#lukespencer

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Anthony Geary, the legendary actor behind Luke Spencer on General Hospital, has passed away at the age of 78.

Luke and Laura were more than a storyline — they were a cultural phenomenon. Eight Daytime Emmys. Decades of unforgettable television.

Rest in peace to a true icon. 🕯️✨

[fairygodmotherlives-blog]

Saying Good-bye to Luke Spencer

It’s getting on toward the end of July.  That’s when we’re suppose to say good-bye to Luke Spencer forever.  And I don’t know how to do that.

He’s been around since I was a girl, in one incarnation or another. When I was young, I was totally in love with him.  Of course, he was way too old for me, and I knew that, but half the world was in love with Luke Spencer, so it was allowed.  

It’s not like he was going to come to life and show up on my doorstep to ask for my underage hand, was it?

He is adventure and excitement.  He is funny and tender.  He is a misunderstood romantic.  He loves his family and is loyal to them.  Eventually, he became a good father, or certainly, a better father than a lot of kids get.  All the good things you want in a man covered with a bad guy wrapper.

Setting aside the actor who creates him for now...

The character of Luke Spencer is an anti-hero.  He was born about the same time as Han Solo of “Star Wars” fame who was the ani-hero of the 1970s. Perhaps Luke’s creation was inspired by the idea of rebellious Han?  However, Luke Spencer could back up his bad boy image more than I think Han ever did on film.  

By the time Luke Spencer was truly smoking up the TV screen every afternoon, “Empire Strikes Back” made us all fall irrevocably in love with Han Solo.  Two anti-heros for a generation.  The parallels are there, both of a same coloring and body type, both falling in love with the wrong girl.  Even had the name Luke in each story.

Han Solo stopped on screen in the early 80s, and so did Luke Spencer, riding off into the sunset with Laura.  Just as well, the younger set had to turn our minds to getting educations and then jobs, not watching daytime TV, but by the time Luke and Laura returned, we all had VCRs and were old enough to appreciate him even more.  Luke endured, Han became a treasured nostalgic memory. We didn’t have action figures of Luke Spencer.

For us, Luke lived.  He got older.  He had more adventures, more heartache, more triumphs.  

We loved him more.  The older we have gotten, the narrower the gap.  Luke might be old as the hills (60ish now) but he still has the spark, the swagger, the bad boy ways that make us want to tame him.  Once you’re over 30, age doesn’t matter so much and we all still want Luke Spencer.  Which is one reason, I tend to be in the Laura camp, though my head tells me Tracey is the right woman for Luke now.  I am Laura, the too-young girl in love with the older bad boy-man.  I’m probably more like Tracey now, but I still want to be Laura, running hand in hand with Luke away from danger.

So, it wouldn’t surprise me to find Laura pining over him, too, although, clearly, too much history has taken Luke’s passionate feelings away from Laura.  It happens in real life, too, doesn’t it?  Life gets in the way.  Great and grand love falls apart.    We want Luke and Laura to ride off in the sunset.  They did once, didn’t they?  But they came back and we found out that life is not the fairy tale we think.  

Yes, it is all make believe, Luke and Laura.  Or Luke and Holly. Or Luke and Tracey.  But make believe endures.  Look at Prince Charming.  Or Rumpelstiltskin.

Luke has charmed us since day one, despite disco, permed hair and smarmy origins.  How could we like him? When you look at the bare facts, Luke was fairly gross, right?  The attraction I attribute to the magnificent actor, Anthony Geary, who took the words on the page and breathed life into Luke Spencer, anti-hero, making him a fascinating, complex, sexy character.  

I’m sure it is frustrating to an actor to be stuck in one role forever.  I know Mr. Geary did do other things, though, thankfully, he never left Luke for dead.  This makes me fell guilty, as I know Anthony Geary to be a tremendous actor.  I feel like he should have been able to do more acting away from “General Hospital” and perhaps the role of Luke Spencer held him back?  I hate that.  I would like to hope that leaving Luke Spencer means we can see him crop up in feature films, at least, with intense character roles, but perhaps he does just want to retire.  He certainly deserves to put his feet up and take it easy.

He deserves it after entertaining us.  Luke Spencer has made me laugh and cry and scream, many times over the years.  Even when I gave up watching for awhile because I thought it was bad for me, I never forgot him.  I suppose you don’t forget first love.  Certainly don’t forget it when it can return to you an hour a day, five days a week.

He has given us 37 years of Luke Spencer, a lifetime of memories and dreams.

I would like to thank Douglas Marland for creating Luke, and Gloria Monty for allowing him and nurturing him.  I would like to thank the loyal fans of “General Hospital” for keeping it going, even as daytime dramas are dying every year.  I started watching again a few years ago, when I realized if I didn’t watch, they wouldn’t be around for my golden years.  I looked forward to a nonagenarian Luke in a wheelchair, like Anna Lee, who played beloved Lila Quartermaine.  Anthony Geary is such an excellent actor, I had every confidence he could play a sexy Luke at 92.

Alas, we won’t get that pleasure.  Luke is leaving for good, they say, and I dread how that will happen.  I know it is not possible to replace Anthony Geary and if he says done, then done it is.  I can’t see any scenario where I’d be happy with Luke’s ending.  I suppose he will be killed off.  It is the most final. 

I just don’t want Luke to die.  

I’d rather he leave, perhaps to save his loved ones.  He would leave, to go help a friend and disappear, perhaps with a shine of tears as he closes the front door, letting us know he is truly leaving.  But what I’d really like, of course, is him to fall in love with Laura again, and leave with her to save their friends, family and Port Charles.  It would be as good as going with him myself.

The secret of Luke was he was always the hero, even when he was not.  He was flawed, but he made us laugh.  Maybe he didn’t want to be the hero, and he did bad things, but we could forgive him because in the end, he would do the right thing and save us all.

No matter what happens, he will endure, wandering forever, with a wink and a smile for the girl that lives in all of us, all the girls who will never forget Lucas Lorenzo Spencer.