donna Corinthos	2019-
Cassandra James	Terry Randolph	2018-
Michael E. Knight	Martin Gray	2019-
Brooke Kerr	Portia Robinson	2019-
Jeff Kober	Cyrus Renault	2020
Wally Kurth	Ned Quartermaine	1991-2007, 2012-
David S. Lee	Winston Rudge	2016-2017, 2020
Jon Linstrom	Dr. Kevin Collins	1993-2002, 2004, 2013-
Lisa LoCicero	Olivia Falconeri	2008-
Jophielle Love	Violet Finn	2010-
O'Neill Monahan	Rocco Falconeri	2017-
Anthony Montgomery	Andre Maddox	2015-
Haley Pullos	Molly Lansing	2009-
Ella Ramacieri	Scout Cain	2019-
Tristan Rogers	Robert Scorpio	1980–92, 1995, 2006, 2008, 2012–
Emma Samms	Holly Sutton-Scorpio	1982-198, 1992-1993, 2006, 2009, 2012-2013, 2015, 2020
Marc Anthony Samuel	Felix Dubois	2013-
Ava and Grace Scarola	Avery Jerome	2014-
Amanda Setton	Brook Lynn Ashton	2019-
Brooklyn Rae Silzer	Emma Scorpio Drake	2011-2018, 2020
Parry Shen	Brad Cooper	2013-
Kin Shriner	Scott Baldwin	1977-1983, 1987-1993, 1998, 2000-2004, 2007-2008, 2013-
Steven A. Smith	Brick	2016-
Jonathan Stanley	Billy Price	2019-
James Patrick Stuart	Valentine Cassadine	2016-
Kelly Thiebaud	Britt Westbourne	2015-2015, 2017-2018, 2020
Constance Towers	Helena Cassadine	1997-2007, 2009-2017, 2019-
Matt Trudeau	Lucas Jones	2020
Johnny Wactor	Brando Corbin	2020
Kristina Wagner	Felicia Scorpio	1984-2005, 2007-2008, 2012-
Kelsey Wang	Daisy	2018-
Vernee Watson-Johnson	Stella Henry	2017-
Hudson West	Jake Spencer	2016-
Jon J. York	Mac Scorpio	1991-
William Allen Young	David Walters	2014-
Maysoon Zayid	Zahra Amir	2019-
Jacklyn Zeman	Bobbie Spencer	1977-2010, 2013-

Cast changes

Returning

Actor	Character	Date
Chad Brannon	TBA	March 2021

Opening Sequence

Since the series' debut in 1963, General Hospital has featured six opening title sequence packages and five theme songs. From 1963 until 1967, an announcer said "General Hospital... brought to you by (product name)", and when the show moved to color on October 30th, 1967 until the early 1970s, announcer Ed Chandler would state "General Hospital in color". Just prior to the commercial break, Chandler would say "We'll return to General Hospital in just a moment", but this was phased out of the series during the early 1970s. From 1973 to 1976, Chandler would simply say "General Hospital". General Hospital was the final ABC program to move to color.

For the closing credits sequence, Chandler's original line from late 1963 until the 1970s was "This is Ed Chandler inviting you to tune in every day, Monday through Friday, for General Hospital". This was discontinued in July 1976. Subsequently, the only such show announcements became the daily sponsor tags by ABC staff announcers ("ABC's General Hospital, brought to you by...") and until the late 1990s, that immediately preceded the title at the end of the opening sequence. Currently, such announcements are placed on network bumpers after the first scene.

Although Ed Chandler ceased his live announcing duties in 1976, a recording of his voice was retained for the first mid-program bumper. There continued to be two mid-program bumpers until January 1978, when a third was added during mid-break, after station identification, in order to represent the series' expansion to an hour. The three-bumper format remained in place until 1986, with only the first and last mid-bumpers remaining. Beginning in 1986, a muted display of the zooming title from the opening sequence was inserted to accomodate the mandate for affiliates to run their station ID over a program's logo or still. Ed Chandler's recorded mid-break annoucement on the first bumper remained until 1989, after which well-know voice actor Bill Ratner began voicing "General Hospital will continue in a moment".

In 1992, Ratner's voiceover was replaced with that of various General Hospital cast members saying "General Hospital will continue in a moment", with "...here on ABC" being added to the line in 1996. From late 1996 to September 1999, various cast members would introduce next episode previews off camera.

Since the fall of 1999, mid-bumpers and previews have been done on network graphics. These were cut in 2008, due to budget cuts.

Opening Title Cards

Schedule

Start date	End date	Time slot (ET/CT)	Run time (minutes)
April 1, 1963	December 27, 1963	1:00 pm/12 noon	30
December 30, 1963	July 23, 1976	3:00 pm/2:00 pm
July 26, 1976	January 13, 1978	3:15 pm/2:15 pm	45
January 16, 1978	September 7, 2012	3:00 pm/2:00 pm	60
September 10, 2012	Present	2:00 pm/1:00 pm

ABC stations in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, and in Alaska and Hawaii follow a Central time zone schedule for daytime programming; thus, General Hospital is scheduled by the network to air at 1:00 pm in these areas.

1. Template:Note In September 2014, General Hospital reclaimed its former time slot of 3:00 pm Eastern/2:00 Central and Pacific on ABC owned-and-operated stations in New York City, Philadelphia, Raleigh–Durham, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Los Angeles; and affiliate KSAT-TV in San Antonio.

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Main Crew Members

The following contains information regarding the current crew members of General Hospital. For information regarding former General Hospital crew members, please see List of Former General Hospital Crew Members.

Current Crew Members

Position	Personnel
Executive Producer	Frank Valentini
Producers	Mercer Barrows Deborah Genorese Michelle Henry Mary O'Leary
Directed by	William Ludel Scott McKinsey Owen Renfroe Phideaux Xavier
Head Writer	Ron Carlivati
Associate Head Writer/Script Editor	Elizabeth Korte
Breakdown Writers	Shelly Altman Sasha Cartullo Michael Conforti Nathan Fissel David Goldschmid Heidi Ploen Jim Reitzel Garin Wolf
Script Writers	Karen Harris Elizabeth Korte Mary Sue Price Susan Wald
Casting Directors	Gwen Hillier Mark Teschner
Costume Design	Mary Iannelli