Did you know that when a beloved actor on General Hospital passes away, the show does something
special to honor the character they played? How does the show do this? Keep watching to find out.
The circle of life comes to soap operas both on-screen and off. Favorite characters often die
as a plot point to move the story along. Sometimes it happens because an actor wants to leave the
show. Then there are times when a character is so beloved that fans would prefer having this
person around forever. There have been several such characters on General Hospital, but sadly,
when the actors who have played these characters for years pass on,
the soap makes it a point to write the death into the story. While it's tragic when an actor dies,
General Hospital typically finds a way to remember that character in a special way.
Anna Lee spent much of her career as a Hollywood starlet, appearing in such films as The Sound of
Music and How Green is My Valley. In 1978, the British-born actress was already in her 60s when
she joined the cast of General Hospital as the spunky Quartermaine matriarch, Lila Quartermaine.
Lee spent her last years bringing Lila to life, even when a car accident left her in a wheelchair.
General Hospital also outraged fans when it unceremoniously took Lee off contract
in 2003, making Lila's appearances on the show almost nonexistent. The next year,
Lee passed away from pneumonia at the age of 91. Lila was said to have died peacefully in her sleep
and her children, Alan and Tracy, mourned her right along with the
rest of the fictional town of Port Charles — and her legions of devoted daytime fans.
When General Hospital first premiered on April 1, 1963,
John Beradino was there as beloved Dr. Steve Hardy,
who ended up being the show's first romantic lead, eventually marrying Nurse Audrey March.
"Will you marry me?"
Beradino began his career as a child actor in the Our Gang film shorts but then made it into the
world of professional baseball before he returned to acting after a 1953 leg injury, according to
The New York Times. Ten years later, he made his way to the soap opera world on General Hospital
and played Dr. Hardy, the heart of Port Charles General Hospital, until 1993 when cancer forced
him to leave the role. He received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same year and died on
May 19, 1996. His death was soon written into the show as Steve's family and friends were informed
he had died of a heart attack off screen. Susan Brown had also been a longtime working
actress in Hollywood when she took on the role of psychiatrist Gail Baldwin
on General Hospital in 1969. As the wife of Lee Baldwin and stepmother to Scotty Baldwin,
Gail became a beloved character who heard everyone's problems and kept them to herself.
Brown had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for several years when she passed away on August
31, 2018. Although she had not appeared on screen since attending Lila's funeral in 2004,
per Soaps In Depth, her death hit the residents of Port Charles hard. General Hospital even gave
her an entire tribute episode in 2019 in which Gail sent her old friends on a treasure hunt
throughout the hospital, with the treasure turning out to be envelopes of confetti.
In the letters, Gail told her friends that the fun of the hunt was her gift to them.
"For Gail."
In 1984, General Hospital met a new spy on a show filled with super spies. John
Reilly debuted as Sean Donely, the head of the fictional World Security Bureau. Reilly
left General Hospital and the role of Sean in 1994, but made occasional appearances on
the spin-off series General Hospital: Night Shift and another General Hospital appearance in 2013.
When Reilly died at the age of 86 on January 9, 2021, the show wrote his death into the story with
a special episode devoted just to Sean in which his former spy friends had to solve a big case,
which was just a way to tell Sean's daughter, Annie, that she had been accepted into the
World Security Bureau. Annie was also played by Reilly's real-life daughter, Caitlyn Reilly.
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