Luke and Laura, the happy couple
Where were you on November 16 and 17, 1981? If you were alive, chances are you were one of the record 30 million Americans who watched the wedding of Lucas Lorenzo Spencer (played by Anthony Geary) and Laura Webber Baldwin (played by Genie Francis) on ABC’s General Hospital. Featured on the covers of both People and Newsweek, the wedding marked the moment when soap operas stopped being considered a form of inferior entertainment and rightfully entered the mainstream. Indeed, in the months leading up to the wedding, Luke and Laura’s romance had become a national obsession.
How did a single story line change the entertainment world? It was put together by a smart and talented executive producer, Gloria Monty; a duo of great writers (first Doug Marland, then Pat Falken Smith); charismatic actors; and the input of almighty ABC Daytime, which recognized that attracting a younger demographic would lead to higher profits.
Luke and Laura’s romance started off on an ominous note: 19-year-old newlywed Laura Baldwin was raped by Luke when she went to work at his campus disco. The scene, with Herb Alpert’s thumping “Rise” in the background, was terrifying. It was no way for a love story to start!
But there was undeniable chemistry between Luke and Laura—enough to make GH pursue a romance that should have been off the table. Pretty soon, ABC Daytime was warning journalists like yours truly (I was then the editor of Afternoon TV) to stop calling it a rape and start calling it “a seduction.” But come on; we saw it with our own eyes! Indeed, in the immediate aftermath, Laura was sent for rape counseling.
The fabled love story took off in a series of adventures. Luke worked for a criminal named Frank Smith (played by George Gaynes). Luke and Laura went in pursuit of Smith’s black book, which contained a record of his crimes. It was hidden in a statue called The Left-Handed Boy. In pursuit of this quest, they left Port Charles and spent an entire summer on the run, settling for a while in a quaint nearby farm town called Beecher’s Corner.
Cannily, Monty included a charming reference to the classic Hollywood movie It Happened One Night (1934), which starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. When Luke and Laura stayed overnight in the same room, but in separate beds, Luke hung a blanket—the fabled Walls of Jericho—between himself and Laura, as Gable had done between himself and Colbert. (On GH, of course, the wall came down sometime during the night.)
L&L’s adventures continued. A villain named Mikkos Cassadine had invented a weather machine called “The Ice Princess” which threatened to bury Port Charles in carbonic snow. Luke managed to defuse the machine at very last moment, saving the world and at the same time causing the death of Mikkos (played by John Colicos).
Both stories attracted huge ratings, and it was time for Laura (who had been married to Scotty Baldwin, played by Kin Shriner) and Luke to marry. Indeed, Monty staged a gala wedding that befitted two heroic characters who had saved the world.
As the world watched, the whole town of Port Charles turned out to watch Luke and Laura take their vows. Luke, along with his best man, Robert Scorpio (played by Tristan Rogers), and Laura with her maid of honor, her sister Amy (played by Shell Kepler), were wed in a joyous ceremony. It was a gala event utilizing old cars and colorful background players, such as Luke’s friend Slick Jones (played by Eddie Ryder). At the end of the ceremony, Laura tossed her bouquet. It was caught by her ex-husband, Scotty, in a cleverly engineered surprise, and he and Luke got into a brawl.
That wasn’t the only surprise of the wedding. The distinguished movie star Elizabeth Taylor was a GH fan, and she asked to be on the show. As the ceremony concluded, she appeared as Mikkos Cassidine’s beturbaned widow Helena. “I put my curse on you, Luke and Laura,” she warned ominously.
Indeed, this was the just beginning of many years of Luke and Laura story lines, which included the eventual births of their children Lucky and Lesley Lu.
At 10 a.m. on the historic 1981 day that the fabled wedding began airing, ABC Daytime held a press conference for Tony Geary at its headquarters in New York. I was fortunate enough to attend it. Tony was charming and funny, but it seemed to me that he was having a hard time dealing with becoming an object of national obsession.
In the wake of the GH wedding, Geary had a real life romance with Elizabeth Taylor, who was used to being a national obsession. I was lucky enough to interview her on the phone about her GH guest stint and found her sweet, funny, and totally captivating. Indeed, the truly great star giggled her way through our whole conversation.
Many of us were having a similar reaction. Why? When you can’t believe what’s happening, sometimes you react with laughter. And this was something totally new to daytime. All of us—even viewers who had never seen a soap opera before—learned from Luke and Laura’s wedding that daytime drama is not just a legitimate art but a terrific form of entertainment.
That was a lovely walk down memory lane! Thank you for the smile!
Thanks so much Esther. Those were the days!
How wonderful that you were able to attend Tony’s press conference AND interview Ms. Taylor. I remember Luke and Laura’s wedding so well…and fondly.
It was a day none of us will ever forget!
The good old days of soaps! But wait……Tony, who is gay, had a romance with Elizabeth Taylor???????