By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman
It’s not easy being a soap heroine – especially one who is doomed from the outset. Consider the unfortunate life story of Connie Falconeri a.k.a. Kate Howard on General Hospital. She was found shot to death on the show last week, her usefulness as perpetually over-the-top victim and ongoing pain in the butt finally at an end.
Kelly Sullivan
Now our evergreen anti-hero Sonny Corinthos is free to work his moody mobbed-up magic on yet another hapless female with a taste for bad guys. And so the misogynistic beat goes on.
Connie first came to Port Charles in 2007 in the guise of Kate Howard (played then by Megan Ward), a glamorous women’s magazine editor, cool and collected and full of the promise of intelligent femininity. But that promise soon evaporated as she became involved anew with Sonny Corinthos, her childhood sweetheart from back in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Eventually Kate agreed to marry Sonny, his shady doings notwithstanding. Her reward for her faith in him was getting shot in the middle of the wedding ceremony by one of Sonny’s enemies.
Kate was carried off and placed in GH limbo, there to stay until she was needed again. The call eventually came, and she returned to Port Charles (this time played by the dynamic Kelly Sullivan). And, for some nonsensical reason never made clear, she got involved with Sonny all over again.
Meanwhile, her own troubled past came into play. A n’er do well named Joe Scully came to town, and it was revealed that he had raped her, unleashing the double personalities of nasty Connie and sweet Kate. Connie, it was revealed, had abandoned her baby son Trey in a dresser drawer and run away to college, later making her way to New York City where she became the glamorous magazine editor.
But Connie’s past kept following her. She became increasingly hysterical, especially after Joe and Trey’s deaths. Her magazine, Crimson, got into trouble and so did the newspaper she edited, The Port Charles Press.
To increase the Press’ circulation, new owner Derek Wells (a.k.a. Julian Jerome) encouraged her to publish a secret she had found out from Sonny: that Kiki Jerome wasn’t a Quartermaine after all. That fact helped Tracy wrest control of ELQ away from a shocked A.J. Quartermaine. A.J., an alcoholic, went on a bender and took a gun out of the Quartermaine safe. Right afterward, Connie was found dead on the floor of her office.
Who killed Connie? Just before she died, Connie scribbled the letters “‘A.J.” in blood on a piece of cardboard next to her body. But was it really A.J. Quartermaine? He had an alcoholic blackout and doesn’t remember. It may also stand for Ava Jerome, Kiki’s mother, whose secret was exposed when Connie published the fact that Franco Quartermaine wasn’t Kiki’s father. Whoever shot her, Connie didn’t even get a funeral, so little does GH think of its tragic heroine.
But we will miss her anyway, thanks to the consistently bold and captivating work of Ms. Sullivan, with her big eyes full of fear and trembling upside down frown. Bon voyage, Ms. Sullivan. Here’s hoping we see you again soon somewhere else.
I agree that it is wrong that Connie didn’t get a funeral. I was hoping for one with Olivia, Dante, Lulu, Sonny and a few day players portraying her grieving family members. I too think the initials Connie scrawled in her blood belong to Ava Jerome. If that is the case, how will the truth surface?
The show has gotten better. I was astonished that Britt leveled with Patrick about the baby. Maybe she did that because she’s falling for Nicolas. Everyone will warn him about her and of course, he won’t listen.
I say, Kelly Sullivan as Kendall Hart! (No one else has noticed her resemblance to Sarah Michelle Gellar?)
In that pic (with the black background), she’s a dead ringer for Faith Hill’s album cover “Cry” in 2002.
RIP to the “other” soap Connie! Viva la Marlena!
Roman Seano: I do see that resemblance and I like that idea. I also read a suggestion that she take over Eve Donovan on DAYS and liked that too.
She might yet get a funeral. On the show, it is the next morning after her death, in fact everyone hasn’t been informed yet. But yes, soon the repulsive and obnoxious Sonny will be having a new bedwarmer, probably Connie’s two faced “best friend, cousin” Olivia who inexplicably now wants Sonny even though she hid the fact that he was the father of her son for almost 30 years because Sonny was a violent criminal – guess what dummy he still is!
I still haven’t gotten over the way the show threw Megan Ward to storyline Siberia in 2010 when Vanessa Marcil wanted to come back for six months tops. Ward was an EXCELLENT actress. I’m sorry but Kelly Sullivan was never 1/10 as intriguing and compelling as Ward.
I liked her as well.
I say its par for the course with this show. The talented actress is let go, and we get to keep mumbling mobster .I liked Connie, and she could have been taken out of the mob stories she was shot, also didn’t Michael also shoot her. I could be wrong because when there is tooo much mobs and molls and murder I tend to just shut the show off. Now we get a new mob family that’s not really new Just Wash, rinse and re-Ron. again. And didn’t we just come in on the two babies story when they hired FrankenRon.been there done that.
Claudia Zacchara (played by the original Carly actress Sarah Brown) was shot by Michael actually!
There are so many characters who are standing next to Sonny that get shot. They tend to get all tangled together. Glad that Michael is gone ! .Loved that he called AJ dad. he is his dad.
No, Michael really didn’t shoot Claudia, he actually killed her with an axe after Claudia was trying to kidnap Josslyn from Carly after she was born in the cabin out in the woods (Michael was played by Drew Garrett back then)!
Marlena, did you hear about PP shelving OLTL until their lawsuit with ABC is settled, and PP is only moving on with AMC to tape their second season yet? Thoughts?
No, Micheal really did accidentally shoot Megan Ward’s Kate Howard in spring 2008, although it was not intentional unlike his bludgeoning of Claudia with the ax handle. After Kate nearly died, she as inexplicably shot AGAIN by psycho mobster Anthony in the fall of 2008 in her wedding dress at the altar no less. This woman was so unlucky and like Marlena states the ‘perpetual OTP victim’. Now after every soap heroine cliche known to the rule books heaped upon her from split personalities, long forgotten insta-kids returning, rape, kidnapping, not to mention her own heinous crime sprees as ‘Connie’, doomed love affair w/ a mobster, cat fights w/ Carly, etc…and getting SHOT 3 TIMES, she doesn’t get her happy ending…she DIES on the floor of the very office where she toiled w/ her labor of love…CRIMSON..much like the color of blood that stained her fashionable white dress. Quite an allegory I would venture to say! Talk about the ultimate misogyny against today’s independent woman.
ava jerome killed connie falconeri not aj quartermaine lulu spencer and dante falconeri kinnapped maxies little baby connie and so michael quartermaine belongs to star corninthos sonny’s daughter morgan really belongs to sam mccall because ava and julian really mobsters in port charles but morgan corinthos is not really sonny’s son spencer cassadine