ABC(2)
Little Girl Lost: Tony (Brad Maule) said a tragic good-bye to daughter B.J. (Brighton Hertford, l.), then listened to her heart beating in his niece Maxie’s chest.
Thirty years ago this week, General Hospital brought one of its most poignant stories to the screen when little B.J. Jones (Brighton Hertford) was killed in a school bus crash, and her heart was transplanted into her young cousin, Maxie Jones, who was in desperate need of the life-saving operation as she battled Kawasaki syndrome. The beautifully crafted storyline was lauded — and has long been remembered by fans — for its emotional sensitivity and power, and for the beautiful performances rendered by actors like Brad Maule (ex-Tony), Jacklyn Zeman (ex-Bobbie), Kristina Wagner (Felicia) and Jack Wagner (ex-Frisco).
GH Sets The Stage
The plot officially kicked off on February 22, when Felicia first learned that her daughter, Maxie, had spiked a dangerously high fever of 104. On March 10, Maxie was diagnosed with Kawasaki syndrome, which by the end of April led to congestive heart failure. Felicia’s fiancé, Mac, took off in the hopes of tracking down Maxie’s dad, Frisco, who was on assignment with the WSB. He was successful, and the two men returned to Port Charles, where time was running out for Maxie to receive a heart transplant. Opposite this, the marriage of Tony (Frisco’s brother) and Bobbie was in great jeopardy as Bobbie’s dangerous attraction to Damian blossomed. The same day their little girl, B.J., was going on a school field trip, Tony discovered Bobbie and Damian sharing a passionate kiss in a hospital stairwell and decked Damian. Little did they know that at that exact moment, the school bus B.J. was riding was involved in a catastrophic accident. Miguel extracted B.J. from the wreckage and she was rushed to G.H.
Nurse Amy Vining recognized the incoming patient and raced off to locate Bobbie and Tony, who were devastated when informed of B.J.’s condition. Tony examined his daughter and somberly realized that she was brain-dead — and could be a donor match for Maxie. He persuaded Bobbie to approve the transplant and, heartbroken, she said a final farewell to her daughter. Tony brought Monica up to speed, asking her not to let Frisco and Felicia know that it was B.J.’s heart Maxie would receive. While Tony said good-bye to B.J. at her bedside, Frisco and Felicia celebrated the apparent miracle in store for Maxie, but their good spirits vanished when Lucy’s slip of the tongue revealed to Felicia that Maxie was getting B.J.’s heart, which Tony confirmed to his brother. Over Monica’s objections, Tony insisted on being on the surgical team assisting Monica with the transplant. On May 19, after listening to his daughter’s heart beating in his niece’s chest, Tony delivered the news to his family that the transplant was successful. When he returned home, Tony angrily threw Bobbie out of the brownstone. Mac, meanwhile, called off his engagement to Felicia, certain she still loved Frisco.
A Lasting Legacy
Reflecting on the success and impact of the storyline, the late Jacklyn Zeman told Digest in 2015, “That was a case of everything clicking and the stars aligning to create something memorable — the writing, the performances, the directing, it all worked so beautifully. To this day, people still tell me how much the story affected them, how deeply they felt it. It was a heartbreaking story; the death of a child is the saddest, most horrifying thing to imagine. As Bobbie, I had B.J. before I had my daughters. I had all the drawings and watercolors Brighton Hertford made for me when she was a little girl up in my dressing room before my real kids were ever born. She was the sweetest, cutest little girl and we had real history together, so it was hard not to feel the emotions Bobbie had to feel or to cry the tears Bobbie cried. A lot of the performances you saw were instinctual, from Brad Maule, from Kristina [Wagner]. The week we shot that, it was long hours, long days, and exhausting. We were all running on fumes. That kind of material is hard to shake; even though it’s not real and you know it’s not real, your body doesn’t know the difference, and it really kind of wipes you out. Especially because I had young kids, it was a hard story to take on. As a parent, it feels very close to home, and it’s a scary thing to let your mind wander to. But we all wanted to do a great job and honor the material we were given because it was so beautifully written and so fantastic. And I was also mourning my relationship with Brighton, which I didn’t want to lose. She was the first person to ever call me Mommy! That gets to you, you know? I definitely cried real tears because I was so sad to be losing that relationship, having that time with her every day at the studio. I always remember how cute it was when we finished shooting one of the very dramatic scenes and she said, ‘You dripped on me!’ My tears had dripped down and gotten her face all wet.”
ABC PHOTO ARCHIVES
Sweet Sorrow: B.J.’s mother, Bobbie (Jacklyn Zeman, r.) and great-aunt, Ruby (Norma Connolly), were heartbroken by her passing.
In a 2019 interview with Digest, Brad Maule recalled the pivotal moment that Tony listened to B.J.’s heart beating in Maxie’s chest. “We shot it at the end of the day, and we had run out of time,” he began. “So, they were like, ‘Do you guys think you could just shoot this?’ They blocked it, but then they said, ‘Can we shoot the rehearsal?’ Jackie and I and all those people, I don’t want to brag, but we’re kind of pros, so we were like, ‘Yeah, let’s go for it!’ And they did. So those were rehearsals that we shot — and we shot them out of order, so B.J. was dead for my first scene and then she was alive and dying for the next scenes, so all your emotions were twisted all over the place. And when we shot where I leaned over to listen to her heart, my brother had had open-heart surgery and I was thinking, “’What if that was his heart, and I could hear him again?’ So, I had something to go on as an actor from that. And just imagine, if your child’s gone and you could hear their heart beating, ticking away, what it would mean to you. That’s all. I didn’t have to act. All I had to do was lean over and listen. The more meat on the bone in terms of writing, the less you need to bring to the table.” The following year, he told Digest, “Over the years, I had watched the scene where I lay my head down on Maxie and all that, and my scenes with Jackie, but I hadn’t watched — or had forgotten about — tell- ing Jack [as Frisco], the scene where he is all excited and happy about getting the heart [Maxie needs] and I say, ‘Well, you know, it’s my daughter’s heart.’ He was so good, you know? Jack is a really good actor, so he didn’t always have to dip real deep inside himself, because he just knows how to do it, and he’s a star. But that day, it seemed like, to me, he dug deeper than he had to do. I don’t know, it was just really good. I am one of those people where if the person I’m working with is really good, then it’s really easy for me to step up to the plate. And they make me better. And I feel like all of those scenes helped me as an actor, actually, all those people. Kristina [Wagner, Felicia] was really good in that aspect, too.”
Kristina Wagner echoed Maule’s sentiment about playing the scenes from a place of instinct. “I’m not going to discount the acting in that performance, but by that time, we’re talking the fourth or fifth day of showing up to work and crying and crying and crying; everyone was exhausted and it helped,” she told Digest in 2013. “That’s one of the advantages of doing a soap opera. You’re tired when you’re doing a storyline like that and the tears come so easily and the emotion is just so real and raw. It was a special scene [when Felicia learns the identity of Maxie’s heart donor and sinks to the floor]. I remember asking them, ‘Can I sit down when I find out?’ They said, ‘All right, let’s try it.’ I said, ‘I just feel like that’s what would happen. Wouldn’t you just go down?’ So we tried it and it worked and they liked it.”
While Brighton Hertford was just a child when she filmed the scenes of her character’s demise, they loom large in her memory. She tells Digest, “I called Jackie my other mommy or my second mom, and I [was close to] Brad, too. I remember that they wanted to use a body double, or they suggested using a body double for the times when B.J. was in a coma. I was like, ‘No! This is B.J., but me and B.J., we’re one and the same. I am her and she’s me, and this is my part.’ I also remember them being like, ‘Okay, Brighton, you can’t be crying while these people are saying their good-byes because you’re not really here, you’re in a coma.’ But those good-byes were so, so real to me.”
She is proud that the storyline looms so large in the memory of the GH fan base (read what she had to say when she recently returned to honor Zeman here). “It’s an honor,” she declares. “Especially when you think about how much good content there is out there, you know what I mean? These people who are working on soaps and giving those performances on a daily basis, just dropping in and being authentic, I mean, wow. And to have this be revered as one of the top stories in the larger canon of all of soap operas is a huge, huge honor. I have been aware of it over the years and I think it’s really cool that something that was such a big part of my life and so special and really kind of changed a lot for me in my life was a big thing for other people, as well. I was stopped in the grocery store and in post offices and people would cry because the story had impacted them so much, and that’s really neat. And one of the biggest things that stuck out to me, especially as an adult looking back on it, was that they talked about the importance of being an organ donor and at the end of the episode, they put up [information about how to become an organ donor]. I mean, what a giant heart hug that was, to know that may have inspired people to become organ donors. I thought that was so incredible of General Hospital to do, to make that a focus alongside the storyline. It’s really beautiful.”
