Anthony Geary

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SOAP STAR STATS

Anthony Geary (Luke, GH)

Vital Statistics

The 411

Anthony Geary grew up in Coalville, Utah — which actually had no coal, just one diamond in the rough and around 799 other people. Although his family's business was construction, it was the arts that fueled Geary. By the age of 6, "I was writing stories and reading and building cabins on the hillside and running across the mountains with cheesecloth tied around my head," Geary recalled. Eventually, all that running around and natural talent landed him a Presidential Award scholarship in theater to the University of Utah. It didn't take long for the dynamic performer to be "discovered" at a university production. He was cast in a touring production of The Subject Was Roses, and wooed to Los Angeles to pursue the stage.

In 1978, after a string of theatrical credits and roles in both prime-time and daytime TV, the actor joined the cast of GENERAL HOSPITAL as Luke Spencer. Now one of the most popular characters in daytime history, the role was originally supposed to last just 13 weeks. "Nobody expected Luke Spencer to be anything but a colorful, eccentric dash of spice," he recalled. But Geary became an insta-star, and fan response kept the character around. In the early '80s, under the lead of legendary executive producer Gloria Monty, Geary and Genie Francis (ex-Laura) turned their characters into a pop-culture phenomenon — one with a disturbing side. Geary described his "most vivid memory of fans" from that golden era. During a mall appearance in Chicago, "There was this thunderous noise, which turned out to be this chant: 'Rape me, Luke! Rape me!' All I can remember about it was the crowd of people looked like one great anonymous beast that was about to devour me."

Geary left Port Charles in 1984, in part because of that kind of response to Luke and also because, "I was burned out. I was young, and I didn't know how to sustain that performance day after day without living it. It was all too much." An older, wiser and rejuvenated Geary returned to GH in 1991 as Luke's cousin Bill Eckert. But it wasn't long before the real deal made a comeback: Luke Spencer came home for good in 1993.

Geary now lives in Amsterdam with his beloved cats and commutes to L.A. several times a year for work.

Et Cetera

Five Random Facts
—Co-starred with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas in YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS.
—Claims to be the world's oldest hip-hop dancer.
—If he could live his life again he would finish school and get a Ph.D. in theater.
—He received a Cindy Award as a producer for the drama Sound of Sunshine, Sound of Rain, a children's story for public radio.
—Luke and Laura's November 1981 wedding was the most watched event in daytime history.

Other Roles

Guest-Starring TV Roles
ALL IN THE FAMILY (Roger, 1971)
THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY (Greg Houser, 1972)
BARNABY JONES (Jim Anders, 1977)
STARSKY & HUTCH (Delano, 1978)
MURDER, SHE WROTE (KGB Lt. Theodore Alexandrov, 1989; Eric Grant, 1990)
ROSEANNE (Luke Spencer, 1994)

TV Movie Roles
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (Octavius Caesar, 1983)

Film Roles
Carpool Guy (Carpool Guy, 2005)
UHF (Philo, 1989)
Dangerous Love (Mickey, 1988)
Pass the Ammo (Stonewall, 1988)
Johnny Got His Gun (Redhead, 1971)

Theatre
Human Scratchings
The Wild Duck
The Glass Menagerie
The Cat's Paw
Barrabas
Inspector General
The American Nightmare
Chinese Zero
Jesus Christ Superstar
The Subject was Roses

Memorable Quotes

Luke Who's Talking
"I guarantee you, in my obituary, it will say, 'Tony Geary — Luke on GENERAL HOSPITAL — died today.' That was really hard for me, because my whole reason for being an actor, my whole dream about it, was that I'd have an opportunity to dissolve into a million personalities. So what I've done instead is I've refused to let Luke be anything but a million different personalities. If I must play him, then he must serve me, as well. So long as I live, he will not be a sofa cushion." — Soap Opera Weekly, 5/11/99

"What Gloria created with Douglas Marland and that whole early team, and the attention to detail that they put into these characters and how they put them together, made for such a strong foundation. The fact that Gloria never thought of it as a rape is what made it brilliant, non-cliché. She never saw it as a rape, and yet, as a director, she told Genie to play it as a rape. She always thought of it as a seduction, and she instilled in me that it was a seduction, but the aftermath of it was rape. So that meant that in the moment of that evening, [Luke] was not fully present. I mean, the man has been devoted to this woman to an almost psychotic degree as a result of that night. And their relationship never would have been the same had they just met and fallen in love." — Weekly, 5/11/99

"Genie Francis grew up on GENERAL HOSPITAL; I grew old." — Weekly, 5/11/99

"It's always difficult for Luke to be without Laura. And I miss Genie, I miss the connection that we have and the trust that you can have with another actor. It's probably more difficult for the writers. We had to really take a look at who Luke is without her, so the writers and I had a discussion about that. We decided we had to find out who is he today, and we're in the process of finding that out. Laura will always be part of him. She was his humanity. Without her, I think he runs the risk of turning in to the darkness of his soul and never coming out. But there is a whole lot more to find out about him." — Weekly, 6/14/05

"[Tracy has] always been one of the women that he's wondered about, primarily because of her money and her station. Now, having spent time with her, I do think that they have sex!" — Weekly, 5/2/06

You Should Hear What People Have To Say About You!
"Tony will say, 'What do you want to do here?' and I'll say, 'Well, we started out on this path, so let's stay on this path.' We make it happen.'" — Tristan Rogers (Scorpio, GH), in a Weekly online interview, 2/7/06

"The last time I worked with Tony, he was Bill, so this is going to be great. For me, the most fun part of playing Holly was playing the big love triangle with Luke and Scorpio. Holly was going to be deported, so she got together with Scorpio, then just as she fell in love with him [for real], Luke's back!" — Emma Samms (Holly, GH), Weekly, 2/28/06

"My favorite story about Tony from the old days is when he was huge and got unbelievable amounts of fan mail, packages and gifts, which he would heave into the corner of his dressing room and ignore. One of them said 'perishable,' and he ignored it. It was a rock Cornish game hen. It decomposed over the weekend and went into the air conditioning ducts." — Jane Elliot (Tracy, GH), Weekly, 1/17/06

Anthony Geary's Actor's Page>>>

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