How ‘General Hospital’ Said Goodbye to the Iconic Luke Spencer

variety.com:

Kate Aurthur editorEarly this year, “General Hospital” killed off Luke Spencer, the iconic character who was played by Anthony Geary on and off for decades.

Luke’s current wife Tracy Quartermaine (Jane Elliot) turned up at the door of his ex-wife Laura (Genie Francis) — whose coupledom with Luke sent “General Hospital” to its stratospheric heights in the early 1980s — to tell her the tragic news.

Luke had been killed, under mysterious circumstances, of course, in a cable-car accident in Austria.On Friday, the show memorialized Luke, with his old friends gathering to celebrate him on the Haunted Star (if you know, you know).Frank Valentini, the executive producer of “General Hospital,” isn’t doing interviews about why he decided to kill off Luke now, especially since Geary, who is 74, hasn’t been on the show since a guest appearance in 2017.

But Luke’s death has indeed provided a rich storytelling opportunity, first as Luke’s friends — and Geary’s old castmates — learned of his death, and then on Friday’s episode as they mourned him. “General Hospital” has a significant number of cast members from Geary’s era who continue to regularly appear on the show, such as Francis (now the mayor of Port Charles!), Tristan Rogers (Robert Scorpio, super spy) and Jacklyn Zeman (Bobbie, Luke’s sister, whom he always affectionately called Barbara Jean).