When Tristan Rogers debuted as Robert Scorpio in 1980, the WSB superspy pretended that he was but your run-of-the-mill… ionaire. Only after he disclosed his true identity to future besties Luke Spencer and Laura Baldwin did they really begin to bond. Oh, and as an added bonus, along the way, they accomplished Robert’s mission, which was to keep the Cassadines from giving the whole world frostbite. A noble endeavor if ever there was one, no?
After Genie Francis exited stage right, General Hospital made headlines by trying to pair up Laura’s husband, Luke, with plucky reporter Jackie Templeton (Demi Moore — duh). It didn’t work. But it turned out that she and Robert had the kind of chemistry that made for extra scintillating gossip columns.
Coming to grips with the fact that he was a “widower,” Luke fell in love with Englishwoman Holly Sutton — and promptly “died” in an avalanche. (Were we ever really sure that the Cassadines weren’t involved?) To keep Holly — as well as her and Luke’s unborn baby — from being deported, Robert stepped up and married the Brit. Strangely, when Luke thawed out and returned to Port Charles, he didn’t do so carrying a thank-you card.
Soon enough, Robert and Holly realized that oops… they had become smitten with one another. Neither Jackie nor Luke was thrilled about this development — would you expect them to be? — but what could they do? The heart wants what the heart wants. And in this case, the fans wanted what the fans wanted, too. (And they were even louder than the heart!)
After Holly was presumed to have been killed in a plane crash, Robert threw himself into go-nowhere romances with, among others, old flame Tiffany Hill’s sister, Cheryl Stansbury, who claimed that he was the father of her son, Lucas, when in reality, he was a byproduct of her tryst with mafioso Julian Jerome.
Waves were most definitely made when Robert “set sail” with All My Children supervixen Erica Kane. The two of them were… Oh. Never mind. This is just a photo from Rogers and Susan Lucci’s 1982 guest appearance on The Love Boat. Would’ve been a wild match-up, though, no?
Robert, ahem, made beautiful music with pianist Katherine Delafield, who was in danger of more than hitting a bum note. But there would be no encore of their romance after he rejected her marriage proposal and let her take off on a world tour without him. Yep, after Holly, Robert only really got involved with one woman of note…
Despite sharing the kind of past that would put most couples in therapy for decades, Robert and first wife Anna couldn’t help but be drawn back together again — and not just because daughter Robin was so gosh-darned cute, either. Alas, shortly after he learned that Holly was neither really nor most sincerely dead, he and Anna were said to have been killed in a boat explosion that also (as if!) took out her perpetual stalker, Cesar Faison.
Regardless of the fact that he was supposedly dead, Robert showed up back in Port Charles almost 15 years after his passing. Seriously, who doesn’t, right? He soon helped cure the virus that had been brought on by a monkey by helping to trace the cure to, of all people, Holly, who had returned to her con-artist roots the way we do to a bottle of wine that we think might be empty but… who knows? Could still have a nip left!
Reeling from Robin’s death in a way that suggested that he, too, had died, and not in quotation marks, Robert inspired Luke to lie that his son, Ethan Lovett, was really his bud’s. After Luke came clean, Robert warned Anna that maybe, just maybe, her resurrected boo Duke Lavery wasn’t the real deal. Right, he was. But it would take a minute for Robert to prove that the Scottish mobster was really Faison and that — whad’ya know? — Robin was alive.
As Anna grew closer and closer to Peter August, who she believed was her son with Faison — we know; ew — Robert tried desperately to encourage her to use her instincts as a kickass spy and overall smart person. (Wacky costumes not included.) But that motherly instinct, whether it was really hers or sister Alex’s, was too great for even him to overcome.
When Robert was informed for the second time that Holly was no longer among the living, he did the same thing that most General Hospital viewers did and cocked a skeptical eyebrow. Right he — and we — were. His true love was as alive as you or us, albeit being held hostage at an undisclosed location. Would he find her before he wound up getting too close for comfort with new sidekick Olivia Quartermaine? (Spoiler alert: Yes.)
The year 2022 got off to the worst of all possible starts for Robert, who was told that BFF Luke had been killed in a cable-car accident in Austria. Instead of remember the time that Luke “died” in avalanche and cry, “There’s snow way!” Robert came to accept that his pal was really gone.
Almost a year after Luke (cough) perished, Holly rolled in with the tide alive and well. But there was more to her miraculous comeback than met the eye. As Robert’s lost love feigned amnesia, it appeared that she was being forced into acting as an operative for the nefarious Victor Cassadine.
As a mysterious serial killer known as The Hook slashed away at the residents of Port Charles, D.A. Robert, who’d gone to law school when we weren’t looking, had his hands full. But before he could prosecute the fiend, he and the Keystone Cops PCPD first had to find the fiend.
Remember two slides ago, when we said that it appeared that Holly’s strings were being pulled by Victor? Well, they were. Robert helped cut those ties, but in doing so, he and his lost love were forced to say goodbye yet again. When will it be their time?
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